According to the Financial Times, 2026 will indeed be a turning point for the French fintech: for the first time, a French crypto-focused company is aiming to list on Wall Street, with an expected valuation exceeding $4bn.
Explosive growth and a thirst for security: the drivers of a meteoric rise
Ledger's trajectory shows just how much demand for security has fuelled its success. On the one hand, the widespread adoption of cryptocurrencies over successive bull runs has expanded its market far beyond insider circles.
Adan
Founded in 2014 by Éric Larchevêque, Joël Pobeda and Thomas France, the start-up quickly found its audience by offering hardware wallets - such as the Ledger Nano keys or, more recently, the touch-screen Ledger Stax - allowing users to store their digital assets themselves in a safe place (away from platforms such as Binance, Coinbase, Kraken...).
Ledger
This self-custody approach (personal control of private keys) meets a desire for control in an ecosystem where online platforms have often fallen short. Over a decade, the company has sold over 7 million devices worldwide, securing about 20% of global crypto-assets, including more than $100bn in bitcoin. Revenue has followed the same upward trajectory, topping $100m in 2025 - a record driven by sustained interest from individuals and businesses in reliable cold-storage solutions.
On the other hand, the troubles of centralised platforms have played relentlessly in Ledger's favour. Every major scandal or hack in the crypto sphere has underscored the importance of securing assets offline. In 2025, more than $1.5bn was stolen, notably in the hack of giant Bybit.
With each crisis, some shaken users have turned to Ledger's solutions, seen as a bulwark against volatility and trust failures in the system. After US listings by companies such as Circle or BitGo, the financial sector is now looking for safer "picks and shovels” plays rather than gaining exposure only through crypto. Ledger, with its role as a digital vault, is benefiting fully from this underlying trend.
Security challenges and brand image: the setbacks of a crypto-security leader
While Ledger's financial indicators are in the green, the company has nonetheless weathered turbulence that underscores how fragile trust can be in digital security. In January 2026, just months ahead of the IPO, an incident tarnished its record: Ledger confirmed a leak of customers' personal data, due to the compromise of its e-commerce provider, Global-e. Users' names, postal addresses and phone numbers were exposed, fuelling targeted phishing campaigns.
While private keys - the holy grail that no hacker must obtain - remained protected, the damage to the brand was done. Customers, who were reminded to be vigilant, voiced concern that a security champion could be hit by peripheral weaknesses. And it was not the first time for the firm: as early as 2020, a major intrusion into its marketing databases compromised the information of 273,000 customers, an episode still fresh in many minds. Added to this were product controversies, such as in 2023 when Ledger considered an online backup service for recovery phrases (Ledger Recover), which sparked an outcry amongst crypto purists worried that the sacrosanct "seed phrase” could potentially be copied outside the wallet. These setbacks highlighted an awkward paradox: even for a leader in protecting digital assets, zero risk does not exist.
To reassure investors and the public as the listing approaches, the company has announced a gradual refocus towards a broader range of services centered on securing value on the internet. Concretely, this involves integrating new features into its next-generation products (known as Gen5): advanced biometric authentication, staking options (yield-earning crypto placements) directly via Ledger Live, as well as developing an offering for corporates and institutions seeking turnkey custody solutions.
The aim: to show that Ledger is not just a maker of electronic devices, but rather a broader player in the Internet of Value, capable of monetising recurring services while maintaining a high level of security. The challenge is significant: it must keep innovating without alienating its loyal user base, while proving to markets that its business model can generate stable revenues - a crucial point as net profitability is still to be reached.
The IPO is therefore expected not only as a crowning achievement, but also as a way to raise fresh capital to strengthen its balance sheet and accelerate the development of this French crypto unicorn.
International comparisons: global enthusiasm for listed crypto giants
Ledger's stockmarket plan is not emerging in a vacuum: it fits into a broader trend of maturation in the crypto industry worldwide. As early as 2021, US giant Coinbase paved the way with a high-profile Nasdaq debut, proof that a 100%-crypto company could win over Wall Street. Since then, other players have followed suit, or announced their intention to take the plunge. 2025 saw a real wave of IPOs in financial technology: over $3.4bn was raised in all through stockmarket listings of companies tied to crypto-assets over the year.
And the trend is accelerating further in 2026, which had already recorded 15 IPOs in the crypto universe in the first month alone, including the splashy debut of BitGo - a California specialist in digital-asset custody - which raised $212m in its NYSE listing in early January.
Everywhere, emerging blockchain giants are gearing up to tap public markets: US exchange Kraken has confidentially filed with the market watchdog (SEC) targeting H1 2026; New York-based Consensys (valued at $7bn) is in talks with JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs for an IPO the same year; and even in Asia, candidates such as Bithumb, South Korea's leading platform, are preparing an arrival on the Seoul market with the backing of Samsung Securities. Ledger is therefore neither the only nor the first to take this path in 2026, but its case carries particular weight in Europe.
The French company is poised to become the first European crypto "unicorn” to attempt a major listing across the Atlantic. Choosing a US IPO rather than Paris or another exchange in Europe highlights market disparities. Wall Street offers unmatched financial depth: in 2023 alone, while France logged only a handful of tech listings, the United States recorded hundreds. US tech-focused investors typically value infrastructure companies like Ledger more highly than a smaller European audience. For French Tech, seeing one of its stars list in New York is a mix of pride and bitterness.
Pride, because Ledger's success shines a light on French excellence in cyber security and crypto, fields in which the country has produced a global champion. But also bitterness, because this stockmarket expatriation underscores the inability of European venues to retain high-potential gems. European technological sovereignty also hinges on its capacity to finance its champions locally. The outcome of Ledger's IPO will therefore serve as a barometer: success would validate the maturity of digital security companies born in Europe, while a lukewarm reception or a failure would raise serious questions about the attractiveness of financial ecosystems on this side of the Atlantic.
What strategies in the face of challenges? Between local innovation and international capital
To ensure its long-term future in a constantly evolving sector, the company is exploring two main avenues: on one side, boosting innovation and its user base; on the other, opening up to external resources - financial or human.
On the first front, Ledger is betting on continuous technological renewal to expand its market. Aware that simplifying the user experience is key to winning new audiences, the company has multiplied initiatives to make crypto more accessible and attractive. The design of the Ledger Stax by Tony Fadell (the father of the iPod) in 2023 showed a desire to combine aesthetics and ergonomics with pure security, to appeal to a broader public. Likewise, integrating features such as staking, decentralized exchanges or NFT management into the Ledger Live app is aimed at turning the wallet into a full platform, capable of keeping customers within the in-house ecosystem rather than seeing them move to competitors.
The product strategy resembles an ambitious family policy: enriching the offering to encourage users to "have more children” digitally - in other words, to entrust more and more assets and transactions to Ledger. These efforts are already paying off, as Ledger Live's active user community totals millions each month and continues to grow, supported by word-of-mouth and the brand's strong reputation.
Nevertheless, nothing is guaranteed: the company must constantly innovate to maintain its lead, facing intensifying global competition (rivals such as the Czech company Trezor or purely software-based solutions are also seeking to attract newcomers). In this race, Ledger can rely on its veritable army of developers and security experts, drawn from top training programmes, whose mission is to anticipate tomorrow's threats. Its internal research unit (Donjon) continuously runs penetration tests to ensure device integrity, while partnerships with big names (e.g., Binance, Coinbase, etc.) strengthen the ecosystem around Ledger products. The challenge will be to maintain this pace of innovation while ensuring exemplary reliability - a balancing act that is essential to retain the existing base and persuade new users to adopt the cold wallet attitude.
On the second front, Ledger has clearly chosen to open itself to international capital to support its expansion. Its latest funding rounds attest to this: after raising $380m in 2021 (Series C) and then $385m in 2023 alongside high-profile investors, the company reached unicorn status with a valuation of $1.5bn. Now, a NYSE listing is intended to mobilize funds on an entirely different scale, relying on heavyweight global finance players (Goldman Sachs, Jefferies, Barclays) to orchestrate the transaction.
This equity capital raise will not merely be about prestige: it is vital to finance the next stages of growth, from R&D projects to international roll-outs. Ledger is aiming to consolidate its presence in North America and Asia, where most demand for crypto-assets sits. To do so, it may need to pursue strategic acquisitions or forge local alliances - costly initiatives that a post-IPO war chest would allow it to consider with greater confidence.
Of course, this internationalization is stirring debate in France: is there a risk that decision-making could partly slip away from the national territory, or that the company culture could become diluted? CEO Pascal Gauthier has sought to reassure, saying that listing in New York changes nothing about Ledger's French DNA and that, on the contrary, success abroad will benefit the entire French ecosystem through a knock-on effect. Still, French Tech and public authorities will have to draw lessons from this emblematic case: how can Europe create an environment so attractive that future champions will no longer feel the need to list 6,000 km away?
