Ledger CEO on how Web3 can liberate people and change the world

Hey, it's Joe from Cointelegraph at surfing Bitcoin 2022 with a magnificent view behind us. Wouldn't you agree, Pascal?

It's wonderful. The iris is great.

So I'm with Pascal Gautier, the CEO of Ledger, who I'm sure we all know about. How's your conference been so far? First day.

First day, but third time around. This is the third time the conference is happening, and we've been proud sponsors and participants of each and every conference. It's been very funny. To Surfing Bitcoin grow from like, a very difficult conference in 20. It was in the middle of COVID It was a storm. It was the same time. It was a storm back then. It was horrible. We were like 30 people to what it is today, which is an amazing conference, beautiful weather, and I don't know how many attendees, but I think in the thousands.

Well, that was exactly going to be my question. You know, surely the atmosphere this year should be more subdued because we're in this bear market. You disagree? No.

Bear market, no. Because, you know, like, people always do the shortcut of assuming that everyone is in crypto just for making money, which is true in part for a lot of people. And, you know, making money is not bad. Like, you know, it's okay to make money, but a lot of people also understand, you know, what's deeper about crypto and how it makes them free and how it gives them control on their assets, you know, financial freedom and. But everything that is linked to financial freedom, like digital freedom in general. And I think that's why people really like it and this is why they're here today. And by the way you were talking just before about, like, maxi conferences, you know, I asked the question, like, who's got Bitcoin and who's got Ethereum? Everybody's got Bitcoin and Ethereum now. So, okay, bitcoin might be down, but people are buying NFTs and, you know, they're participating into communities and this religious war of bitcoin maxi versus the rest of the world. I mean, it's all good and well, and it's good to have tension and it's good to have like, you know, a good fight and people that are strong opponents because that's actually how innovation is driven. But equally, it's also interesting to see that people just use the product, and when they use the product, they use Bitcoin and sometimes they use other things.

Okay, okay. And how would you sort of describe the difference between Bitcoin and crypto or do you put them all in the same bag together?

Bitcoin is bitcoin. Bitcoin is king. Bitcoin has some properties that if you look at from security, decentralization, the use case, etc. Bitcoin is Bitcoin and for me is very different from many other projects. If you think about Ethereum, for example, the simple fact that the creator of Ethereum is alive and kicking and speaking, okay, that's already there. That's a difference. I'm not saying it's wrong. I'm saying it's just difference. You know, Vitalik has influence. He can go to jail tomorrow. Like, you know, many things can happen that could have a big impact in the end on the Ethereum community. And I think again, that's not bad. It's just like a difference. And so Bitcoin is unique in what it has with this Satoshi Nakamoto, who is a fantasy. But then it gives it extreme resilience, censorship, resistance, etc. Etc.

What's keeping you up at night in.

Terms of crypto, A lot of people are still in web2 and you stay in the matrix and people are about to take the red pill or the blue pill. And so a lot of people actually don't want Web3 because they want to stay in the matrix where they're being controlled because it's easier. You just click yes, yes, yes, and then someone else is going to deal with your problems. It's all good and well, but actually I don't think this is how you're free. I think taking responsibility is how you become free. And there is a tentative at this. And it's the red pill. It's like extract yourself from the metrics. And so we spend a lot of time in terms of, and money in terms of building content around education and trying to educate people, legislators, regulators, et cetera, et cetera, for people to understand what all of this means, why it's an opportunity, why freedom is being challenged today in the current society with current technologies, why technology needs to evolve in order to tackle the challenge and to make people more free than what they are today, more responsible. Also, we've been saying this for the past four years. Don't trust your coins and your private keys to anyone because you don't know what they're going to do with them, etc. The industry is too young. Can you trust bank of New York with your crypto? Maybe. No, Honestly, maybe. But. But then, but then you're back into the system. And in the day that bank of New York, for some reason, tells you you can't access your crypto anymore, and you can't access your crypto anymore. And it's not just an idea. It's happening like in China. It's happening in Ireland recently, where people have trusted money with a bank that is there, that is regulated, etc. And suddenly they can't access the money. So something is happening like, you know, our economies are under stress, and so it's almost like a life jacket that's being thrown at people in the form of bitcoin, crypto in general. And so people need to think a lot about this. They need to educate themselves. And so that's what keep me up at night is people education, people understanding what's good or not good for them and then being able to make a decision. That's what we do.

There's so many centralized exchanges which are struggling through this bear market, and as a result, people are losing access to their crypto. Is there going to be a turning point where people realize, oh, I need to hold my own keys?

Well, I think it has happened this summer and we've seen it in our business, and definitely our sales are way up. And, you know, all these sort of bad news are sort of fueled to our business where suddenly people realize, okay, well, I guess I need to get a ledger. And I'm like, okay, fine. And the problem is people are always learning the hard way, which is painful. And that's not what we want. We would prefer for people to learn softly and sort of move the coins before it's too late. But it's how you learn, apparently when you're a kid, when you want to learn your kid that touching fire actually hurts, they have to touch fire at least once and then they know, and then they never touch the fire again. And so similarly, this is what's happening with security and crypto is like, people need to get burned a little bit for them to realize, okay, okay, I understand now, and this is what I need to do. It's true, not just for people, but it's true for companies. Like companies worry about cybersecurity or security in general after a problem happen, because there is always something better to do. There was always like a perceived better use of money, which is actually not true. People should be more ethical and should think about security first, customers first, et cetera, et cetera.

Okay, okay. And so let's flip the question as a last question. Now, what are you most excited about or what are you most looking forward to in this space in the next sort of 6 to 12 months.

I'm mostly looking forward to the future. I think if you think about the Internet in 2000, you look at the Internet in 2022. What a fucking amazing ride. Wow. And so I'm thinking, okay, we talk now and we look in 20 years. Considering that technology has a way of growing exponentially, 2042 is going to be fucking amazing. Like, you know, what we're going to see in 2022 is some of the things that we can't really imagine today. One thing though, that where I'm, I want to see what's going on is lightning. That's super exciting. Because the power of going like, you know, 10x or 100x faster than Visa and MasterCard altogether and people to be able to exchange value really peer to peer. That's super exciting. I mean, you know, it's Coin center that described that, you know, sort of cash is the. Is a public ledger that everyone can use in a country. And Bitcoin is a public ledger that everyone can use on the planet. It's something we actually trade peer to peer, where there is no intermediary. If you think about it, every time that you do an electronic transaction today, there is always an intermediary, always tomorrow. Bitcoin is the only way that Bitcoin and not just Bitcoin, but let's say bitcoin or cryptocurrencies will be the only way that you can exchange value peer to peer, electronically, without intermediary. And so this ability to do this at scale with lightning, I think is fascinating. Elizabeth Stark is running her business, Lightning Labs. I think. I think what she's doing is fantastic. There are other people that are thinking hard about this problem. It's all of an attempt, so we'll see what happens. But this I'm excited to see. And the second thing, which had nothing to do is crypto. And gaming to me is just like a match made in heaven. This will work beyond imagination, guild of players everywhere in the world and a fair distribution of value, something that really exists today. It's not changing the business. It does exist today. People spend money to play games. Some people that are really good make money out of the games, etc. So there is really an economy and it will be streamlined thanks to crypto. And it's probably one of the best use cases for crypto. And it's happening. I mean, Star Atlas, it's a great company, it's a great game. What they do is crazy. There are many other games out there. Axis Infinity, all these guys. It's only the very beginning. But that in 20 years would be sick.

Exciting stuff. Okay. Anything else you'd like to add, Pascal?

Cheers.

Thank you so much. The Cointelegraph interview, Sam.