The price of Bitcoin has halved, but the company selling BTC mining rigs has announced plans to go public in the U.S.
In the early morning of January 21, 2025, in the small central French town of Villejourn.
David Balland was dragged awake from his sleep, and before he could understand the situation, he and his wife were stuffed into two cars. Ten minutes later, the two cars headed in different directions.
What happens in the next 48 hours is like a poorly made kidnapping movie. The kidnapper cut off a finger of Balland and sent a photo to his former colleagues, demanding a ransom of 10 million dollars in Bitcoin.
More than 90 members of the French special forces GIGN were dispatched to act simultaneously at two locations, ultimately rescuing the couple.
Balland is one of Ledger's co-founders.
The story had a good ending. The kidnappers received part of the ransom in USDT, but Tether cooperated with law enforcement to freeze 95% of the funds. The on-chain transfer records are clear, and there was no escape. All ten suspects were captured and face life imprisonment.
The kidnappers were able to find Balland because in 2020, Ledger experienced a customer data leak, with names, addresses, and phone numbers posted on the dark web. As a founder, Balland's information was naturally included.
The reason kidnappers do not directly steal coins from the chain is that they cannot. The private keys are stored in offline devices, and without internet access, they cannot be stolen. So they can only use the most primitive method: kidnap someone and force them to transfer the coins themselves.
This precisely illustrates one thing: hardware wallets are useful. The hackers' tactics online have no effect on it; they can only upgrade to offline crimes.
But Balland's experience also serves as a reminder to all holders: protecting your private keys is just the first step; protecting your identity information is equally important. No matter how deep you hide your coins, if others know who you are and where you live, trouble may come knocking.
Decoupling assets from identity is the core logic of self-custody with Bitcoin wallets. This is also the meaning of Ledger's existence as a business.
After the kidnapping case, news broke in the UK (Financial Times): Ledger is preparing for an IPO in the US. Goldman Sachs, Jefferies, and Barclays are jointly sponsoring it, with the listing location chosen at the New York Stock Exchange.
At the same time, the price of Bitcoin is undergoing another severe adjustment. From the peak of 126,000 dollars in October 2025, it has dropped below 70,000 dollars.
The halving of BTC has not affected the industry's progress; in January 2026, Ledger's valuation exceeded 4 billion dollars.
One, selling shovels
The cryptocurrency industry is rich in stories of sudden wealth and total loss. Some people made hundreds of millions overnight, while others woke up to find their wallets emptied.
Ledger is an outlier in this industry. It does not issue tokens, does not operate a trading platform, and does not engage in DeFi. It only does one thing: sells a small device that looks like a USB drive, telling you to store your private keys inside, which hackers cannot steal.
What does Ledger do?
They sell hardware wallets, simply put, helping people store Bitcoin private keys.
79 dollars each, over 7 million sold in ten years.
There is an old saying in the startup world: the ones making the most money during a gold rush are not the ones panning for gold, but those selling shovels and jeans. Simply put, Ledger is the one selling shovels in the crypto world.
The most wonderful aspect of this business is that it does not have to bet on the rise and fall of coin prices.
During a bull market, newcomers rush in, needing to buy a wallet to store their newly acquired coins. During a bear market, old users, who have experienced sharp declines, cherish the remaining chips they have and also need a safe place to store them.
When the coin price rises, your assets become more valuable, making it worth spending 79 dollars to protect them. When the coin price falls, you definitely do not want to make matters worse by getting hacked, so it's still worth spending 79 dollars for some peace of mind.
No matter how you calculate it, Ledger wins.
In the week of FTX's explosion in November 2022, Ledger's official website's server almost crashed due to the influx of traffic. 'Not your keys, not your coins'; if the private keys are not in your hands, the coins are not yours. This old saying, which has circulated in the crypto-anarchist circles for many years, suddenly became a consensus among the public.
Trading platforms may run away, project parties may run away, but an offline hardware device will not betray you.
To translate, when others are afraid, that is when their business is at its best.
This ability to traverse cycles is the story Wall Street loves most.
Ledger's list of investors reads like a directory of top institutions: 10T Holdings, Samsung Ventures, Morgan Creek, Cathay Innovation. A total of 575 million dollars has been raised. In that round of valuation in 2023, it was 1.5 billion; now it aims for 4 billion at the New York Stock Exchange. In less than two years, it has nearly tripled.
This calculation is actually quite straightforward. The total market value of global crypto assets, even in this adjustment period, is over 2 trillion dollars. Ledger claims to manage about 20% of that, with over 100 billion dollars in Bitcoin lying in users' devices.
Is a company managing 100 billion dollars in assets, valued at 4 billion, expensive?
Compared to traditional financial custodians, this number is quite restrained.
Two, traversing cycles
Ledger did not appear overnight.
In 2014, a few French engineers founded this company in Villejuif. At that time, Bitcoin's price was fluctuating around a few hundred dollars, and most people thought it was a Ponzi scheme.
Ten years have passed, and the company has gone through three complete bull and bear cycles. The frenzy of 2017, the collapse of 2018, the madness again in 2021, the collapse again in 2022, the ETF market at the end of 2024, and now the adjustments.
In every cycle, Ledger has survived and is growing larger.
The secret is simple; it sells a necessity.
Whether the coin price is 100,000 or 30,000, as long as you have coins in hand, you need a safe place to store them. This need will not disappear because of market conditions.
In 2025, the company's revenue reached a historic high, reaching the level of 'hundreds of millions of dollars'. This was stated by CEO Gauthier himself. Compared to over 70 million dollars in 2024, the growth is quite impressive.
More importantly, the revenue structure is changing.
In its early years, Ledger was just selling hardware for 79 dollars each, making a profit on every sale. Now the product line has expanded. The entry-level Nano S Plus is still 79 dollars, the mid-range Nano X with Bluetooth sells for 149 dollars, and the high-end Stax with E Ink touchscreen sells for 279 dollars.
Beyond hardware, there is also software. The Ledger Live app allows users to buy coins, exchange coins, and stake, with the company taking a cut from each transaction. There is also Ledger Enterprise, offering custody solutions specifically for institutional clients, with over 100 clients managing tens of billions of dollars in assets.
From selling hardware to selling services, from one-time income to recurring income. Ledger has walked this road for ten years and is finally seeing results.
CEO Gauthier is not from a founding background. He was previously COO at the French ad tech company Criteo, helping it reach a market value of 2.1 billion euros and successfully go public. Afterward, he spent a few years in venture capital and was invited to lead Ledger in 2019.
A professional manager with IPO experience is at the helm of a company going public. The configuration is quite reasonable.
After Gauthier took office, he did a few things. He brought in iPod inventor Tony Fadell to help design new products, upgrading the product line from geek toys to consumer electronics. The 279-dollar Ledger Stax looks like a Kindle and can display your NFT collection.
The hardware wallet category has been given a touch of luxury by him.
Last October, the company held a launch event called Ledger Op3n, releasing the new generation product Nano Gen5. It features a touch screen, significantly enhancing user experience. Also launched was the new version of Ledger Live App, which integrates more functionalities.
From products to services to ecosystems, what Ledger wants to do is to be the entry point into the crypto world.
Three, ringing the bell
Ledger's move to the New York Stock Exchange is not an isolated event.
In 2025, crypto companies raised a total of 3.4 billion dollars through IPOs. The stablecoin issuer Circle raised over 1 billion, and the trading platform Bullish also raised over 1 billion. The trading platform Gemini saw a 14% increase on its first day of trading. In January this year, the custody service provider BitGo was listed on the New York Stock Exchange, with a first-day increase of 24.6%, reaching a market value of 2.6 billion dollars.
A window that was closed for three years has reopened.
During the cold winter of 2022, almost no one dared to mention IPOs. Luna collapsed, FTX exploded, Three Arrows Capital went bankrupt, and the entire industry was left in ruins. It was good enough to survive at that time; who was still thinking about going public?
The turning point occurred in 2024. The Bitcoin spot ETF was approved, and Wall Street's money officially entered the market. Trump promised to support the crypto industry during his campaign, and after being elected, he signed an executive order. The SEC changed its chairman, and the regulatory attitude shifted significantly.
Now, the list of those waiting to ring the bell is long, and there are many successes, from Circle to various trading platforms. There's also Kraken, the second-largest crypto trading platform in the U.S., valued at 20 billion dollars, aiming for the first half of this year. Consensys, the parent company of MetaMask, valued at 7 billion, has engaged JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs as sponsors. South Korea's Bithumb has approached Samsung Securities, preparing to be listed in Seoul.
The crypto industry is undergoing a collective 'coming-of-age ceremony.'
Over the past decade, this industry has grown wildly. ICOs, DeFi, NFTs, meme coins; waves of trends, with many making quick money but few doing solid work.
Now it’s different. Companies that have made it to the IPO stage are survivors that have traversed cycles. They have real revenue, auditable financial statements, and compliant operating systems.
This is a sign of an industry maturing.
Ledger is a bit special among this batch of companies. It is not a trading platform, and its income does not rely on trading volume. It is not a stablecoin, so there is no need to worry about reserve audits. It is infrastructure; it is the 'water, electricity, and gas' of the crypto world.
No matter what coin you trade or what chain you use, you must have a safe place to store your private keys. As long as this industry exists and as long as there are people holding crypto assets, Ledger's business will continue.
This certainty is the thing that capital markets value the most.
Gauthier once said, 'The money in the crypto industry today is in New York; there is no other place in the world.'
A French company has chosen to go public in New York. The founding team is in Paris, but the capital is in Manhattan. This has been a common path for global tech startups over the past decade.
When Bitcoin was born, Satoshi Nakamoto wanted to create a payment system that did not require trusting any institution. Sixteen years have passed, and the companies that have sprouted around Bitcoin are now heading one by one to the world's largest capital market, accepting the most traditional trust endorsement.
This shouldn't be considered a betrayal of original intentions; this is the industry growing up.
The phase of savage growth is over; the next phase is institutionalization, compliance, and mainstreaming. For those still in this industry, this is actually good news.
The price of Bitcoin is still fluctuating. But the infrastructure built around Bitcoin is gradually moving towards the mainstream world.
After all, a halving in coin price is just a brief comma in the process of this cycle.
