EP - 92
Ledger x Refraction: Art Innovation in Crypto
with
Mo Sayed, Farokh Sarmad, & Malcolm Levy
Head of Brand Development @ Ledger, Founder @ Rug Radio, & Co-Founder & Curator @ Refraction
Dec 11, 2024
On this special episode from the Ledger 106 experience during NFT Paris, host Farokh is joined by Mo and Malcolm from the Refraction and Ledger teams to explore the powerful intersection of on-chain culture, innovative art, and broader cultural adoption.
The conversation highlights Ledger’s commitment to design and user experience as a gateway to crypto, along with Refraction’s groundbreaking work in tokenizing real-world events.
“This is the next wave, it’s the wave and now it’s like you can catch it now or, you know, you can get struck by the tsunami”. – Malcolm Levy.
Key Highlights:
Art, Culture, and the Next Wave of Crypto Adoption
The Ledger 106 Experience is fundamentally focused on the connection between on-chain culture and broader culture.
Taking place during NFT Paris and a concurrent AI summit, the event aims to provide a good platform for people to be able to discover onchain culture, generative art and generative goods.
“Culture builds a bridge to establish that emotional connection between a product and and the users” – Mo.
The alignment between Refraction and Ledger is evident, as everyone wants the art and the culture to fit just right. The context for crypto adoption has significantly changed, moving beyond just crypto natives to a much wider audience.
Ledger’s Design-First Approach and Expanding Utility
Ledger, while a hardware security company, also operates as a consumer tech company, understanding that successful products like the iPod or iPhone had a cultural aspect to it that made it attractive.
The new Ledger Stax and Ledger Flex devices beautifully designed products with customizable screens, offering a lot more room for creativity. Examples like the Ledger Stax Wall with Emily Edelman, showcase this innovative approach to art display.
These devices extend Ledger’s utility beyond crypto by serving as authentication devices using the FIDO2 standard for securing online accounts.
The strategy is to broaden the audience.
“50% of the guest list are people we know from crypto, the other 50% are people from film fashion, [helping people] start to see them and us as something more than just crypto”. – Mo
The IRL Chain and Expanding Beyond Web3 Natives
Refraction operates as a DAO with approximately 3,000 members globally. It includes technologists, promoters, producers and music artists.
A major development is Refraction’s forthcoming token launch and an actual chain around events. This IRL chain is envisioned as the first blockchain for events and experiences globally products drops ticketing merch royalties loyalty program for points and things like that staking and other other things on the DeFi side. The platform aims to empower promoters, producers, and different venues to also create their own token chain(s).
This initiative is crucial for onboarding people that don’t really know anything about crypto, or maybe don’t care about crypto but understand that there could be something to the blockchain that can help them.
A key method for introduction is the use of points, which serves as an introduction to the benefits of the space without immediate exposure to speculative monetary value via crypto.
Watch the episode here:
Future Outlook & Expected Developments
2024 and beyond are anticipated to be a period of significant expansion for both Ledger and Refraction:
- Refraction’s Token & Chain Launch: Refraction is preparing to launch its IRL token and the IRL chain in late June, following a world tour all year.
- Ledger’s Continued Outreach: Ledger remains committed to increasing self-custody adoption. Despite 500 million crypto owners in the world, only 30 million people do self-custody and only 10 million hardware wallet users exist. Ledger plans to host another Ledger Open this year to continue its engagement with the community.
- Broader Digital Value Security: Ledger’s new devices broaden the concept of digital value security, moving beyond just crypto to securing identity and offering two-factor authentication for online accounts.
Reading List
To learn more about the topics discussed, explore the Ledger Academy and other resources on: