In this insightful episode of the Crypto Trailblazers series hosted by theCUBE, Mike Cagney of Figure Markets sits down with analysts from theCUBE Research to discuss groundbreaking advancements in blockchain technology and their implications for the finance sector. This video is part of the NYSE Wired digital event, aimed at bridging the gap between Silicon Valley and Wall Street by integrating technology and finance.
Cagney, an eminent figure in fintech, shares expertise on the transformative role of blockchain in financial markets during this interview. Conducted by seasoned analysts at theCUBE, the discussion delves into Figure’s innovative contributions, including their blockchain-native loan origination and securitization process. He outlines how Figure leverages blockchain to achieve cost reductions, enhanced security and improved liquidity in financial transactions.
Key takeaways from the interview highlight insights on the evolution of the Web3 ecosystem, such as the emergence of stablecoins as pivotal to transaction processes and the rise of decentralized finance (DeFi). Oltsik states these developments signify a shift towards democratizing finance, wherein truth and transparency are foundational. The conversation concludes with a look at Figure’s pioneering efforts in creating a new financial marketplace utilizing blockchain technology.
#CryptoTrailblazers #FigureMarkets #BlockchainInnovation #Web3 #NYEWired #BlockchainFinance #DecentralizedFinance #Fintech #Stablecoins
Find more SiliconANGLE news and analysis https://siliconangle.com/.
Follow theCUBE's wall-to-wall event coverage https://siliconangle.com/events/
Learn about the latest theCUBE events https://www.thecube.net/
00:00 - Intro
00:05 - Emerging Innovations in Financial Technology and Market Dynamics
02:45 - Key Elements in Financial Ecosystem Dynamics
06:20 - Blockchain: Truth and Transformation
09:39 - Shaping the Future: Innovations in Financial Markets and Stablecoin Integration
13:15 - Enabling the Future: Navigating Disruptions in Banking and Lending
16:51 - Exploring Opportunities and Building Confidence in the Blockchain Ecosystem
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Pascal Gauthier, Ledger
In this insightful episode of the Crypto Trailblazers series hosted by theCUBE, Mike Cagney of Figure Markets sits down with analysts from theCUBE Research to discuss groundbreaking advancements in blockchain technology and their implications for the finance sector. This video is part of the NYSE Wired digital event, aimed at bridging the gap between Silicon Valley and Wall Street by integrating technology and finance.
Cagney, an eminent figure in fintech, shares expertise on the transformative role of blockchain in financial markets during this interview. Conducted by seasoned analysts at theCUBE, the discussion delves into Figure’s innovative contributions, including their blockchain-native loan origination and securitization process. He outlines how Figure leverages blockchain to achieve cost reductions, enhanced security and improved liquidity in financial transactions.
Key takeaways from the interview highlight insights on the evolution of the Web3 ecosystem, such as the emergence of stablecoins as pivotal to transaction processes and the rise of decentralized finance (DeFi). Oltsik states these developments signify a shift towards democratizing finance, wherein truth and transparency are foundational. The conversation concludes with a look at Figure’s pioneering efforts in creating a new financial marketplace utilizing blockchain technology.
#CryptoTrailblazers #FigureMarkets #BlockchainInnovation #Web3 #NYEWired #BlockchainFinance #DecentralizedFinance #Fintech #Stablecoins
Find more SiliconANGLE news and analysis https://siliconangle.com/.
Follow theCUBE's wall-to-wall event coverage https://siliconangle.com/events/
Learn about the latest theCUBE events https://www.thecube.net/
00:00 - Intro
00:05 - Emerging Innovations in Financial Technology and Market Dynamics
02:45 - Key Elements in Financial Ecosystem Dynamics
06:20 - Blockchain: Truth and Transformation
09:39 - Shaping the Future: Innovations in Financial Markets and Stablecoin Integration
13:15 - Enabling the Future: Navigating Disruptions in Banking and Lending
16:51 - Exploring Opportunities and Building Confidence in the Blockchain Ecosystem
>> Hi everybody. Welcome back to Crypto Trailblazers. My name is Dave Vellante and you're watching the NYSE Wired plus theCUBE's Media Week coverage here at our NYSE studio. Pascal Gauthier is here as the CEO of Ledger. Thank you so much for coming on.
Pascal Gauthier
>> Thank you for having me.
Dave Vellante
>> Ledger is really interesting. You guys are known for your hardware wallets, but tell us a little bit about your business.
Pascal Gauthier
>> Well, so I think the simple way of explaining the business is we all know that a computer and/or a phone are not safe, right? They're easy to hack and it's not good hardware to protect secrets. So what we do at Ledger, we protect your secrets, and we've designed a hardware and solution that are very specific to protecting online secrets. And we started with cryptocurrency because to own a cryptocurrency is to own a cryptographic secrets that only you know. If somebody else knows, then it's no longer a secret. And so we designed a device for you to be able to protect the secret and to sign with the secret your crypto transactions. And what we're doing now, both for consumer and enterprise, is to protect more and more secrets, from cryptocurrency to your decentralized identity, to your health data, to your data, to everything that is an online secret, and that needs an extra layer of protection.
Dave Vellante
>> So that addresses my number one question about Ledger was always, well, how do you scale a hardware based self-custody business?
Pascal Gauthier
>> Right.
Dave Vellante
>> Well, the way you do that is you expand your TAM into new areas, right?
Pascal Gauthier
>> Correct. And also because you need to think about it as a digital private property. When we talk about self-custody, usually we're thinking opposite to a bank. And we are thinking cryptocurrency solely as a medium for investment, a speculation on cryptocurrency. But if you think about what Bitcoin is and crypto assets are in general, and if you think that everything will become tokenized from securities to real estate, to again, your health data, your identity, et cetera, et cetera, then suddenly, you enter into digital private property. And if you think like that, then it's a need that everybody has. Is everybody investing in a stock market? No. Will everybody invest into Bitcoin? Not necessarily, but everybody will have some kind of digital property that they need to secure in the future. And that's going to be more and more the case as soon as this applicative layer will be built on top of public blockchains. What we've seen now is the beginning of a revolution. At the beginning it was Bitcoin and it was those public blockchains, but on top of public blockchains, now you can build a bunch of applications, things, DeFi, for example. You cannot interact with DeFi if you don't own your private keys and if you're not in self-custody or if your private keys are not in your possession. It's going to be the same with most applications developed on these public blockchains.
Dave Vellante
>> So I definitely, since you went there, I want to ask you about tokenizing real-world assets. Where do you stand on that? What's your point of view? You mentioned real estate. Real estate maybe takes a little longer-
Pascal Gauthier
>> Sure.
Dave Vellante
>> But any physical asset should be and will be digitized. It becomes a fungible asset that could be tradable. Where do you stand on that? How long do you think... It's happening, but it seems to be going a little bit more slowly than we had maybe thought.
Pascal Gauthier
>> Yeah, slowly because there's going to be a lot of friction in change, meaning that we already trade those assets. They're already old rails to exchange that kind of value. To migrate from all rails to new rails that are better, it takes a long time. There's a lot of friction. There's a lot of people that have money to lose on one side, money to win on the other.
Dave Vellante
>> Okay.
Pascal Gauthier
>> And so that's why the friction happens. We are very hell-bent on decentralized identity. So everything that makes you a human being online and everything that can decipher you from an AI or a bot. We are entering this age of digital abundance. And so the question for the future is like, how do you know it's you online or a deepfake? And to sign cryptographically with your Ledger will be a way to prove that you're human. To sign your X account, your Instagram, et cetera, and that you can prove that they're yours is a way to build an online identity that is yours. That is what we call decentralized identity versus the identity centralized given you by the government. So to us, this is the next frontier. Real-world asset will take time because there's a lot of friction in terms of going to market and the business there.
Dave Vellante
>> Okay. So you've obviously nailed the sovereignty piece of this-
Pascal Gauthier
>> Right.
Dave Vellante
>> Is the notion of, I guess an air gap kind of environment.
Pascal Gauthier
>> Exactly.
Dave Vellante
>> And then you're talking about identity and the wallet, that comes together and is this new infrastructure and you're building capabilities on top of that. That seems to be your competitive advantage. People may use the word moat. How do you think about that?
Pascal Gauthier
>> Well, you give me the answer in your questions. Your answer is so good that the answer is already in the question.
Dave Vellante
>> That's not good question then. I'm sorry, but-
Pascal Gauthier
>> Yeah, no, no. So I'm going to repeat what you just said. This is how you create the moat, for sure. Look, people always talk about software, okay? Software is eating the world, but software needs hardware to connect. You need a phone, you need a computer. And when it comes to security, you need a Ledger. There's no other way than hardware When it comes to security. Software security doesn't exist because if software security runs on a piece of hardware that is not secure, then it's broken. And we all, again, will know this because of computer and phones. So that's why we're redesigning the whole experience, hardware, operating system, secure software connectivity. So you take away from your phone and computer that are for us, entertainment devices, devices where you can leave stuff that is not critical for you. But as soon as there are secrets that you need to protect, you will have to remove them onto a device that has been a device and a solution and an experience that has been designed specifically for security.
Dave Vellante
>> So what's your five-year vision? Are you essentially critical infrastructure essentially for world? Will you bring that to fintechs, to traditional banks?
Pascal Gauthier
>> Yeah, completely because our mission is to secure the digital world. And so therefore, if you just do it for consumer, for example, well, what happens if you want to now give you Bitcoin to a bank and they don't have the same level of security? So our mission is to make sure that the security platform serves the user when they want to be in self-custody or digital private ownership, or they leave their money at the bank and they have the same security and they don't need to think, "Oh, if I do this, I'm at risk." We don't compromise on security and we need to serve the world. That's why we have two business divisions, one that serves consumer and one that serves enterprise because consumer and enterprise basically have the same fundamental needs. And only if everybody is secure and everything is secure, then you can build on top of it like a secure digital world. When Bybit got hacked, we all lose. We need to raise the bar of security for everybody because when someone fails, we all fail.
Dave Vellante
>> So a couple of questions from those. In terms of the differences between consumer and enterprise, there are a lot of similarities. What are the differences and what did you learn when you entered that market? What did you have to do differently?
Pascal Gauthier
>> Well, for enterprise, and we have a true enterprise solution, for enterprise, you need access control. When you're a consumer only you can access your funds, and that's the promise of the piece of technology.
Dave Vellante
>> And of one.
Pascal Gauthier
>> And of one, you are in control. This is your private property. As soon as you're a bank or an enterprise, many people need to have access. And so how do you control this access? How do you make sure that this is also under the security layer? And you cannot mismanage funds, you cannot send funds when they're not supposed to be sent, et cetera, et cetera. And so the big invention of Ledger, and we have proprietary IP when it comes to this, we don't just do the security of the private keys for enterprise. We also do the security of the governance that sits on top of the coin. And all of this is guaranteed by the security enclave, meaning that you cannot sign anything that has not been pre-approved by administrators, and you have a segregation of duty between administrators and operators. We've never lost a dollar, we never mismanage funds because of that.
Dave Vellante
>> You have been cultivating at a developer ecosystem. Can you describe the strategy there? Again, what have you learned and what's the objective?
Pascal Gauthier
>> Yeah. Well, you know us very well, and that's a great question because think about the iPhone. Apple made basically a platform and experience, but Apple couldn't make all the apps because there are so many things that you can do with an iPhone. So it's very similar with us. We are the basic experience. We are where you protect your private keys. We are where you sign, and these are the basic features of our products, but every other application that's going to run on top of a public blockchain, like every kind of DeFi that you can imagine, NFTs, et cetera, those are applications and are third-party companies that will develop on top of our security platform and creates the full experience. And so that's why we have a developer ecosystem. That's why we partner with hundreds of companies now that connect to Ledger, either on the B2C side because they want to connect. We sold 8,000,000 of our products. We protect 20% of our crypto in the world. And so if you want to connect to that ecosystem, you need to develop on top of Ledger and Ledger Wallet, Ledger Live, which is our Ledger Wallet. And similar with Ledger Enterprise, similar experience. You need to develop on top of Ledger Enterprise if you want to connect to the hundreds of companies that are using Ledger Enterprise as a custody solution.
Dave Vellante
>> The iPhone is a good example, right, Pascal? Because seamless is the most overused word in our industry, but essentially, a lot of what Apple does is seamless. And the reason why I see that as so important is because there's an inherent trade-off in what you do, securing digital assets or any asset and convenience.
Pascal Gauthier
>> Right.
Dave Vellante
>> The more roadblocks you put up, the more difficult it is. There you go. And so it's interesting to note those traditions. So you're doing a lot of integrations with the developers and making that seamless.
Pascal Gauthier
>> Right. Correct.
Dave Vellante
>> So what am I looking at here?
Pascal Gauthier
>> So right now you got Stacks, which is one of the latest of our product and Stacks that is with the Spurs because we just announced a great partnership with the San Antonio Spurs, and we are the proud sponsor of the San Antonio Spurs right now. And so what we tried to do, and the gentleman we designed this product is Tony Fadell. And Tony Fadell is the inventor of the iPod, and what we're trying to do is three things. We're trying to be as secure as possible, as easy to use as possible, and to have as many backup as possible so you never lose access to your phones. Okay? And these three things are very important if you want to reach mass market. And so when we designed this product with Tony, first of all, we were thinking about the product, not so much the technology. Technology is slave to the product. First, you want to know what is the experience? What is the product? And then you decide what kind of technology you're going to use. And so this is the excellent work that we've done with Tony. So if you were to use this, it's very easy to use now. Every time I send it to someone that is a newbie, they say that it's toys for kids. So you have to pay attention to what you do because suddenly, you're in charge of your security. So you need to educate yourself. This is important. You need to understand what you're doing, but it's very easy to use now. And you have a lot of backups that you can do. You can do online backups for your private keys. You can do a hardware backup with the leisure recovery key that we announced technically yesterday. Backup is very important, so you never lose access to your funds.
Dave Vellante
>> It's a beautiful product.
Pascal Gauthier
>> It is.
Dave Vellante
>> The tactile feel is appealing.
Pascal Gauthier
>> Oh, it's wonderful.
Dave Vellante
>> It feels good in your hand.
Pascal Gauthier
>> Thank you.
Dave Vellante
>> It's customized for San Antonio Spurs.
Pascal Gauthier
>> That's the lonely button.
Dave Vellante
>> May I?
Pascal Gauthier
>> Yeah, yeah.
Dave Vellante
>> Yeah. Oh, wow. Okay. And it's lovely.
Pascal Gauthier
>> Screen is the first-
Dave Vellante
>> Gorgeous screen.
Pascal Gauthier
>> Is the first ink screen that bends like this. And so you can personalize the different part of the screen. It's a beautiful product.
Dave Vellante
>> It really is a beautiful design, and it's funny you mentioned the word backup. I think of these backup discs for your laptops. They're unwieldy, they're hard to carry. As a result, you don't use them.
Pascal Gauthier
>> Correct.
Dave Vellante
>> This is-
Pascal Gauthier
>> You want to make your product sexy, otherwise people just won't use it. And this is a product that people are going to start using more and more and it's going to be an everyday product. So the other product that we launched last year is called Flex. So what you do, you flex what you have in life. But this is this idea that if the experience is not sexy, nobody wants to use it. So if you're just super secure but extremely hard to use, this is not scalable. This is not a great company.
Dave Vellante
>> So you got San Antonio Spurs here, you got the San Antonio Spurs hat. You're a fan?
Pascal Gauthier
>> Yeah, for sure. San Antonio Spurs is where Tony Parker won four rings, and now Victor Wembanyama. So as a Frenchman, they are the team to sponsor in the US, but most importantly, their values are very similar to us, to ours. Pound the rock is what they say. They're very humble, they work hard. They're here to win championships and 30% to 40% of our business is in the US. So for us, it's important to have a presence in the US, and to educate around what we do because we are here very literate when it comes to crypto, but most people are not. And also, again, like I say, crypto is not just a way to speculate on future value. It's also going to be digital value for everyone. And there is something that is very profound in digital value and digital ownership, which is freedom. If you think about our digital world, we were entrapped into a system where we own nothing. In our life, you own your glasses, you have your computer. There's things that you own and you have with you. This is your private property. You have your car, your house. What do you own online? Nothing. Your Google account is not yours. Your bank account is not yours. Nothing is yours. And so the question is is this future-proof? In a dystopia, yes. But in a world where we still want democracy and want to be free, you need to have the tools for freedom. And so this is where we're building.
Dave Vellante
>> It's very profound what you just said, because people think of crypto, they think of speculation, they think, "Oh, to the moon." But really, you're talking about utility, fundamental utility for humans-
Pascal Gauthier
>> Correct.
Dave Vellante
>> In a world that is going to be dominated by digital.
Pascal Gauthier
>> And AI. And it's not just a philosophical standpoint of, "I prefer to be this rather than that." It's actually a fundamental need. If you don't have the tools to own and to have your private property, which is the base of democracy, and if you cannot separate from AI and robots, then who are you? And so the digital world becoming everything, how are you going to prove that you're you?
Dave Vellante
>> It's an interesting fast-forward from... What was it? People, people, people, the artist's-
Pascal Gauthier
>> Yeah. We know them very well.
Dave Vellante
>> "That's crazy. That makes no sense." It actually makes a lot of sense, the way you framed it.
Pascal Gauthier
>> Yeah.
Dave Vellante
>> So let's see. We're going to be at the Ray Summit early next month, in your hometown. I presume your hometown, at least your home country.
Pascal Gauthier
>> Definitely in my hometown. Born and raised in Paris. Yes.
Dave Vellante
>> Awesome. And good soccer in that part of the world. Football. Excuse me. So my understanding is you're going to be hosting us at least in a rooftop, so we'll come by.
Pascal Gauthier
>> Yeah. So we designed what we call , which is our new headquarter in Paris. And we design it to be a beacon for crypto, for Paris, for France, for Europe, and for the world. And so that's why we welcome you there because it's been designed to welcome partners and friends and people that gravitate in this industry. And also to demonstrate what crypto is, because again, it's all about education. When you visit our office, you understand why we design it, what we're about, what are our values and how hard we work because it's about having fun, but it's also mostly about working hard.
Dave Vellante
>> Yeah, so that's concomitant with the Ray Summit in July. And flights actually to Paris pretty cheap right now. And of course, Parisians love Americans. We know that well.
Pascal Gauthier
>> We got my pin.
Dave Vellante
>> All right. Good deal. I love Paris. Pascal, thank you so much.
Pascal Gauthier
>> Thank you. Thank you for the great questions.
Dave Vellante
>> Thank you for coming on, and thank you for watching. You're watching Crypto Trailblazers. This is Dave Vellante for John Furrier for the NYSE Wired plus theCUBE. We'll be right back right after this short break.
>> Hi everybody. Welcome back to Crypto Trailblazers. My name is Dave Vellante and you're watching the NYSE Wired plus theCUBE's Media Week coverage here at our NYSE studio. Pascal Gauthier is here as the CEO of Ledger. Thank you so much for coming on.
Pascal Gauthier
>> Thank you for having me.
Dave Vellante
>> Ledger is really interesting. You guys are known for your hardware wallets, but tell us a little bit about your business.
Pascal Gauthier
>> Well, so I think the simple way of explaining the business is we all know that a computer and/or a phone are not safe, right? They're easy to hack and it's not good hardware to protect secrets. So what we do at Ledger, we protect your secrets, and we've designed a hardware and solution that are very specific to protecting online secrets. And we started with cryptocurrency because to own a cryptocurrency is to own a cryptographic secrets that only you know. If somebody else knows, then it's no longer a secret. And so we designed a device for you to be able to protect the secret and to sign with the secret your crypto transactions. And what we're doing now, both for consumer and enterprise, is to protect more and more secrets, from cryptocurrency to your decentralized identity, to your health data, to your data, to everything that is an online secret, and that needs an extra layer of protection.
Dave Vellante
>> So that addresses my number one question about Ledger was always, well, how do you scale a hardware based self-custody business?
Pascal Gauthier
>> Right.
Dave Vellante
>> Well, the way you do that is you expand your TAM into new areas, right?
Pascal Gauthier
>> Correct. And also because you need to think about it as a digital private property. When we talk about self-custody, usually we're thinking opposite to a bank. And we are thinking cryptocurrency solely as a medium for investment, a speculation on cryptocurrency. But if you think about what Bitcoin is and crypto assets are in general, and if you think that everything will become tokenized from securities to real estate, to again, your health data, your identity, et cetera, et cetera, then suddenly, you enter into digital private property. And if you think like that, then it's a need that everybody has. Is everybody investing in a stock market? No. Will everybody invest into Bitcoin? Not necessarily, but everybody will have some kind of digital property that they need to secure in the future. And that's going to be more and more the case as soon as this applicative layer will be built on top of public blockchains. What we've seen now is the beginning of a revolution. At the beginning it was Bitcoin and it was those public blockchains, but on top of public blockchains, now you can build a bunch of applications, things, DeFi, for example. You cannot interact with DeFi if you don't own your private keys and if you're not in self-custody or if your private keys are not in your possession. It's going to be the same with most applications developed on these public blockchains.
Dave Vellante
>> So I definitely, since you went there, I want to ask you about tokenizing real-world assets. Where do you stand on that? What's your point of view? You mentioned real estate. Real estate maybe takes a little longer-
Pascal Gauthier
>> Sure.
Dave Vellante
>> But any physical asset should be and will be digitized. It becomes a fungible asset that could be tradable. Where do you stand on that? How long do you think... It's happening, but it seems to be going a little bit more slowly than we had maybe thought.
Pascal Gauthier
>> Yeah, slowly because there's going to be a lot of friction in change, meaning that we already trade those assets. They're already old rails to exchange that kind of value. To migrate from all rails to new rails that are better, it takes a long time. There's a lot of friction. There's a lot of people that have money to lose on one side, money to win on the other.
Dave Vellante
>> Okay.
Pascal Gauthier
>> And so that's why the friction happens. We are very hell-bent on decentralized identity. So everything that makes you a human being online and everything that can decipher you from an AI or a bot. We are entering this age of digital abundance. And so the question for the future is like, how do you know it's you online or a deepfake? And to sign cryptographically with your Ledger will be a way to prove that you're human. To sign your X account, your Instagram, et cetera, and that you can prove that they're yours is a way to build an online identity that is yours. That is what we call decentralized identity versus the identity centralized given you by the government. So to us, this is the next frontier. Real-world asset will take time because there's a lot of friction in terms of going to market and the business there.
Dave Vellante
>> Okay. So you've obviously nailed the sovereignty piece of this-
Pascal Gauthier
>> Right.
Dave Vellante
>> Is the notion of, I guess an air gap kind of environment.
Pascal Gauthier
>> Exactly.
Dave Vellante
>> And then you're talking about identity and the wallet, that comes together and is this new infrastructure and you're building capabilities on top of that. That seems to be your competitive advantage. People may use the word moat. How do you think about that?
Pascal Gauthier
>> Well, you give me the answer in your questions. Your answer is so good that the answer is already in the question.
Dave Vellante
>> That's not good question then. I'm sorry, but-
Pascal Gauthier
>> Yeah, no, no. So I'm going to repeat what you just said. This is how you create the moat, for sure. Look, people always talk about software, okay? Software is eating the world, but software needs hardware to connect. You need a phone, you need a computer. And when it comes to security, you need a Ledger. There's no other way than hardware When it comes to security. Software security doesn't exist because if software security runs on a piece of hardware that is not secure, then it's broken. And we all, again, will know this because of computer and phones. So that's why we're redesigning the whole experience, hardware, operating system, secure software connectivity. So you take away from your phone and computer that are for us, entertainment devices, devices where you can leave stuff that is not critical for you. But as soon as there are secrets that you need to protect, you will have to remove them onto a device that has been a device and a solution and an experience that has been designed specifically for security.
Dave Vellante
>> So what's your five-year vision? Are you essentially critical infrastructure essentially for world? Will you bring that to fintechs, to traditional banks?
Pascal Gauthier
>> Yeah, completely because our mission is to secure the digital world. And so therefore, if you just do it for consumer, for example, well, what happens if you want to now give you Bitcoin to a bank and they don't have the same level of security? So our mission is to make sure that the security platform serves the user when they want to be in self-custody or digital private ownership, or they leave their money at the bank and they have the same security and they don't need to think, "Oh, if I do this, I'm at risk." We don't compromise on security and we need to serve the world. That's why we have two business divisions, one that serves consumer and one that serves enterprise because consumer and enterprise basically have the same fundamental needs. And only if everybody is secure and everything is secure, then you can build on top of it like a secure digital world. When Bybit got hacked, we all lose. We need to raise the bar of security for everybody because when someone fails, we all fail.
Dave Vellante
>> So a couple of questions from those. In terms of the differences between consumer and enterprise, there are a lot of similarities. What are the differences and what did you learn when you entered that market? What did you have to do differently?
Pascal Gauthier
>> Well, for enterprise, and we have a true enterprise solution, for enterprise, you need access control. When you're a consumer only you can access your funds, and that's the promise of the piece of technology.
Dave Vellante
>> And of one.
Pascal Gauthier
>> And of one, you are in control. This is your private property. As soon as you're a bank or an enterprise, many people need to have access. And so how do you control this access? How do you make sure that this is also under the security layer? And you cannot mismanage funds, you cannot send funds when they're not supposed to be sent, et cetera, et cetera. And so the big invention of Ledger, and we have proprietary IP when it comes to this, we don't just do the security of the private keys for enterprise. We also do the security of the governance that sits on top of the coin. And all of this is guaranteed by the security enclave, meaning that you cannot sign anything that has not been pre-approved by administrators, and you have a segregation of duty between administrators and operators. We've never lost a dollar, we never mismanage funds because of that.
Dave Vellante
>> You have been cultivating at a developer ecosystem. Can you describe the strategy there? Again, what have you learned and what's the objective?
Pascal Gauthier
>> Yeah. Well, you know us very well, and that's a great question because think about the iPhone. Apple made basically a platform and experience, but Apple couldn't make all the apps because there are so many things that you can do with an iPhone. So it's very similar with us. We are the basic experience. We are where you protect your private keys. We are where you sign, and these are the basic features of our products, but every other application that's going to run on top of a public blockchain, like every kind of DeFi that you can imagine, NFTs, et cetera, those are applications and are third-party companies that will develop on top of our security platform and creates the full experience. And so that's why we have a developer ecosystem. That's why we partner with hundreds of companies now that connect to Ledger, either on the B2C side because they want to connect. We sold 8,000,000 of our products. We protect 20% of our crypto in the world. And so if you want to connect to that ecosystem, you need to develop on top of Ledger and Ledger Wallet, Ledger Live, which is our Ledger Wallet. And similar with Ledger Enterprise, similar experience. You need to develop on top of Ledger Enterprise if you want to connect to the hundreds of companies that are using Ledger Enterprise as a custody solution.
Dave Vellante
>> The iPhone is a good example, right, Pascal? Because seamless is the most overused word in our industry, but essentially, a lot of what Apple does is seamless. And the reason why I see that as so important is because there's an inherent trade-off in what you do, securing digital assets or any asset and convenience.
Pascal Gauthier
>> Right.
Dave Vellante
>> The more roadblocks you put up, the more difficult it is. There you go. And so it's interesting to note those traditions. So you're doing a lot of integrations with the developers and making that seamless.
Pascal Gauthier
>> Right. Correct.
Dave Vellante
>> So what am I looking at here?
Pascal Gauthier
>> So right now you got Stacks, which is one of the latest of our product and Stacks that is with the Spurs because we just announced a great partnership with the San Antonio Spurs, and we are the proud sponsor of the San Antonio Spurs right now. And so what we tried to do, and the gentleman we designed this product is Tony Fadell. And Tony Fadell is the inventor of the iPod, and what we're trying to do is three things. We're trying to be as secure as possible, as easy to use as possible, and to have as many backup as possible so you never lose access to your phones. Okay? And these three things are very important if you want to reach mass market. And so when we designed this product with Tony, first of all, we were thinking about the product, not so much the technology. Technology is slave to the product. First, you want to know what is the experience? What is the product? And then you decide what kind of technology you're going to use. And so this is the excellent work that we've done with Tony. So if you were to use this, it's very easy to use now. Every time I send it to someone that is a newbie, they say that it's toys for kids. So you have to pay attention to what you do because suddenly, you're in charge of your security. So you need to educate yourself. This is important. You need to understand what you're doing, but it's very easy to use now. And you have a lot of backups that you can do. You can do online backups for your private keys. You can do a hardware backup with the leisure recovery key that we announced technically yesterday. Backup is very important, so you never lose access to your funds.
Dave Vellante
>> It's a beautiful product.
Pascal Gauthier
>> It is.
Dave Vellante
>> The tactile feel is appealing.
Pascal Gauthier
>> Oh, it's wonderful.
Dave Vellante
>> It feels good in your hand.
Pascal Gauthier
>> Thank you.
Dave Vellante
>> It's customized for San Antonio Spurs.
Pascal Gauthier
>> That's the lonely button.
Dave Vellante
>> May I?
Pascal Gauthier
>> Yeah, yeah.
Dave Vellante
>> Yeah. Oh, wow. Okay. And it's lovely.
Pascal Gauthier
>> Screen is the first-
Dave Vellante
>> Gorgeous screen.
Pascal Gauthier
>> Is the first ink screen that bends like this. And so you can personalize the different part of the screen. It's a beautiful product.
Dave Vellante
>> It really is a beautiful design, and it's funny you mentioned the word backup. I think of these backup discs for your laptops. They're unwieldy, they're hard to carry. As a result, you don't use them.
Pascal Gauthier
>> Correct.
Dave Vellante
>> This is-
Pascal Gauthier
>> You want to make your product sexy, otherwise people just won't use it. And this is a product that people are going to start using more and more and it's going to be an everyday product. So the other product that we launched last year is called Flex. So what you do, you flex what you have in life. But this is this idea that if the experience is not sexy, nobody wants to use it. So if you're just super secure but extremely hard to use, this is not scalable. This is not a great company.
Dave Vellante
>> So you got San Antonio Spurs here, you got the San Antonio Spurs hat. You're a fan?
Pascal Gauthier
>> Yeah, for sure. San Antonio Spurs is where Tony Parker won four rings, and now Victor Wembanyama. So as a Frenchman, they are the team to sponsor in the US, but most importantly, their values are very similar to us, to ours. Pound the rock is what they say. They're very humble, they work hard. They're here to win championships and 30% to 40% of our business is in the US. So for us, it's important to have a presence in the US, and to educate around what we do because we are here very literate when it comes to crypto, but most people are not. And also, again, like I say, crypto is not just a way to speculate on future value. It's also going to be digital value for everyone. And there is something that is very profound in digital value and digital ownership, which is freedom. If you think about our digital world, we were entrapped into a system where we own nothing. In our life, you own your glasses, you have your computer. There's things that you own and you have with you. This is your private property. You have your car, your house. What do you own online? Nothing. Your Google account is not yours. Your bank account is not yours. Nothing is yours. And so the question is is this future-proof? In a dystopia, yes. But in a world where we still want democracy and want to be free, you need to have the tools for freedom. And so this is where we're building.
Dave Vellante
>> It's very profound what you just said, because people think of crypto, they think of speculation, they think, "Oh, to the moon." But really, you're talking about utility, fundamental utility for humans-
Pascal Gauthier
>> Correct.
Dave Vellante
>> In a world that is going to be dominated by digital.
Pascal Gauthier
>> And AI. And it's not just a philosophical standpoint of, "I prefer to be this rather than that." It's actually a fundamental need. If you don't have the tools to own and to have your private property, which is the base of democracy, and if you cannot separate from AI and robots, then who are you? And so the digital world becoming everything, how are you going to prove that you're you?
Dave Vellante
>> It's an interesting fast-forward from... What was it? People, people, people, the artist's-
Pascal Gauthier
>> Yeah. We know them very well.
Dave Vellante
>> "That's crazy. That makes no sense." It actually makes a lot of sense, the way you framed it.
Pascal Gauthier
>> Yeah.
Dave Vellante
>> So let's see. We're going to be at the Ray Summit early next month, in your hometown. I presume your hometown, at least your home country.
Pascal Gauthier
>> Definitely in my hometown. Born and raised in Paris. Yes.
Dave Vellante
>> Awesome. And good soccer in that part of the world. Football. Excuse me. So my understanding is you're going to be hosting us at least in a rooftop, so we'll come by.
Pascal Gauthier
>> Yeah. So we designed what we call , which is our new headquarter in Paris. And we design it to be a beacon for crypto, for Paris, for France, for Europe, and for the world. And so that's why we welcome you there because it's been designed to welcome partners and friends and people that gravitate in this industry. And also to demonstrate what crypto is, because again, it's all about education. When you visit our office, you understand why we design it, what we're about, what are our values and how hard we work because it's about having fun, but it's also mostly about working hard.
Dave Vellante
>> Yeah, so that's concomitant with the Ray Summit in July. And flights actually to Paris pretty cheap right now. And of course, Parisians love Americans. We know that well.
Pascal Gauthier
>> We got my pin.
Dave Vellante
>> All right. Good deal. I love Paris. Pascal, thank you so much.
Pascal Gauthier
>> Thank you. Thank you for the great questions.
Dave Vellante
>> Thank you for coming on, and thank you for watching. You're watching Crypto Trailblazers. This is Dave Vellante for John Furrier for the NYSE Wired plus theCUBE. We'll be right back right after this short break.
Dave Vellante