Ledger

Ledger started in 2014 and has offices in Paris, Vierzon, London, Portland and Singapore, with more than 700 employees. Ledger reports that more than 8 million Ledger signers have been sold and that Ledger technology secures more than 20 percent of the world's crypto assets. Every Ledger device keeps the private keys on a Secure Element chip that runs the operating system developed by Ledger. A transaction is confirmed on the device itself, so the key never reaches the computer or phone the device is connected to.

The current devices are the Ledger Nano Gen5, Ledger Flex and Ledger Stax, next to the older Nano models. The companion app, Ledger Wallet, was called Ledger Live before; Ledger describes it as its crypto wallet app and web3 gateway. The app listing names Clear Signing and Transaction Check among its security features: the device shows in plain words what a transaction will do before the holder approves it.

Ledger Enterprise is the platform from Ledger for institutions, and Ledger names the users of Ledger Enterprise as banks and custodians, asset managers, exchanges, fintechs and payment platforms, and token issuers, and Ledger states that more than 100 institutions use it. Ledger Enterprise Multisig requires several signers to approve a transaction, each of them seeing it in Clear Signing. HSM On-Premise runs the quorum approvals inside the firmware of a hardware security module that the institution operates in its own data center. Ledger Enterprise gives FIPS 140-2 Level 3 and EAL6+ as its certifications and offers full audit logs for supervisors.

For a bank this is the self-custody route: the bank keeps the keys in its own infrastructure and sets the approval rules itself. A bank in Germany that holds crypto assets for clients needs a license for it, which crypto custody in Germany explains, and the technology it uses to sign is a separate choice from that license.

Ledger Enterprise states that 30 percent of all stablecoins in circulation are secured on Ledger infrastructure, and it lists cross-border settlement and settlement without pre-funding among the uses of its platform. A stablecoin issuer controls the keys that mint and burn its tokens, and a payment firm that settles in stablecoins controls the keys of its treasury wallets. Both are signing jobs of the same kind as a bank's custody. Stablecoin payments shows how such a payment settles, and stablecoins in Europe covers the MiCA rules for the issuers.

Custody is a topic of the Finance Loop Digital Finance Night for banks, asset managers and regulated service providers, and the Bitcoin for Investors masterclass covers custody models and investor risk management, self-custody on a hardware wallet among them. The most popular Bitcoin wallets in Germany compares Ledger with other hardware and app wallets by who holds the keys.

A Ledger device is a hardware wallet: it stores the private keys and signs transactions, while the Ledger Wallet app on a computer or phone shows balances and prepares transactions. The coins themselves stay on their blockchains; the device holds the keys that control them.

Ledger Enterprise is the platform from Ledger for institutions such as banks, custodians, asset managers and token issuers. Ledger Enterprise adds multi-signature approval, hardware security modules on the institution's own premises, a policy engine and audit logs to the signing technology from Ledger.

Ledger lists its address in Paris, France, and names offices in Paris, Vierzon, London, Portland and Singapore.