Ornella Hernandez

<div id="highlights-block_62b428b299fdd" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Ledger safeguards 20% of the world&#8217;s digital assets, the company says</li>
 <li>“We want to power the NFT revolution,” says Ledger CEO</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Hardware wallet manufacturer Ledger <a href="https://www.ledger.com/blog/ledger-expands-nft-offering-ledger-market-is-coming-soon-enterprise-create-is-now-live" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">announced</a> at NFT.NYC an expansion of security offerings as part of its NFT products and its Ledger Enterprise arm.&nbsp;



In response to growing security issues around cryptocurrency and digital assets, the company developed Ledger Market to be a multi-chain NFT (non-fungible token) distribution platform that prioritizes safe NFT mints, sales and storage. 



Launch partners include decentralized finance protocol Babylon, Tag Heuer of LVMH and the DeadFellaz NFT project, among others. Later this summer users may obtain the Ledger Market Pass, a Genesis NFT with access to exclusive collaborations, limited edition hardware and airdrops of art NFTs from Ledger’s artist-in-residence programs. 



Also announced in New York was Ledger Enterprise Create, an NFT management platform for brands to scale their Web3 operations. The goal is to provide end-to-end, creation-to-distribution security for fashion and luxury brands, charities and financial institutions. Ther offering will integrate with Ledger Market, as well as secure treasury management and smart contract creation and ownership capabilities.



When asked about the impact of the market downturn on the company, Ian Rogers, Ledger’s chief experience officer, told Blockworks in an email that sales “jumped 4.5x day-over-day on the Celsius news, and continue to be strong to this day.&#8221;



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">&#8220;Ledger is [now] doing, quarterly, the entire annual revenue of 2020.&#8221;</blockquote>



Rogers added that sales are highly correlated with outflows from exchanges because the more people get educated, the “more they come to value security and self-custody as a result.”&nbsp;



Education is part of Ledger’s mission. As part of a Web3 education initiative, the company also launched Ledger Quest, a learn-to-earn platform with gaming quests and NFT rewards for Web3 entrants. Additionally, the firm has partnered with NFT projects World of Women, Cool Cats and Deadfellaz to expand its materials on the Ledger Academy educational platform.



During the Ledger Op3n conference at NFT.NYC on Wednesday, Ledger’s CEO Pascal Gauthier compared a hardware wallet to a smartphone, calling it a “critical digital device” when it comes to interacting safely with the digital asset ecosystem.



He also revealed on stage that nearly a third of NFT marketplace OpenSea’s trading volume involves a Ledger customer as a buyer, seller or both. And 45% of the top 100 transactions ever on OpenSea involved a Ledger-secured Ethereum wallet.



Additionally, he touted the use of clear-signing for NFTs, as opposed to blind-signing “where you don’t even know where you’re sending your NFTs to.”



Recently, the firm added <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/cryptos-future-is-self-custody-dealing-blow-to-exchanges-ledger-vp-says/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a crypto wallet extension</a> on Safari in beta called Ledger Connect. Users can link their Nano X to confirm transactions, and Connect will warn users of bad actors or flagged scams, as well as reveal a user’s resulting balance prior to validation.



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Celsius’ Woes Spark Boom in Ledger Sales

Ben Strack

<div id="highlights-block_629fa64dedc85" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>“We’ll see the tokenization of everything” in the next 15 years, Cathay Innovation co-founder says</li>
 <li>The fund seeks to commit investments ranging from $550,000 to $4.3 million</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Crypto security platform Ledger has teamed up with venture capital firm Cathay Innovation to launch a $110 million early-stage fund focused on Web3, DeFi, NFTs and DAOs.&nbsp;



The partnership, Ledger Cathay Capital, is backed by French public investment bank <a href="https://www.bpifrance.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Bpifrance</a>. The combined entity seeks to unlock resources, networks and potential partnerships to accelerate Web3 innovation, while maintaining security standards.



Led by <a href="https://cathayinnovation.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Cathay Innovation</a> co-founder Denis Barrier, as well as Ledger’s Pascal Gauthier and Michael Louzado, the fund plans to invest in seed to Series A funding rounds. The idea is to make 20 to 25 investments, all-in, with checks ranging from $550,000 to $4.3 million.&nbsp;


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="alignright size-medium"><a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Denis-Barrier.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="300" height="200" src="https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Denis-Barrier-300x200.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-22583" srcset="https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Denis-Barrier-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Denis-Barrier-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Denis-Barrier-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Denis-Barrier-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Denis-Barrier-386x257.jpg 386w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Denis-Barrier-392x261.jpg 392w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Denis-Barrier-329x219.jpg 329w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Denis-Barrier-80x53.jpg 80w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Denis-Barrier-50x33.jpg 50w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Denis-Barrier.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><figcaption>Cathay Innovation&#8217;s Denis Barrier</figcaption></figure></div>


The strategy keys in on backing protocols and native tokens, as well as emerging DeFi (decentralized finance) security, infrastructure and digital ownership technologies, which Barrier and Gauthier called a multi-decade investment opportunity.



The fund has not made any investments to date.&nbsp;



“We’re at the beginning of a significant shift in technology as the third iteration of the web emerges, which is being built on blockchains with tokens that enable new use cases in the tokenization of the entire global economy,” Barrier and Gauthier told Blockworks in an email. “Cryptocurrencies are the first case to have scaled.”&nbsp;



Cathay Innovation, created in affiliation with Cathay Capital, is a multi-stage fund with roughly $1.5 billion in assets.&nbsp;



Founded in 2014, Paris-based Ledger is a digital asset management solution that serves retail and institutional clients in 200 countries. The company secures about 20% of digital assets around the world through its Ledger Enterprise Solutions for institutions.&nbsp;



The differentiation from other venture funds comes from combining Ledger’s experts in Web3, blockchain and security with Cathay’s extensive corporate ecosystem, according to Barrier and Gauthier.



“These entrepreneurs and builders need a secured and open security platform in order to design and imagine a new generation of services with easy access,” they said.



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pascal gauthier