硬體錢包製造商 Ledger 正在重新定義數位身分保護

隨著比特幣飆升和人工智慧威脅升級，這家總部位於巴黎的硬體錢包製造商正在利用其在加密安全領域的領先地位重新定義數位身分保護，將目光投向更大的市場。

As cryptocurrency soars and AI threats escalate, Ledger, a Paris-based hardware wallet maker, is leveraging its lead in crypto security to redefine digital identity protection, setting its sights on a larger market.

隨著加密貨幣飆升和人工智慧威脅升級，總部位於巴黎的硬體錢包製造商 Ledger 正在利用其在加密安全領域的領先地位重新定義數位身分保護，將目光投向更大的市場。

Nina Bambysheva, Forbes Staff

Nina Bambysheva，福布斯員工

Bitcoin’s rally from $68,000 to $98,000 over the past two weeks has pushed Ledger’s hardware sales up threefold, while transactions on Ledger Live, its service for buying, swapping and staking crypto and NFTs, surged 3.5x.

過去兩週，比特幣從68,000 美元上漲至98,000 美元，推動Ledger 的硬體銷售額增長了三倍，而Ledger Live（其購買、交換和質押加密貨幣和NFT 的服務）上的交易量激增了3.5 倍。

But Pascal Gauthier, Ledger’s 48-year-old CEO, is thinking bigger. “Cryptocurrency is at the heart of what we do, but we are becoming—we always were, but it's going to be more obvious to the public—much more of a cybersecurity company,” he says.

但 Ledger 48 歲的執行長 Pascal Gauthier 的想法更遠大。 「加密貨幣是我們工作的核心，但我們正在變得——我們一直都是，但對公眾來說會更加明顯——更像是一家網路安全公司，」他說。

This ambition puts Ledger on a collision course with tech behemoths like Apple and Google, whose password management services like iCloud Keychain and Google Password Manager are widely used. But smartphones, for all their ubiquity, have fundamental security flaws, argues Gauthier. And popular software wallets like MetaMask or Phantom? “A terrible choice for security,” he says bluntly. “People with real money in the space understand this.”

這項雄心壯志使 Ledger 與蘋果和谷歌等科技巨頭發生了衝突，後者的密碼管理服務（如 iCloud Keychain 和 Google Password Manager）被廣泛使用。但高蒂爾認為，儘管智慧型手機無所不在，但卻存在根本性的安全缺陷。還有 MetaMask 或 Phantom 等流行的軟體錢包嗎？ 「對於安全來說，這是一個糟糕的選擇，」他直言不諱地說。 “在這個領域擁有真金白銀的人都明白這一點。”

The company has raised $600 million in funding, including a $380 million Series C in 2021 that valued the company at $1.5 billion, and a $108 million extension in early 2023 at the same valuation. It claims to have sold more than 7 million devices across 210 countries, securing around 20% of the world’s crypto—no less than $400 billion, based on Forbes’ estimates. And despite a year-long delay in launching Ledger Stax, its first device designed by iPod designer and founder of Nest Labs Tony Fadell with sleek Apple-like aesthetics, Ledger says it’s on track to hit $1 billion in cumulative 10-year revenue (the company says it's profitable but won’t disclose specifics).

該公司已籌集 6 億美元資金，其中包括 2021 年 3.8 億美元的 C 輪融資，該輪融資使該公司估值達到 15 億美元，以及 2023 年初以相同估值進行的 1.08 億美元延期融資。該公司聲稱已在 210 個國家/地區銷售了超過 700 萬台設備，佔據了全球約 20% 的加密貨幣，根據福布斯的估計，價值不少於 4000 億美元。儘管Ledger Stax 的推出推遲了一年，這是其第一款由iPod 設計師兼Nest Labs 創始人Tony Fadell 設計的設備，具有類似蘋果的時尚美學，但Ledger 表示，它的10 年累計收入有望達到10 億美元（即公司表示已經獲利，但未透露具體細節）。

Hardware still anchors Ledger’s business, but services are driving much of its recent growth. Ledger Live, a mobile app for buying, swapping, and staking crypto and NFTs, and Ledger Enterprise, a platform for businesses self-custodying digital assets, now account for nearly half of the company’s expansion. The strategy is clear: diversify beyond hardware as competition heats up—not just from rivals like Prague-based hard wallet maker Trezor but from centralized exchanges like Binance and Coinbase, which have millions of crypto-owning customers and continue to be the default choice for investors.

硬體仍然是 Ledger 業務的支柱，但服務是其近期成長的主要推動力。 Ledger Live 是一款用於購買、交換和質押加密貨幣和 NFT 的行動應用程序，Ledger Enterprise 是一個供企業自我託管數位資產的平台，目前佔據了該公司擴張的近一半。這個策略很明確：隨著競爭的加劇，實現硬體以外的多元化——不僅來自布拉格硬錢包製造商Trezor 等競爭對手，還來自Binance 和Coinbase 等中心化交易所，這些交易所擁有數百萬擁有加密貨幣的客戶，並且仍然是加密貨幣的預設選擇。

“When the bear market hit in 2022-2023, the question was do you fire everybody, stop doing everything, protect cash and wait for the market to come back, or do you keep investing? We decided to keep investing,” recalls Gauthier. “My board asked me several times if I was sure, but I was because you want to be positioned at the beginning of the bull run with all sales open, meaning you have products to sell.”

「當 2022 年至 2023 年熊市來襲時，問題是你是解僱所有人、停止做一切事情、保護現金並等待市場回歸，還是繼續投資？我們決定繼續投資。 “我的董事會多次問我是否確定，但我之所以確定，是因為你希望在牛市開始時處於所有銷售開放的位置，這意味著你有產品可供銷售。”

And Ledger is moving beyond crypto, aiming to redefine digital security. Its newest feature, Ledger Sync, launched last month, tackles a familiar vulnerability: the reliance on centralized servers to store passwords and emails. Sync shifts control back to users, generating encryption keys directly on their Ledger devices—keys even the company cannot access.

Ledger 正在超越加密貨幣，旨在重新定義數位安全。其最新功能 Ledger Sync 在上個月推出，解決了一個常見的漏洞：依賴集中式伺服器來儲存密碼和電子郵件。同步將控制權交還給用戶，直接在他們的 Ledger 裝置上產生加密金鑰——甚至公司也無法存取這些金鑰。

In September, the firm launched another ambitious product, Security Key—an app that allows you to use your Ledger device with websites that support passkeys, which are generated by biometrics like fingerprints or facial recognition, or through multi-factor authentication (MFA). Security Key marks Ledger’s entry into the authentication market, projected to reach $40 billion by the end of the decade, and its response to a growing problem: the rise of AI-generated hacks and digital identity fraud.

9 月份，該公司推出了另一款雄心勃勃的產品Security Key，該應用程式允許您將Ledger 裝置與支援金鑰的網站一起使用，這些金鑰是透過指紋或臉部辨識等生物辨識技術或透過多重身份驗證(MFA) 產生的。安全金鑰標誌著 Ledger 進入了身份驗證市場（預計到本世紀末將達到 400 億美元），並標誌著 Ledger 對日益嚴重的問題的回應：人工智慧引發的駭客攻擊和數位身分詐欺的興起。

“The cold storage crypto wallet market is limited, probably a few hundred million dollars,” says Benchmark analyst Mark Palmer. “The authentication market is multiples larger.”

Benchmark 分析師馬克·帕爾默 (Mark Palmer) 表示：“冷存儲加密錢包市場有限，可能只有幾億美元。” “認證市場要大好幾倍。”

Ledger’s premium wallet, Stax, features the first-ever secure E-Ink touchscreen powered by the Secure Element chip—the same technology used in bank cards and biometric passports to resist physical and remote attacks.

Ledger 的高級錢包 Stax 配備了首款由 Secure Element 晶片驅動的安全電子墨水觸控屏，該技術與銀行卡和生物識別護照中使用的技術相同，可抵禦物理和遠端攻擊。

Ledger’s pitch is that its devices are more than just hardware—they’re a platform for building an ecosystem of secure services. Unlike software-first solutions, Ledger’s hardware generates encryption keys offline, mitigating risks of remote compromise. “Your Ledger could be something that gets you through borders in the future, and then the total addressable market becomes much bigger,” says Gauthier.

Ledger 的宣傳是，其設備不僅僅是硬件，它們還是建立安全服務生態系統的平台。與軟體優先的解決方案不同，Ledger 的硬體可以離線產生加密金鑰，從而降低遠端洩漏的風險。 Gauthier 表示：“未來，你的 Ledger 可能會幫助你跨越國界，然後整個潛在市場就會變得更大。”

Ledger’s ascent hasn’t been without turbulence. Last year, its rollout of Ledger Recover, a feature designed for users anxious about losing their seed phrases, sparked a fierce backlash. The service, which allows account recovery through ID verification with partner Onfido, was seen by some critics as

萊傑的崛起並非一帆風順。去年，其推出的 Ledger Recover 功能引發了強烈反對，該功能專為擔心丟失助記詞的用戶而設計。該服務允許透過合作夥伴 Onfido 進行身份驗證來恢復帳戶，一些評論家認為該服務