Ledger is a globally leading French company for crypto hardware wallets.
Its CTO (Chief Technology Officer), Charles Guillemet, recently released an interview to a French online newspaper in which he argued that the crypto market is entering a new bullish cycle thanks to blockchains that offer greater capacities.
Summary
The bullish cycle according to the CTO of the crypto wallet Ledger
According to Guillemet, the crypto market in 2024 will continue, after the long bearish cycle that has also affected companies in the sector like Ledger.
The fact is that recently the price of Bitcoin has returned above $40,000 for the first time since May 2022, when the major problems caused by the implosion of the Terra/Luna ecosystem began.
So today it seems that the horizon is clearing up for the crypto ecosystem, after a long crypto winter that some fragile projects did not survive. Ledger itself, for example, was forced to announce significant layoffs.
The turning point occurred in this end of 2023, with the increase in the likelihood of approval of Bitcoin spot ETFs in the USA, and the end of central banks’ interest rate hikes.
Furthermore, the Bitcoin halving in April is getting closer and this could really mark the end of the crypto winter and the beginning of a new bullish cycle. Although there are no certainties about it, this perspective is considered possible by many.
The prediction of the CTO of the crypto wallet Ledger
The CTO of Ledger has also stated that we are currently at the beginning of a new upward cycle in the crypto markets.
This cycle, according to Guillemet, will be accompanied by significant investments, also thanks to the future presence on traditional stock exchanges of ETFs on Bitcoin spot even in the USA.
The fact is that this time operators in the sector should be able to benefit from much greater infrastructure capacity and scalability of blockchains, because in the meantime the ecosystem has evolved and has produced new solutions capable of allowing many more transactions, much faster and cheaper than in past bullish cycles.
So according to Guillemet, in this new possible bullish cycle there will be no limitations like the congestion issues and high costs of the previous cycle. He specifically mentions the layer 2 solutions of Ethereum, but also Cosmos and Solana.
In other words, the new cycle could be different from the ones in the past, because from 2021 until now there has been a real transition in terms of both technology and finance.
The Ledger crisis
Guillemet admits that the company had to lay off 10% of its workforce, but also points out that when he joined Ledger in 2017, there were only 40 employees, while today there are 700.
Furthermore, it emphasizes that the company’s activity does not solely depend on the cryptocurrency market, as they produce physical devices.
The fact is that they went through a phase of hypergrowth between 2021 and the beginning of 2022, while afterwards the context became difficult.
The decision to lay off 10% of the staff was made to lighten the team a bit to avoid the company being in difficulty for a long period, but it states that now the company is doing well, and is witnessing a renewed interest from investors in this end of 2023.
The new Ledger
Guillemet also spoke about the company’s new product, the Ledger Stax announced in December 2022 and that was supposed to be released on the market in the first quarter of 2023.
He states that they are still working on it, but they are already in the industrialization phase.
The fact is that designing hardware like that is not easy, and it is even more difficult to protect it. Another difficulty is producing it on a large scale.
He admits that there is still no precise release date on the market, and he simply says that it will be marketed as soon as it is ready.
The company
Guillemet reveals that Ledger has three sources of income.
The majority of the revenue comes from private individuals, namely the sale of hardware wallets and the fees charged on the Ledger Live application, but the third source is products offered to companies.
In particular, it mentions Ledger Vault, which is a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) custody solution launched in 2019 and allows managing cryptocurrencies by defining governance rules as well.
Until today, Ledger Vault has only gathered about a hundred clients, but among them there are important names like Crypto.com and Uphold. In reality, this is still a relatively small market, but according to Guillemet, it is destined to grow.
Also mention Tradelink, which is a trading solution for institutions that allows for simultaneous orders on different exchange platforms. However, Tradelink has not yet been released on the market, and the first official transactions are expected to take place in early 2024.
