Tony Fadell tries to build Crypto’s iPod

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Fadell looks at the photos of the credit card-sized wallet and its innovative E Ink touchscreen. When Ledger reveals it on December 6, it will cost $279. This is a rounding error for those buying Bored Apes. To add a bit of flair, the screen wraps around one side, giving it the equivalent of the spine of a book. But the photo does not show it enough. It’s very straight and 2D, he says. Not enough backbone. I don’t feel the curve. He frowns. And it’s so dark.

David Sloo, a user experience designer who worked with Fadell at Nest, picks up the review. Can we be less Darth Vader and more Rebel?

Fadell agrees. It’s really who we are, it’s all about the Empire.

His remark is a transition to the next panel, marked MANIFESTO. A handful of slogans are taped to the glass.

Crypto is the new currency.

Security is a human right.

Welcome to a new era of financial freedom.

The first touchscreen device designed to protect your most valuable assets.

Fadell looks hardest at the one that reads:

In [L] Stax, we trust.

He is not satisfied with the importance of the [L], the Ledger logo, which appears in a custom military-style typeface. The brand is what people need to remember. Five years from now, every time you see this, you’ll think of Ledger, he says. As the Apple logo represents the brand.

The comparison seems absurd. The company is nowhere near that size, its product is alien to most Earthlings, and its nichecrypto has undergone months of shock treatment. Fadell looks unfazed.

It comes together, he says. Forty-nine days!

During these 49 days, the crypto arc will bend into a dunk tank. Timing, as product gurus know, is everything. Stax may be coming at the right time. It might as well be the worst.

Ledger was founded in 2014 by members of a bitcoin collective called La Maison du Bitcoin. They wanted to build a wallet for crypto purists. These people would never leave their private keys on a phone or laptop that was too hackable or place their assets in an exchange, which is a trusted, centralized institution and no better than a bank. (Trust is a pejorative in this world.) It was the year thousands of people lost their investments in a hack of flagship crypto exchange, Mt. Gox, wiping out the savings of many customers’ lives.

Savvy consumers would only entrust their keys to a hardware wallet, something they could hold in their hands even when servers crashed and exchanges went bankrupt. You will start a transaction on a phone or laptop and use the wallet to verify it. Your private key, locked to his Alcatraz, would never cross the gap with these less secure devices.

The company’s first wallet, released at the end of the year, was nothing special. But it filled a need among some crypto people. The following models have tiny screens. Ledger eventually sold over 5 million of its wallets, which it says now secures 20% of global crypto and over 30% of NFTs. True believers wear Ledger wallets around their necks.

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