Ledger, the leading crypto manufacturer, and developer made huge gains in the market after having reportedly sold over 1 million wallets in 2017 and recording a profit of 29 million. Pascal Gauthier, Ledger’s president attributed the high demand for ledger to a gap when it comes to finding secure enough platforms for users to approve transactions on the public blockchain. He further stated that there was no reason to doubt the blockchain since it was secure; signing on it though was a problem especially if you lost your private key. Losing your private key almost meant losing your assets since there would be no way to trace them.
The manufacturer’s stellar performance in 2017 led to interest from other tech giants such as Siemens, Google’s GV and Samsung. Early 2018 saw ledger raise a whopping 75 million dollars through a series B funding led by popular Billionaire and crypto enthusiast Tim Draper in conjunction with the Draper venture network funds. After a fruitful and eventful 2017, Ledger is set to open the curtains for yet another funding campaign this year and with large players such as Samsung, Google, and Siemens hovering around, there is a likelihood that Ledger will beat last year’s funding.
Last year’s round of funding was meant to improve ledger’s tech infrastructure while also creating offerings for individual investors and retail players as revealed by Ledger president Pascal Gauthier. This time around, Ledger is targeting a larger institutional base of investors whose entry into the crypto space is said to be mainly due to the emergence of Coinbase custody. Ledger’s vision of expanding into larger consumer and business markets led them to unveil a ledger vault. This is a crypto wallet solution that allows for multi authorization and ensures that financial institutions are able to secure their coins.
The long-term vision held by ledger is that through them, financial institutions will have the ability to secure their crypto holdings without needing the help of third parties. The interest in Ledger by big firms like Samsung and Siemens was expected since these firms have been known as keen observers of the crypto markets. Samsung recently went into a deal with South Korean firm Chaebol that led to the repurposing of 40 Galaxy S5 phones and turning them to Bitcoin mining rigs. Google co-founder Sergey Brin also expressed heavy crypto interest by revealing that he was an Ethereum miner at the blockchain summit in Morocco held this year and hosted by Sir Richard Branson.
The rise in crypto wallet demand is a positive, owing to the rise in hacking attacks suffered by firms such as Bithump, Coin check, and Coin rail. Hardware wallets like the Ledger vault and Ledger Nano S will raise the guard of investors when it comes to matters security.
