Ledger Takes on Crypto’s Security Crisis as Hacks Surge

Hello everyone, this is Rachel here with Fintech TV, and we are live at Salana Breakpoint in Abu Dhabi.

I am joined by Ian Rodgers, who's the Chief Experience Officer at Ledger.

Ian, thanks so much for joining us.

Thank you for having me.

So let's start with some contextualization.

Let's talk a little bit about digital.

Security, especially in the context of some of the recent hacks that we've been seeing.

Sure, I mean, so, you know, Ledger has, has been around and trying to address this problem for 11 years, and fundamentally in, in crypto, you, you need to protect that private key, and it doesn't matter if you're an individual or if you're an institution.

Um, and you know, you have this new form of money, it's permissionless money.

Um, and that's what makes crypto special, right?

If it's not, it's not self-custody, why crypto is what they say.

And really, that, that also, that goes for institutions as well.

So, you know, this year has been the worst year for, um, you know, for loss ever in the history of crypto, and unfortunately, we'll probably be able to say that for the rest of our lives.

Not because security is getting worse, but because the value is getting greater, you know, therefore, the size of the prize goes up and more people, including State actors, you know, end up, um, end up going after it.

So, you know, what we do, whether it's for an individual or for large institutions with our enterprise product, or for mid-size businesses with our multi-stig product is we try to bring, you know, the best and easiest to use, uh, products, but with the best security and no compromise on security and no compromise on self custom.

I do want to go on to the product side of it a little bit more, but in your opinion, With some of the recent hacks that we've been seeing, what have been the nature of your discussions with institutions?

Like, are they feeling more nervous, or is it just I think really that, you know, the challenge is when people, when you have large institutions that are that, that are maybe not using the best secure.

Um, so, you know, ledger enterprise, um, you know, it really is an enterprise solution.

It's built for banks, it's built for governments, it's built for exchanges, uh, but it's, it's pretty heavyweight, like, like, like enterprise software.

So I think part of the, the, of what, what the challenges with the things that we've heard is, you have, um, you know, institutions that are maybe not as big as banks, they might be, um, projects or smaller exchanges, and they're, they're using basically free software.

To protect billions in value, which doesn't really jive, you know, if you're going to protect billions in value, you really need enterprise grade tools.

Um, this is why we created Ledger Multi-Sig, um, because you need really, truly, what, what you need is you, you need to have your private key protected and offline, which is what Ledger offers.

But you also at the time of the transaction, you need to be able to see what it is you're signing on a secure screen.

We've really gotten too used to signing transactions on our phones.

Our phones, in zero cases were meant for protecting value, right?

Phones were built to share information.

That's, you know, and they're amazing at it.

Um, ledger is built ground up to protect values.

That's why, you know, you might use your phone to set up a transaction, but ultimately you need to sign that transaction on a ledger where you have the secure screen.

So getting that all the way through, you know, again, if someone's using Ledger Enterprise, they have it.

If a user at this end has it, but there are some of these people in the middle.

If you look at the buy bit hack, 1.6 billion to the North Korean government, um, you know, that was.

Ultimately, because they weren't clear signing on a secure screen.

So with ledger Multi-sign, you know, it, it, it allows you to do at that level, you know, what you can do with ledger enterprise.

So I think it's, you know, part of the evolution and growing pains uh of the industry, but, you know, we all have a role to play, like we need to provide, people need to adopt, standards need to be formed around things like.

Clear signing, so it's, you know, it's part of the growing pains of the industry, I think 100%.

And hopefully we get to a point where it's more proactive than reactive, so it's not in a response to hacks and that's happening in the market, but this is the problem.

A lot of people learn the hard way.

So, you know, you really have to think upfront what are the risks, what are the, what's the worst case scenario, you know, we're definitely in a world where people just want to get stuff to market, you know, and I, I understand, but You know, please partner with with security experts like Ledger and, you know, help us get you there, let us help you get there safely.

Speaking of getting stuff to market, so I have my original Ledger, which was, you know, the small kind of USB stick.

You mentioned the multi-stec.

How have you, as the original hardware, evolved and changed your technology over time?

Well, usability is the reason, though, you know, Ledger Nano is, it's iconic in, uh, you know, in, in, in crypto.

Everybody knows it.

They're.

On the desk of like any professional in, in crypto.

At the same time, you know, clicking OK with two buttons is not really a kind of a mainstream user experience.

So we started actually a few years ago, developing this with Tony Fadell.

Tony is the um the uh original inventor of the iPod and the co-inventor of the iPhone, and he created Nest and, and we, we were really went for a much better user experience working with, with, uh, on, on this.

This was the Ledger Stacks.

We followed that up with the Ledger Flex.

It's actually the Solana edition.

Ledger FFlex, which people here at the, at, at Breakpoint are excited about.

And then this year in October, we, we wanted to take that better UI and bring it down to the Ledger Nano X price point.

So this is $179.

We wanted to try to get this beautiful touchscreen UI but down at that sub $200 price point.

We managed to do that this year with this Ledger NanoGen 5 and these went on sale in October.

So, really what we're trying to do is to bring much better user experience to security.

And then evolve Ledger wallet to be the, the, the perfect companion to everything you want to do.

You know, it used to be the case that Ledger was for Bitcoin, you'd buy it, you'd load it with Bitcoin and you'd put it in your closet for 5 years.

Well, now, you know, we're using our crypto every day.

We are, we're, you know, we're buying, we're swapping, we're earning yield, we're spending.

Ledger has a, a, a credit card, the CL card where you can just easily tap and pay.

So now, you can, you can easily load your ledger with USD.

SEC or USDT you can be earning yield on that, and then you can also easily spend any asset, Bitcoin, Solana, Ethereum, USD, anything, you know, just, you know, pay it anywhere that accepts a credit card.

So it's, you know, it's really evolved in the last 5 years from, from being, you know, a, a device for buying and holding, um, to being the way you can live your life.

I mean, it's really a complete replacement for your bank account that's secure and self-custody.

Incredible.

Well, it's great to see that ledger is actually evolving alongside the market as well, so thank you so much for coming in and telling us more about it and sharing your experiences today.

Thank you very much.

Cheers.

Thanks, Ian.