EP - 101

How Ledger Enterprise Keeps Crypto Companies Secure

with

Ian Rogers & Sebastian Badault
CXO & VP of Enterprise @ Ledger

Apr 09, 2025

On this episode, host Ian Rogers, Ledger’s Chief Experience Officer, speaks with Sebastian Badault, Ledger’s VP of Enterprise, to discuss the significant shift in the crypto market towards institutional adoption and the crucial role of Ledger Enterprise and Trade Link in securing digital assets for treasuries.

“A lot of people that didn’t have crypto on their balance sheet will start having crypto on their balance sheet” – Sebastien Badault

Key Highlights:

The Tsunami of Institutional Adoption

The year 2025 marks a major shift towards institutional adoption in the crypto space, a long-anticipated “institutional wave” that is now a reality. Described as a tsunami, a new wave of growth after past bull runs were primarily driven by private or retail markets.

Bitcoin spot ETFs, launched in 2024, brought billions in inflows, with BlackRock’s ETF alone crossing $30 billion in value, and Ethereum spot ETFs are following suit.

Companies are increasingly putting Bitcoin on their balance sheets, and there’s even talk of Bitcoin being adopted as a strategic reserve asset.

Ledger Enterprise: Security and Governance for Organizations

Ledger Enterprise is introduced as a solution specifically designed for organizations to secure their crypto assets and establish governance layers.

While Ledger is widely known for providing secure self-custody for individual retail customers, Ledger Enterprise extends this security to institutions.

Ledger Enterprise combines hardware (Ledger Stax) for transaction signing and SaaS for governance and transaction facilitation. It targets exchanges, custodians, and asset managers, built from Nano user feedback, and is crucial for organizations to distribute control and prevent single points of failure, ensuring auditability and compliance in a regulated industry.

Trade Link: Off-Exchange Trading Platform

A major development for Ledger Enterprise in 2025 is the introduction of Trade Link, an off-exchange trading platform. This platform significantly enhances the utility of Ledger Enterprise beyond just holding and securing assets, by enabling trading.

Key Benefits:
- No Counterparty Risk: Assets are never on the exchange directly, only during trade settlement, meaning your assets are never on the exchange. This significantly reduces counterparty risk, which can be a critical governance concern for asset managers.
- Flexibility: It allows asset managers to use multiple custodians and multiple exchanges through a single dashboard, providing immense flexibility.
- Reduced Fees: By consolidating pledges through one custodian rather than multiple back-and-forths with various exchanges, Trade Link can reduce trading fees by up to 80% in some cases.
- Wider Access: A revolutionary aspect is that asset managers do not necessarily need to be direct Ledger Enterprise customers to use Trade Link; they can trade securely and cheaply if their custodian uses Ledger Enterprise. “Anyone can have access to all this liquidity and and and all these different exchanges,” explains Sebastian Badault.

Enhanced Security in a High-Stakes Environment

With rapidly increasing on-chain value, crypto owners, especially institutions, become bigger targets for malicious actors. Charles Guillemet, Ledger CTO, predicted that 2025 could see the biggest attacks in the history of blockchain technology, potentially reaching billions of dollars.

Secure Hardware (Ledger Stax/Flex): Ledger’s new devices, Ledger Stax and Ledger Flex, are crucial for Enterprise customers. Their larger screens allow users to clearly understand and consent to complex smart contract transactions, which is vital when dealing with billions in assets. Ian Rogers notes that showing people these new devices helps them see Ledger as something more than crypto.
Protection Against Sophisticated Attacks: The Radiant Capital hack is cited as an example of a very sophisticated, very targeted attack, unlike common phishing attempts. Ledger Enterprise‘s secure hardware solutions, combined with governance, is positioned as the definitive way to protect assets from such high-level threats. states,

“If you want to make sure that your hundreds of millions or billions in assets are secure [Ledger Enterprise] is really the only way to get it done”. – Sebastian Badault

Watch the episode here

Market Outlook and Global Reach

The US is expected to lead in pro-crypto legislation, potentially formalizing the right to self-custody and ushering in significant changes under a pro-crypto administration starting January 20th. This regulatory clarity is expected to open up the market for traditional asset managers. While Europe moves slower, markets like APAC (Singapore, Hong Kong) and Dubai/UAE are showing significant speed in adopting Ledger Enterprise solutions.

Simplicity and Transparency

The United States is positioned to lead in the establishment of crypto-friendly legislation, potentially encompassing self-custody. This shift could significantly reshape the industry with the advent of a new administration by January 20th, thereby enabling the participation of major traditional financial institutions.

While Europe exhibits a slower pace, the APAC region, particularly Singapore and Hong Kong, alongside Dubai/UAE, are rapidly integrating Ledger Enterprise solutions. Sebastian Badault foresees substantial expansion within the cryptocurrency sector commencing in 2025, with Ledger providing essential infrastructure for institutional stakeholders, a secure environment.

Ledger is dedicated to ensuring its Enterprise solution is characterized by simplicity and transparency, reflecting the user experience of widely adopted consumer applications, with explicit, tiered pricing devoid of hidden fees.

Reading List

Learn more about these topics mentioned in the episode, or explore our library of articles on Crypto, Security, and Regulation on Ledger Academy