WBD555 Audio Transcription
Bitcoin Security & Freedom with Pascal Gauthier
Release date: Friday 16th September
Note: the following is a transcription of my interview with Pascal Gauthier. I have reviewed the transcription but if you find any mistakes, please feel free to email me. You can listen to the original recording here.
Pascal Gauthier is the CEO of Ledger. In this interview, we discuss how to build and grow a business in a bear market, making the business part of the mission, how nation-states are trying to steal Bitcoins, the vulnerability of software wallets to hacks at scale, and why freedom is not something that we should bargain for.
“I think freedom is what humanity is striving for; I think we should have freedom in our societies, and freedom is not something that we should bargain for.”
— Pascal Gauthier
Interview Transcription
Peter McCormack: Bonjour, Pascal.
Pascal Gauthier: Bonjour, Peter.
Peter McCormack: Ça va?
Pascal Gauthier: Ça va très bien. Bienvenue à Biarritz.
Peter McCormack: Oui.
Pascal Gauthier: Okay, we can switch to English, if you prefer!
Peter McCormack: What did you say, "Are you enjoying Biarritz"?
Pascal Gauthier: No, bienvenue, welcome to Biarritz.
Peter McCormack: Oh, welcome to Biarritz, okay. I mean, I don't remember much from my French from school. I remember little things like, Je m'appelle Peter.
Pascal Gauthier: That's right!
Peter McCormack: J'habite à Bedford. There's a little bit I remember, and that was it! I think I can get by in a restaurant because it's, Je voudrais vin rouge.
Pascal Gauthier: Oui, c'est bien. Du vin rouge, you would say, du vin rouge.
Peter McCormack: Du vin rouge, okay. Maybe I should get back. Anyway, man, how are you? Good to see you.
Pascal Gauthier: Good to see you, man. Good to see you for the first time, actually.
Peter McCormack: No, we've met before.
Pascal Gauthier: Ah, bon?
Peter McCormack: We met in Hong Kong.
Pascal Gauthier: We did, yes, that's true.
Peter McCormack: Yes, that was, what, like four years ago now.
Pascal Gauthier: Okay, but everything that's pre-pandemic, you know, I forgot!
Peter McCormack: It was a brief meeting, very brief meeting, but no, it's good to do this in person and catch up with you. I've got a whole bunch of things I want to talk to you about. It's been a busy time in Bitcoin, it's been a busy time for Ledger. Firstly, congratulations on everything the company's done, it's a great team. I love everything Ian's been doing, by the way, love all the brand work.
But the main reason I wanted to talk to you is that, I messaged you about this the other day, I remember in 2017 or 2018, either you did an interview or there was an article talking about managing a business in a hyper-volatile market. We're now in a bear market and we're seeing some companies struggle, some individuals struggling, and I thought it would be a good time to get you on and talk about your experience with Ledger and what other people can learn from that, because if you want to build a business in Bitcoin, or even crypto, you have to deal with these volatile markets and it can be quite challenging. So, how do you do it, man?
Pascal Gauthier: No, definitely, and it's not the first time that's it's happened actually. I think for the internet in the early years, it was probably the same, where when you try to build a company, usually you always have the same factors, like you have competition, etc. But in my first company, typically we were building in advertising, so we could count on the advertising market. I mean, it was there and you would take your percentage; maybe you would take 1%, maybe 3%, you could aim at 5% or 10%, but it was something that was there and sort of growing.
With Bitcoin, what's different is the other unknown factor when you grow your business is the size of the market; you never know. The size of the market today, the size of the market tomorrow, they vary a lot from $3 trillion, I think it was, to $1 trillion, so maybe to $10 trillion the next day, etc. So, that's a problem for everyone in the industry. It's even more of a problem for Ledger, because we're in hardware. The problem with hardware is you don't build the hardware overnight.
So if, when the market collapses, let's say the people stop buying your product, it doesn't change anything to your hardware planning in a way, because you plan the hardware -- the way that we plan the hardware, we're already thinking about 2025 and 2026. You're not really planning for the next quarter, you're planning for the next years to come, because innovation in hardware, let's say you want to have your Ledger technology inside every phone in the future, that's something that you plan now for release in maybe 2026 or 2027.
So, there is a difficulty in a hardware company in a business that goes up and down, just because you have to have partners, you need to guarantee supply, etc, and if the demand is very volatile, then it's very difficult. So, that's really the hard part in crypto in general, and specifically for Ledger in this market.
But I have to say that in this bear market, things are vastly different. In the previous bear market you were mentioning, 2018, 2019, I think two things have happened. The demand really dropped overnight, like people were like, "Okay, we're not interested any more", so they didn't buy our products; and also, we fucked it up ourselves, because we were trying to launch the Nano X and we missed the launch in January, and then we launched in May, etc, so that was really hard on the company. But it was both the market and us doing it to ourselves as well.
In this bear market, I think first we're much better prepared and the product is better, we have the stock, etc. We are in market, we are pushing the product and we know what we're doing versus in 2019, we didn't really know what we were doing, to be honest. So, Ledger is better and also, the market didn't collapse, meaning that the price of Bitcoin isn't everything anymore; there are many other projects happening everywhere on other things. I know it's not Bitcoin, and this is a Bitcoin show, but NFT is a big trend and NFT communities are still booming everywhere.
If people want to be part of a community, we're launching with BRICK, they're going to do their first drop on Ledger Market in two weeks. This is a great community in LA, it's around music, events, etc. If you want to be part of that community, you need to get the NFT. So, that's not stopping. And so as a result, we've seen year-on-year better demand in H1 this year than H1 last year, higher demand, like two digits, between 15% and 50% depending on the months.
Peter McCormack: Right. What were the key things that happened in 2018, 2019 which helped you prepare for this? I remember reading one of the main issues with the logistics around you building a device, you actually have to supply a product; and so the logistics around supply chains and managing those through a volatile market was the biggest challenge you faced. What was the biggest lesson you took from that to how you plan your business now?
Pascal Gauthier: So, you're correct, the supply chain is very difficult to manage. One of the lessons was you need to have a more robust supply chain, in terms of the choices of the partners. Who you work with in hardware is everything, and like in every market, you've got the A-list and then you've got everybody else. So, in this market, Foxconn is who you want to work with, Flextronics; they are big guys out there that can help you build hardware at scale that are the ones that you need to work to. So, for us it was a big wakeup call to go from amateur hour. We're the little guys in the garage to how do the big boys do it, etc.
What we've done is we've scaled our hardware organisation. We brought advisers, we brought people, etc, of people that have been there and done that. So, there are a bunch of people that work at Ledger now that worked at Apple before. So again, why not recruit from the best? Apple is the best hardware company in the world right now, has been for the past, I don't know, 20 years maybe, at least 15 or 10 for sure, and so most of our advisers actually come from Apple. Most of the guys that are now running hardware at Ledger come from Apple, etc.
So, you recruit the best, they build the best partnerships, and this was the lesson. Because, at some point, either you go big or you go home; that sentence is very true, and so we decided to go big.
Peter McCormack: You went big, okay. It must be difficult though managing the supply chain in terms of stock. I know obviously everything's a derivative of Bitcoin. My show downloads are a derivative of Bitcoin; I'm sure supply, even though it's kept during the bear market, there are certain periods where you've got peak demand. How do you manage that in terms of stock? Do you have to have a very flexible, almost flexible load? I'm thinking almost like the conversations I've had recently with the energy companies; do you have to have a flexible load that allows you to deal with massive changes in demand?
Pascal Gauthier: Yeah, you do. So, what you do with stock is, stock is a big issue, because of just the simple supply and demand issue. You need to have stock to just shift the products, but also from a cash perspective, because stock is cash. If you build stocks that are too big and you don't sell your products, then you've extended yourself with your cash, and you can sort of die in good health. It's completely different; the way that you run the company and the money you put towards your stock are two different things. I mean, Ledger could do very well in terms of a business, but if we invest $200 million in stock, then we have no money on the bank account and you can understand very easily that we die quickly.
So, in a volatile market, I have to say it's not really science, it's art, because nobody does what we do in hardware in general. People have again better ways of projecting the business, and there are better ways of projecting the business, because usually they deliver like a watch or a product that exists in the market. Don't get me wrong though, most hardware companies die; hardware companies actually die very frequently, and hardware business is very difficult. When you go and raise money to VCs and say you are in hardware, usually it's the black mark of this business, it's like, "Oh, yeah, hardware. That's great", and then, "This is the door, see you later".
Hardware businesses are very hard in general, and hardware businesses in crypto are even harder, and this is why you see that you don't have many companies actually doing it. You have a lot of companies that are subscale and I'm saying it because it's true, I'm not trying to brag that Ledger is the best, or whatever, but it's true that if you look at most of the hardware companies in the business, they're really subscale, and why? Because, it's very hard to scale. How do you ship your product; how do you deal on an ecommerce platform; how do you deal with the supply chain where you can build millions of devices?
There's one thing to do 10,000 devices; there's one thing to do 1 million devices; but it's another game to do 10 million or 100 million. So, the problem is, if you're trying to build a real consumer business, my game is how do I go from 2 million to 3 million devices a year to 30 million devices a year? That's what I'm trying to do and getting the company ready for it. So, 30 million a year is very different from 3 million. But there are stages, and we discussed what's bad, but I can tell you what's good too.
What was good with the crypto market for Ledger is actually two-time. People think that in business, you will need to go fast, fast, fast. But for security, actually you need to go slower, because you can't be wrong, you have to be almost close to 100% right all the time. So, the fact that the market didn't grow so fast from 2014 to 2017 was actually a really good time to do R&D. And during those years at Ledger, the question was always, "Is this even relevant?" We didn't know, we almost killed doing hardware wallets every year. At every board meeting, it was like, "Shall we still do hardware wallets, or should we move on to do something different?"
But that time was actually a gift, because we had time to do R&D, etc. It's stressful when you do it, because it's like, "Do we have a business?" But when we kicked off in 2017, we had the Nano S, it was a very solid product, it had been battle-tested quietly during all these months, let's say, or years, because the Nano S was a result of many R&D projects that we did before. And then, the Nano X was an evolution of the Nano S, but all of this was very strong, battle-tested, etc, which is why you have five leading devices in the world right now, and Ledger has never been hacked.
So, the fact that the market is slow and sometimes slows down, for us it's actually good, because then we can go back into product mode, R&D, develop something, etc. If the market moves too fast, security doesn't really have time to catch up, and then it becomes a problem.
Peter McCormack: I'm actually still using my Nano S I bought, I think it was around early 2017.
Pascal Gauthier: Correct.
Peter McCormack: Actually, I still have that device and I still use that one; it's stood the test of time.
Pascal Gauthier: If you're Bitcoin only, you don't need anything else but a Nano S.
Peter McCormack: Well, I do actually, because I multisig now, so I have to have a range to de-risk.
Pascal Gauthier: Okay.
Peter McCormack: So, do you have additional complications that you have to think about with regard to security that other hardware companies don't, in that I know other hardware companies can face issues of hacking or hackers, but you also have to think about the man-in-the-middle attacks within the supply chain? So, you have a whole bunch of other stuff you have to think about.
Pascal Gauthier: In terms of securing our supply chain, you mean?
Peter McCormack: Yeah, well you have to secure the device, the supply chain; there are so many additional things you have to secure.
Pascal Gauthier: Yes, but the way that we design our security scheme is that we don't need to worry about things as much as the others, because the way that we design our security element, the way that our operating system is put into it, etc, only us control that. So in reality, we can build our devices anywhere in the world. So, we don't have supply chain attacks the way that other manufacturers could have, because it's true that if you put your hands on other types of devices, you could just build fake devices or put a back door into them fairly easily, which is not the case with Ledger.
We say, but we can also actually prove it, as soon as you connect your Ledger, you can do a genuine check, etc, to make sure that the device hasn't been tampered with. So, this is a fundamental difference actually between us and some of the other players in the industry; we can build at scale, because we can build anywhere in the world, where other players have to keep a really tight control over their supply chain, because of those types of attacks, like the supply chain attacks, where you could inject something wrong in the device. We don't have that problem, which is why we can manufacture in Vietnam, in China, in Poland, in Mexico, wherever we want to manufacture.
Actually, if you think about long term, because this is possible, then it becomes scalable. If it was not possible, it's not scalable, and then you can never do a mass market; because the thing is, what we do in crypto is we have customers everywhere in the world, day one. For us, it's very natural, but for any other business in the world, it never happens like that. We've shipped one product in every country in the world, at least one product in every country in the world, like every country in the world.
Peter McCormack: Wow!
Pascal Gauthier: If you think about any other business, that's not true, nobody does that. And we shipped ourselves; we didn't have a third party shipping for us, or some distributor in Kazakhstan, or whatever. No, we shipped directly, and that's uncommon, and that's very difficult, and it's something that usually ecommerce companies don't do. But we have to do it because it's crypto and because everyone is doing Bitcoin everywhere in the world.
Peter McCormack: And so, with everything you learnt from 2017, 2018, 2019, and I guess a lot of your time was on the day-to-day logistics and operations, the company's now at a stage where you're actually thinking multiple years ahead and you're planning for, I mean did you just say 30 million devices?
Pascal Gauthier: Yes, tens of millions, yes.
Peter McCormack: So, you have to kind of project where you think the market is going over the next few years to build into that. And I guess that also comes with some risk itself. If you predict 30 million and the market's 20 million…?
Pascal Gauthier: No, but I mean 30 million is just an order of magnitude. It's just like I know I have to have some kind of optionality, and so the optionality is the kind of partnerships you have. Like, you know that if you do a partnership with a manufacturer that can only build 2 million a year, ballpark, so you know your optionality is 2 million. If you do a partnership with a manufacturer that can build hundreds of millions of devices a year, like Foxconn, then you know you have bigger optionality.
So, I'm just trying to build my business so I have the optionality, and then we'll see what the result is. Also, maybe it's 30 million, maybe it's 100 million or maybe it's billions of devices. If you think that one day, every phone on the planet, every smartphone on the planet could be shipped with some Ledger technology inside, we're talking billions of devices, etc, and so that's a whole different game, because you will still have Ledger hardware into phones. That's not impossible, that's actually a strong possibility that this will happen in the near future.
Peter McCormack: So, is that something you're looking into then?
Pascal Gauthier: Yeah, we always said it quite openly. The external device, the way that we've designed it, I would call it a necessary evil. And don't get me wrong, I think the product is great, it works super-great, but people always feel that for mass adoption, people always feel like, "Why should I have a secondary device?" I would actually argue to say, "Well, you do have a wallet and a phone, so you actually have two devices". What Ledger is trying to do with the Nano and our products today, and what we call a hardware wallet, is just to replace your wallet.
What Apple did to your phone and designed the iPhone, we're going to do it to your wallet, and soon your wallet will be a Ledger. If you look into your pocket, I'm sure you have a wallet.
Peter McCormack: It's over there, actually!
Pascal Gauthier: It's over there, but you do have a wallet, everyone has a wallet, and why is a wallet still non-technical? It's weird that the wallet is still these pieces of metal, leather and cards and tickets, etc. All of these should be dematerialised and that should be in your Ledger. And if you think about it, what you want your digital wallet to be is very different from your phone. Your phone, you watch movies, you play video games, etc; the batteries is a short time, maybe you have it for one day or sometimes half a day, depending on your usage, etc.
On your wallet, you want it to be on all the time. You don't want to be in a situation where you need to pay, or you need to do that transaction and your wallet says, "Sorry, no battery". So, we think these are two very different programmes. So, that's good and well and that's going to stay, I think. So, the external device that's going to be your wallet, that's going to be your Ledger. However, in your Ledger, you will have everything that is important to you in terms of your digital self. You're going to have your Bitcoin, you're going to have eventually, at some point, your identity, your health data, etc, everything that is digitally and critically important to you and that you really want to secure.
The ability to have this ported into several devices, because sometimes you want it in your phone, sometimes you want it in your wallet, etc, I think that's going to be important, so we're catering for these two futures, where maybe you're going to have Ledger inside your phone and Ledger will be your wallet.
Peter McCormack: Well, I do have my wallet with me, but I have noticed recently, I don't always take my wallet out these days, because since you have the ability to pay with your phone, that was a big game-changer. I have to bring my wallet here, because I needed my identity for renting a car, so I had to have my driving licence. It's little things like that, and there's somewhere to put receipts, which I have to carry around still; I still get printed receipts from some places! But that future of not having a wallet, I think it is getting closer.
Pascal Gauthier: Well, either it's a future of not having a wallet, which is why we're catering for two futures, because nobody can exactly predict the future, and this is why we have the two streams. I still argue that the reason that you don't use your wallet is because it's non-technical and it's shit compared to your phone. Your phone is a better delivery mechanism for all those things that you just described. Now I would say that every time I'm travelling with my phone and I need to flash my plane ticket or I need to do something, I'm always worrying about the battery.
The thing is, okay, you're travelling and so you're watching a movie, you're reading a book. You're doing everything with your phone, but the thing is, it's consuming your battery. And at some point, you need to be doing something very important, and you're always managing your battery in your head. You're like, "Oh, shit, I only have 30%. Now I'm going to stop watching movies", and that's not good for the future; the future can't happen like this.
Also, one thing that is fundamentally true right now is that your phone is not secure. So the problem becomes, sure, it's easy to have everything in your phone, but what if everything gets stolen? So before you say, "It's just my email, stuff that is annoying but not life-changing". Now, if I take all of your Bitcoins from you, how is that life-changing for you?
Peter McCormack: I mean, I'm going to be pretty pissed!
Pascal Gauthier: Exactly. So, your identity, all of the things that are going to create your digital self, people talk about the metaverse, but the metaverse is just you having a digital self that you control. Right now, you control your body, I mean as much as you can, but we all control our body, we are physical beings, but what is our digital being today? Your digital being is mostly your Bitcoins, because they're your own, and then we don't own much else. Everything is Google, Apple, etc.
In the future, you'll own everything on your Ledger and then you'll distribute the right for others to use. That's what Web3 decentralisation, metaverse, that's what people are talking about. It's like, "I've got my digital self and I can put it into different online experiences, or offline experiences". If I've got that NFT to get to that surfing Bitcoin party tonight, I can enter, but that's my digital self that is being put into the physical world to give me access to an experience.
Peter McCormack: You mention there about the security of phones, so how much time do you guys spend looking at the security of other devices, and how poor is the security on phones then?
Pascal Gauthier: So, we spend a lot of time looking at security of everything, because we have an attack lab internally, it's called the Donjon, they publish everything that we find. So, we're not trying to be annoying, we're trying to raise the bar of security for everyone in the market. So, when we break something, usually we do something that's called "responsible disclosure". So, we reach out to the team, we say, "Hey, this is the flaw that we found and we can help you patch it". So, once it's all patched and upgraded on devices, then we release the attack and we say, "Okay, this is what we found, but there have been patches". So, it's all documented on the Donjon website, etc.
We do actually have, I think it's 20 white hats right now and we're going to 30, so we have the biggest and more advanced attack lab when it comes to Bitcoin, crypto, Web3, I mean you name it. We were presenting at Black Hat the other week in Las Vegas, we presented again this year two papers. And so presenting at Black Hat, one paper is difficult, two papers is very difficult, and we've done that every year since we built the Donjon.
Peter McCormack: That's a significant investment in that team then, right?
Pascal Gauthier: Oh, yeah.
Peter McCormack: What is the reason to do it? Is it responsibility of a business, a bit like how maybe some companies will sponsor developers within the Bitcoin space; is this considered a responsible thing within hardware?
Pascal Gauthier: We have a duty to our customers, and they want to be safe with us; this is what we say, and so we have to deliver it. And so for me, it's a necessary part of the business. You can't run a security company if you don't have an attack lab, period, because security's cat and mouse. People will attack, and so you need to defend. But in order to defend, you need to attack yourself to see how to get in and what to do, etc, and you need to have the best guys on your side.
The other guys are good, very good, and actually people that will be attacking Bitcoin and crypto and users in general are just not like kids in a garage, they're also rogue states, like North Korea. They have done many hacks in the past and this is how they finance some of their activities; various organisations, etc. So, some guys that are top level in terms of technology and they have time, resources, etc, that's all that they do.
When the Ukrainian/Russian war happened, some of those hacker groups, where they had both Ukrainian/Russians starting to tell on each other, so you could discover the magnitude of their organisations. I can't remember the name of that organisation, but the Donjon presented this to me the other day. Those guys are 2,500 employees. It's a hacker organisation, 2,500 employees and 10,000 auxiliaries.
Peter McCormack: Pretty big.
Pascal Gauthier: Yeah, it's big. 2,500 guys that wake up every morning thinking, "Okay, who am I going to hack today; what data am I going to steal, Bitcoin?" etc, 2,500, which is why you see when a domain is under attack, or sometimes Ledger users, etc, it feels fucking relentless. People are coming after you every day, and they're good and they move fast, etc, and you're thinking, "Wow, 2 kids in a garage?" And you're like, "Well, I guess not, it's 2,500 people". So, they have an organisation, they had roadmaps. They do the same that we do, but to steal your money or your data, so that's what's happening right now.
When it comes to phones, yes, it's unsecure. Phones and computers have been built for security, but it's certainly not crypto security. The private key is a new problem. The private key for Bitcoin is a new problem. Actually, that problem was solved by the banks with the chip and PIN technology on your credit card, because before, the magnetic band didn't work in terms of security, but the chip and PIN is better. So, that's what we have in the Ledger, it's actually the chip and PIN that you have in credit cards, except that before it was protecting your bank secrets; now, it's protecting your secrets.
But your phone, your iPhone, has not been protected to protect any secrets. And furthermore, you can even argue that there is a whole firmware and hardware industry that never quite looked at it, because everyone had an interest for this to be slightly open.
Peter McCormack: Right.
Pascal Gauthier: Governments, governmental agencies, they actually like the fact that they can look into your phone from time to time. There is a market for it, it's called a zero-day exploit, and now zero-day zero-click with big gadgets that happened last summer. Do you know what it is?
Peter McCormack: No, I've heard of zero-days, but not zero-day zero-click.
Pascal Gauthier: So, zero-day, zero-click. So, before zero-day, basically you get in the phone through the firmware, because there is a crack in the firmware, and so this is where you get in. So, everything that sits on top of the firmware, all the apps, etc, then becomes accessible. So, this is why, when you have a software wallet on your phone, your private keys through the firmware, anyone can see them. So, if someone comes with zero-day into your phone, your private keys are as good as gone, like 30 seconds. And actually, we documented it with the Donjon, it's online, you can check. It's called "Software wallet attack Donjon Ledger". Type that and you will see how we can extract the private keys from your phone or your computer in less than 30 seconds. The only thing it takes is to put a malware on your phone and then, boom, it's done. So, that's zero-day.
Zero-day zero-click is, I get access to your phone -- and so before, you had to do an action. So, zero-day is, I get into your phone, but I need you to click on a banner or I need you to open an app or I need you to do something. Zero-day zero-click is, "Give me your phone number and then I can access your phone".
Peter McCormack: What? Just with a phone number?
Pascal Gauthier: Yes.
Peter McCormack: Hold on, is that like what happened with, I can't remember the name of the group. Were they an Israeli group?
Pascal Gauthier: Yes.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, they would send a text message, and the text message gave them access.
Pascal Gauthier: Yes.
Peter McCormack: Has that been patched?
Pascal Gauthier: No. So, zero-days and zero-click exploits, there is a market. There are brokers. You can actually google it yourself, go online and you can buy it. So, the most expensive is $2 million and there are a range of prices to get access to, because it depends on the phone model, etc, the operating system that is on it, etc. But you have prices from I don't know how much, all the way up to $2 million.
Peter McCormack: So, are all our phones essentially exposed right now?
Pascal Gauthier: Yeah, 100%. I mean, Apple just patched two zero-day exploits last week. They were like, "We've found the patch now", but it's been open for however long.
Peter McCormack: Okay, but are they zero-day zero-click ones?
Pascal Gauthier: I don't know, maybe these ones were. But the point is, the zero-day market is not disappearing any day soon. There are multiple ways -- so, the problem with the phone is this, and it's a very easy way to explain it. So, we have $1 billion in gold bars and you're in charge of security, so this is physical, right. So I tell you, "Peter, I want you to take that building and secure the gold". You say, "Okay, I'll do it". I say, "Wait, on the rooftop, I want also to have a nightclub, I want to have a shopping mall on floor one and two, and I want to have a kids' centre on floor five", I'm like, "You go do it". So, what's going to be your reaction?
Peter McCormack: I mean it's like, "Hold on!" I get your analogy; you're basically saying separate the storing of your Bitcoin from your phone, because your phone's going to do all these different things. You're going to be texting, videos, Apple TV, Spotify and every one of those can be exposed; let's not put your Bitcoin on there.
Pascal Gauthier: Correct. When you do multiple things like this, everything is an attack vector. Your Netflix could become something. It's just like having a building with too many windows, too many doors, etc, and people are like, "Well, I'm going to go in like this or like that", etc. So, to the example, digital security is physical. So, when you see a secure element and you look at it with a microscope, it looks like a little city, it's hardware. So, it's like physical defence.
So, the example of how do you secure gold in the building is very similar to, how do you secure your Bitcoin in a phone or on a device. If you want a device to do too many things, like the nightclub, etc, then people are getting through the nightclub and suddenly it's like, "Oh, shit, those guys, they came through the nightclub and they stole the gold", which is why the Nano S and then the Nano X, they only do very few things. You validate transactions; that's it. You have a secure screen and a validator; that's all it does. You don't have a snake, you don't play video games, you don't have anything else, because this is how you do the best security; you get something to do something very minimal.
This is why, back to our conversation of, are we going to be your new wallet, or are we going to be in the phone? It's very difficult to predict the future, because also in terms of security, if you start to put Ledger in the phone, then you start to have attack vectors coming from everywhere, and so how do you secure? Usually, the only way you can secure is a kill switch, where suddenly you've got your phone, you kill the phone thing, you switch to hardware wallet, and suddenly you have a phone that only does minimal things, just like the hardware wallet things.
Peter McCormack: I would have thought some people who are the companies who are creating software wallets won't like this, because what you're essentially saying to me here really is that any Bitcoin you're holding in a software wallet on your phone is at risk?
Pascal Gauthier: As good as gone, yes.
Peter McCormack: As good as gone?
Pascal Gauthier: As good as gone. As soon as you download -- I mean, it only takes you to download an app with the malware on it, voilà, that's all it takes. I mean, it's not a very difficult hack. And by the way, you can quote me on this in two years, it will happen at scale. Right now, it hasn't happened at scale.
Peter McCormack: Has a hack actually happened, because what I'm thinking, I'm not going to name them for now, but I can think of a number of software wallets, Bitcoin software wallets that exist in the market, successful companies, because you're basically saying anyone who's holding Bitcoin in those wallets on their phone, you're saying it's as good as gone if someone wants to get it?
Pascal Gauthier: Yes. And so, two things.
Peter McCormack: Hold on, why isn't this being actively discussed publicly?
Pascal Gauthier: Because we're saying it, but nobody cares. Attends, so two things. First, if you're on a software wallet today and you're actively targeted, like you, so your risk is maximum, because the way I can access you, either with a SIM swap, or target specifically your phone if I get your phone number, which is not very difficult to find, etc --
Peter McCormack: No, easy.
Pascal Gauthier: So, if you've got your private keys on your phone, honestly your percentage of chance that it's going to be gone anytime soon is closer to 100% than to 0%. Now, if people don't know you or don't know that you have Bitcoin, etc, your percentage decreases, but there are potential attacks that are coming in the future where malware will be deployed at scale, through the App Stores of Apple and Google, and they have no control over this; so, malware will be deployed at scale and so people will just deploy malware on any phone that downloads app A, B, C or D, or whatever. And suddenly, they will wipe out all the devices.
They will just search in any device, like what you have; they will try to see if there are private keys, and if they find, they will extract them. This is an attack that we have documented with the Donjon. It's online, it's published, I'll send you the link --
Peter McCormack: Yeah, please do.
Pascal Gauthier: -- but we've shown it. So, when you ask software manufacturers, they're like, "Well, it hasn't happened yet, it's a more difficult attack", etc. So the question is, why hasn't it happened yet? The answer is because there are easier ways to steal your money. I mean, phishing is very cheap, and very easy to steal money with phishing. Also, there are bigger fish to fry. For hackers, there are other things, not just Bitcoin, in the world that bring them a lot of money. And so right now, you don't have 100% full force of hackers focus on this.
But if we go back to $3 trillion, $4 trillion, $5 trillion, $10 trillion, $100 trillion, so we're catering for the next five years, or the next ten years. In ten years, of course these attacks will happen at scale. So anyone who's on MetaMask, or any software wallet right now that is on the phone, they're risking to lose their funds every day.
Peter McCormack: Okay, so MetaMask itself is also entirely at risk?
Pascal Gauthier: Yeah. You need to pair your MetaMask with a Ledger, or with some form of hardware security, otherwise MetaMask on your computer, on your phone, it's a risk. They know it, everybody knows it; it's documented.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I'm just surprised I've not heard about it, or why people aren't talking about this a bit more, because so many people are using -- I mean, I have a software wallet, but I keep a small amount of Bitcoin on there, sometimes less than £20, just if I need it. If I meet somebody, they haven't got Bitcoin, I'm like, "Download a wallet and let me show you".
Pascal Gauthier: But that's an acceptable risk. If you lose £20 of Bitcoin, okay.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, it's like keeping a £20 note in my wallet, it's an acceptable risk.
Pascal Gauthier: Yeah, exactly.
Peter McCormack: Also, you have that convenience of being able to pay, like I have with Apple Pay.
Pascal Gauthier: Correct. But that I would do. If you've got £500 that you want to keep in a software wallet, okay, there is a risk. But when you walk in the street with £500 in your pocket, there is a risk.
Peter McCormack: Not £500,000.
Pascal Gauthier: Yeah, but would you walk with £5,000 or £50,000? You don't.
Peter McCormack: No. I mean, generally speaking, always less than a few hundred, and very often less than £50.
Pascal Gauthier: So, this is it. I think you should treat your software wallet as a wallet that you have in your pocket when you're walking in the street. And if people look into your pocket, they take it from you. This is exactly as easy as that with a software wallet.
Peter McCormack: Do we know if this is a same risk with Lightning?
Pascal Gauthier: No, Lightning has a different threat model.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, so from what I understand --
Pascal Gauthier: With Lightning, you don't have your private keys.
Peter McCormack: You don't have your private keys. So in some ways, if I'm only using Lightning on my phone, it kind of de-risks it, as compared to having basechain Bitcoin?
Pascal Gauthier: Yeah, correct. But Lightning right now is not ready to transfer $500,000 in Bitcoin, it's more for the small transactions. So we get back to, if it's small it's okay and software wallets are fine because they're easy to use, etc; but as soon as you have value you don't want to lose, you can't trust a software wallet to do a good job securing it for you.
Peter McCormack: Can hardware wallets support Lightning?
Pascal Gauthier: In the current form, not really; in future forms, yes.
Peter McCormack: Is that in the roadmap, are you planning?
Pascal Gauthier: Yes.
Peter McCormack: Do you know how far away we are from that, because that's one of the things that I would love to have as part of my Ledger, is the ability to use Lightning with it.
Pascal Gauthier: We are between a year and two years away from it.
Peter McCormack: A year and two years? All right, man, I'll hold you to that. All right, well that's definitely something I'm going to have to speak to some people about and ask questions about why that's not been discussed, because it's kind of irresponsible for it not to be out there. We're exposing people to risk.
Pascal Gauthier: Yeah, I mean, I'll send you --
Peter McCormack: Just send it all!
Pascal Gauthier: There is one page, I'll send it to you. You'll see we document it with video. So, you'll play the videos and you'll see what we can do.
Peter McCormack: So, you've actually swept the Bitcoin?
Pascal Gauthier: Yes.
Peter McCormack: I just want to check out these marketplaces for zero-day exploits. Is it like dark market stuff?
Pascal Gauthier: No, it's all public, it's all legit, it's all legal. This is a business. Everybody wants to look under the hood. There is actually the IRS in the US that has a bounty programme I think, or I don't know how they spin it, but they have a bounty programme to try to open the Ledger.
Peter McCormack: It's still not been done?
Pascal Gauthier: No, it's still not done. And by the way, we hope that if they ever find a way in, they'll let us know so we can patch it. But so far, no one has ever found a way in. But to tell you that legit -- I mean, the IRS is a legit organisation, people should pay taxes, I'm fine with that. But they're looking at ways into systems and technology, etc, to extract what they need to extract when they need to extract it; that's the game.
Peter McCormack: I'm going to talk to you about another subject now. I want to talk to you a little bit more about freedom. You supported the truckers out in Canada when I said I was going to give a bunch of devices away. Then you guys came in and said, "We'll just give you them", which by the way, thank you very much, everyone really appreciated that.
One of the questions I wanted to ask you, you're a business, a regulated business, you operate within the structure of the law here and in France and globally; but at the same time, you're a business that offers people the opportunity to be self-sovereign and take control of their money and sometimes people would argue, route around government. So, how do you walk that fine line?
Pascal Gauthier: By thinking there is no fine line.
Peter McCormack: Okay.
Pascal Gauthier: I think freedom is what humanity is striving for. I think we should have freedom in our societies and freedom is not something that we should bargain for. So, if I want to be free -- I am in a situation where I'm not guilty until proven otherwise. So therefore, I want to live my life freely and do what I want with my money, because I'm not a terrorist, I'm not a drug dealer; I'm a law-abiding citizen, so therefore I don't see why I should have control, people overseeing my moves and everything that I do.
But we lost sight of this a little bit in the past, because our freedom has been taken away bit by bit because, or thanks to, technology. Technology has helped governments, regulators, etc, to take. And also, because of these greater good theories, "We're going to check if you're not a drug dealer or a terrorist every time you do something with your money, because it's for the great good. You understand? We're trying to catch the drug dealers and the terrorists".
I'm like, "At some point, the greater good is just bad". The greater good is bad for the individual and bad for individual freedoms. But we are being pushed into the narrative, so now we feel like, "Oh, shit, if I'm doing something on my own, am I being subversive; am I being anti-government, etc?" I'm not being anti-government. I think governments do what they have to do, and for a large part they do well. But equally, I think individual freedom is everything.
So me, I think what we're trying to do with Ledger is give technology to people to be free. Technology that's been put in the hands of people up until now doesn't really free them. You capture them and put them into an environment that's controlled by very, very few people, like an oligarchy that decides. And for me, when I entered into crypto in general, I was thinking I was done with the Steve Jobs/Zuckerberg model, where these guys decide for me what is good for me, what is good to put on Facebook. Every member on Facebook, there was this thing where this picture of the Vietnam War was the little girl with the --
Peter McCormack: Right, running away from the napalm bomb.
Pascal Gauthier: From the napalm bomb, yeah. It was classified as child pornography by Facebook. I was like, "What the fuck?"
Peter McCormack: One of the most famous photos ever taken.
Pascal Gauthier: Ever taken. How is that child pornography?
Peter McCormack: Algorithm.
Pascal Gauthier: No, no.
Peter McCormack: It's not algorithm?
Pascal Gauthier: No, it's decision, people made decision. Algorithms are designed by people, etc. And actually, when Facebook got told about this, it took them fucking ages to recognise, "Oh, okay, maybe it's not child pornography". And actually, if you know how Facebook works and meta, etc, it's really a top-down organisation, some people decide, etc. Why can't you download -- why don't you have porn into your iOS, into your Apple App Store; why not?
Peter McCormack: Steve Jobs hates porn, he hated porn, he said it so. I remember him specifically saying that he doesn't want the Apple device to be used for porn.
Pascal Gauthier: That's why I don't have an iPhone, just for that. This is why I don't run on iPhone, because I'm like -- by the way, I don't have any porn on my phone, I don't care!
Peter McCormack: But it's freedom.
Pascal Gauthier: It's not the point. If someone wants it, why would Steve Jobs decide that it's not good for them. I hate that mentality, and it's all that we've seen with Web2, it's super-centralisation, it's big corporations that decide on everything, and they've become so powerful that you become paralysed and they take away your freedom. Try to negotiate with Google; good luck, as an individual, even as a company. It's very difficult. Do you know we're still banned from buying ads from Google?
Peter McCormack: You are? Because, what, you are a Bitcoin company, a crypto company?
Pascal Gauthier: I don't know, it makes no sense. They say, "Because you guys are not regulated". I'm like, "Yes, because we are technology. It's like phones are not regulated, so hardware wallets are not regulated". "Yes, but you need regulation to be able to --" I mean, it's just a nonsense. But my point is, they get to decide, they become too powerful, etc.
I think what's happening with crypto in general is super-interesting. It's back to decentralisation, it's back to the Web1 early days of freedom and emancipation, etc, that got taken away from us, willingly by the way. I'm not just saying that there are evil forces at play, I'm just saying people go where it's easier. So, people become also lazy.
Peter McCormack: It's convenient.
Pascal Gauthier: So, for us now to battle ourselves and to be like, "Okay, well I will sacrifice a little convenience for more freedom", maybe something like that. Or, what we're trying to do really is to give you the same convenience, but with freedom. So, that's what Ledger is striving for. This is why we say security and ease of use. Ease of use will be your convenience and security will be your freedom. I think that's what's happening. Decentralisation and Bitcoin, I think the ability to participate in a public ledger, to exchange value, all of this is very powerful, and we think it can really change the world in the way that people approach technology and the web.
Peter McCormack: So, with your company being a freedom-based company, how much of it is mission driven, how much of it is driven by just commercial interest? Have you personally now flipped to the point where you're just mission driven to bring freedom to the world?
Pascal Gauthier: Well for me, why a company exists, and if it's a for-profit company, it also has to be business. I don't distinguish the two, because actually business is good, it's a virtuous look. If you don't do business, you might have high morale, but who gives a shit about you, because you can't actually build the devices, you can't actually develop the technology, you can't actually make it great. So I think for me, why Ledger exists is to give freedom to people, so how we do it is through hardware wallets, etc.
We need to make money and we need to make high margin, etc, to keep on investing into security with the Donjon, to keep on investing into thinking about new devices, etc. And so me personally, I hate the CEOs, they're like, "Oh no, I'm all about the mission and the business comes after". I'm like, "But the business is part of the mission". If you don't do business -- we're not philosophers, we're businesspeople and we need to make business. By the way, I'll send it to you, I learnt a lot from Nike and there's a great book by Knight called Shoe Dog.
Peter McCormack: Do you like my shoes today?
Pascal Gauthier: I do like your shoes.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, these are Nikes. So, I bought these recently and I went on holiday with my kids and my son forgot his trainers, so I had two pairs. He wore them the whole time and everywhere he went, people were like, "I like your trainers", and since I've worn them, not one person's said it to me. It's bullshit!
Pascal Gauthier: But Shoe Dog is a great story, and Nike at some point had a manifesto. And I said, "This is everything that we're going to do", I'll send you the manifesto, it's amazing. They don't talk about making money. And at the end they say, "And if we do all of this, we'll make a lot of money". So, this is how I think about the business for Ledger. This is everything we're going to do and if it's great, then we'll make money.
So your mission is first, and the why the company exists I think is first, but then at the end, if you do the right thing, then you'll make money; because, there's no way that you're going to be great and people are not going to want to pay for it.
Peter McCormack: And I think it's important for the industry to have, well not just one actually, multiple large manufacturers of the product. You actually strangely need competition.
Pascal Gauthier: Yeah, of course. The competition right now is too weak. I've got a lot of respect for everyone, but what's happening is a bunch of teams are too mission driven and not enough business driven. It's all about powers to the maxis, etc. I mean, it's great, but this is not business to consumer. In the end, if you really want to help people, you need to have money to help them.
But it's not just in crypto, it's in the world in general. People are like, "Oh no, let's do all these things, but let's kill the business, because business is bad". I'm like, "No, business is what fuels all these things that you want to do". So, if you want the planet to be greener, cleaner, or if you want to move away from fossil fuels and all those things, it's all good and well, but you'd better make money to do it, because otherwise no one is going to make it.
When you travel the world, you see countries with less money, not as clean, not as efficient, etc. So, making money and driving the economy is good for everything. So, if we want freedom, we need money to achieve it.
Peter McCormack: And Ledger is making good money, which is good; it's successful.
Pascal Gauthier: Ledger is making good money and we're reinvesting a lot. So, we're not greedy bastards, we try to do what's right and we try to build a great business; and great business is a lot of investment. So, all of this is a real virtual cycle. If we make money, we reinvest the money that we're making.
Peter McCormack: The other thing I wanted to talk to you about while we're here is, have you been following what's been happening with Ethereum and the merge and Tornado Cash?
Pascal Gauthier: Yes.
Peter McCormack: You have? So, I was actually in one of your Ledger Spaces the other day with Dan Held discussing that.
Pascal Gauthier: And Seth as well, no?
Peter McCormack: Yeah, Seth as well, it was a really good session. So firstly, what do you make of what happened with Tornado Cash?
Pascal Gauthier: Well, so Seth is our public policy guy, so if you guys connect to what we did on Twitter Space, and also Seth has a great Twitter thread that he's done on this, very simply said, Tornado Cash could be a big problem, because certainly it's freedom of speech that is being banned. Open-source code is freedom of speech, and so to start pointing at open-source code and putting people in jail, etc, for this, it starts to be a huge problem.
There will be an uphill battle on these topics, because what we're doing with crypto is huge in terms of how it changes everything, how it's now only mathematics, etc. So first of all, I think it's normal that sometimes the regulators will have a very strong negative reaction first to something they don't control, don't understand, don't want to see, etc. But this is why, as an industry, as individuals, etc, we need to fight, because if open-source code becomes punishable by law, then it's like free speech that is gone, basically.
Peter McCormack: I wonder how enforceable it will be though, and it has that shilling effect as well, in that developers will be thinking, "Could I be arrested for this code I'm writing here today?"
Pascal Gauthier: So, I didn't follow exactly, but the guy who got arrested in the Netherlands, I mean it's happening, no?
Peter McCormack: Yeah.
Pascal Gauthier: So, if every developer in the world can now be put in jail because they put a piece of code on the internet, that's an issue.
Peter McCormack: How do we fight it?
Pascal Gauthier: Well, first of all we need to realise one thing is, most of these decisions are ill-informed, so I think there's a lot of education that needs to go on. We're trying to do it in the US, in Europe, and with every legislator, regulator, government that we can talk to; and most of the time, what you find is people are really misinformed. They just read the headlines of, "Bitcoin is for terrorists. Bitcoin is killing the planet, because of the energy consumption", and all these things.
For us, it sounds really stupid, but it is the truth for most people. So first of all, you need to debunk all these things. But then, it's a one-by-one debunk. You need to actually sit down, talk to people, etc, which we've done at the European level typically recently with Seth, and then you have two categories of people. You have the people that are ill-informed and then when you explain to them what's happening and in good faith, etc, they do understand, they change their minds like, "Oh, okay, I didn't get it, so okay, that's fine, that we can do". Then you have the dogmatic people.
So, the dogmatic people, they're enemies, they just don't want freedom, they want to imprison people, they know what's best for you always, "We'll tell you what's best for you, then we'll make the law that you can't do barbecues anymore", okay! So, you need to know who are your friends and who are your enemies. The enemies we'll need to find a way to make their voice as small as possible, or kill them with so much kindness and good information that it's going to be very hard for them to debate otherwise.
But I think it's going to be a strong debate, I think it's going to be a lot of discussion, a lot of communication, etc, and we all have a role to play. So, Ledger will play its part, but the industry and people in general; people don't realise the power they have. If you write to your députés in France, to your representatives, if all of us write to them on every legislation that they need to pass, they change their mind pretty quickly because you vote for them.
Peter McCormack: Do you think we need a little bit more coordination in Europe, in that in the US we have the Bitcoin Policy Institute, we have Coin Center, actively well-funded groups of people who are -- well actually, I say actively well-funded, I know Coin Center's well-funded, I'm not sure how well-funded Bitcoin Policy Institute is; but there are people there who are actively working with regulators directly to educate them, and it's two well-established groups.
We don't really have that in Europe, we certainly don't have it in the UK, and we've seen the attempted legislation that's come in from the European Parliament. I know Ledger is doing some of the work, but do you think we need our own version of this?
Pascal Gauthier: Oh yeah, 100%, but Seth is working on it, and so we've taken the leadership on this in a constructive, sustainable, professional manner. There are a lot of people that do things, but usually it's a one shot, or sometimes it's about… We're in a world of self-promotion and being on Twitter and being perceived as a great human being, but we at Ledger, we are really trying to build for the long run and the future in a bit of a selfless way.
I don't care that Pascal Gauthier -- I do really care about my customers first, I do care about the citizens, I do care about freedom, so what we're trying to do is always around those lines. So with Seth, we decided that we were going to take on the challenge of building something for Europe, and that's what Seth is doing. So, we have a lot of traction right now, there is a bunch of people that will come around us and will build something at the European level.
Actually, Ledger originated the ADAN in France, so the association that we have in France that's coming from a project that we had at Ledger, etc. We were very supportive of the ADAN and it's actually good that we built this. But at the time when we built this, my team was working on it and I said to them, "Look, this is pointless. We shouldn't do it in France, we should do it at the European level". And so my team told me off and they were like, "No, we'll start with France and we'll do Europe after".
Retrospectively, it was probably a mistake. We should have done it at the European level first, even though it's true that at that time, European companies were much smaller, etc. So sometimes, it takes time to do these things, but right now we're doing it and Seth is the one spearheading this for us. He's got a lot of experience, he's a guy from DC, he's one of the top guys actually in DC to work on these things. So, the experience that he's built in the US, he's bringing that to Europe, so I think that's going to be really good for the ecosystem.
Peter McCormack: And, when you approach the regulators, or those in the European Parliament, is there an open door; are they willing to listen?
Pascal Gauthier: Yeah, like I said, most people are willing to listen, most people will change their mind if you provide the evidence that this is actually good and not as bad as they thought. But there is a lot of dogma out there. The people that are -- for me, the left and the extreme left, they're pretty much anti-freedom, and sometimes they don't even realise what they say. But they basically just want to control every aspect of our lives; and whether it's because of climate change, or any other issue that they see is happening, they just want to take decisions for people.
Peter McCormack: Do you mean at the political level?
Pascal Gauthier: Yeah.
Peter McCormack: I mean, I'd push back a bit on that, a little bit on that. I think there are very good progressive people who have ideas around the coordination of society. Because, I think all governments control us in one way or another. Whether it's the right or the left, they have rules, they have legislation, they have taxation, they do; they just have a different framework. I think there's some far-left people who've gone a bit crazy over the last few years who have damaged the brand, for what of a better word, of the left. But I think we get control from the left and the right.
Pascal Gauthier: So, you're talking in general; I'm talking about Bitcoin specifically.
Peter McCormack: Oh, Bitcoin.
Pascal Gauthier: If you look at MiCA, or TFR in Europe, everything that was really negative towards crypto came from the left and the green.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, that's fair, okay. So, we're seeing that in the US as well. But actually, there's some pushback against that. So, one of the things I've been actively doing, Pascal, is I've been trying to get people from the left who are bitcoiners on the show. So, we recently had this guy, Jason Maier on, who was fantastic. He's writing a book called, A Progressive's Case for Bitcoin, and it's ten chapters dealing with all the FUD that comes from the left with regards to anything to do with energy FUD, and a really good one is wealth inequality, how actually Bitcoin is better for reducing wealth inequality.
I think what it is, it's become a partisan issue for some people, and they just get very bad advice. And sometimes, that's even down to the journalists. Some of the stuff that's written by the journalists is absolutely terrible. But I'm actively pushing this and trying to -- because I think the way to fight it is to actually find the people from the left who are bitcoiners who have the real information and the real advice, who aren't anti-freedom, are actually pro-freedom as well.
Pascal Gauthier: Look, I agree with that 100%. But you said, it's in the US. Now, let's do the same in Europe and see how many people you find.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I'm finding very few pro -- especially in the UK, at the left or right, I'm finding very few pro-Bitcoin people; we just don't have anything.
Pascal Gauthier: It's true. Left or right, it's true that there's a lot of education to do. But from our experience, you have those people that push hard on MiCA and TFR in Europe, they're really difficult to talk to, really difficult.
Peter McCormack: Okay.
Pascal Gauthier: Actually, get Aurore Lalucq on your show, let's see if she comes, because she is the worst. She hates Bitcoin, she's very dogmatic about it, etc. We tried to meet with her, she never agreed to meeting. And yet, she kept on saying, "Come and talk to me and educate me", etc. But when you try to --
Peter McCormack: Control freak.
Pascal Gauthier: To me, she doesn't want to. But the reason is, in the US, the politics in the US are very different. What's the real difference between Biden and Trump? From an external point of view, like for us, the US politics is the US politics; they don't do really less war, they don't drop less bombs, etc. So, there is a certain thing in the US where, whether you're right or left, there are certain things where some of these guys will always agree. In Europe, it's more polarised, and especially right now.
Peter McCormack: You think?
Pascal Gauthier: Oh, yes. The right and the left right now in Europe are extremely polarised, I feel.
Peter McCormack: Do you think that's maybe more of a domestic issue here in France, because travelling between the US and the UK, I actually think the US is more polarised right now.
Pascal Gauthier: Okay, maybe my English is wrong here. Polarised, not in the sense I get that in the US, Democrats and Republicans right now hate each other, I get that. But when I say polarised, it's more in terms of vastly opposite ideas of what to do with the world, but again, always on these topics, on the topic of individual freedom versus state control. And I feel that right now in Europe, the political agenda at the left, and especially because of climate change policies, etc, I mean look at what's happening in Holland right now.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, it's terrible.
Pascal Gauthier: Okay, so it's not just France, it's everywhere. So, through climate change mostly, but not just, it's all about getting control over people and telling them what to do. In France the other day, the debate is, "Should we ban private jets? Should we ban swimming pools?"
Peter McCormack: Hold on, how will they get around to people voting for it? On the private jets?
Pascal Gauthier: How do they get around, what?
Peter McCormack: How will Macron get around; doesn't he fly on a private jet? He'll get a pass.
Pascal Gauthier: Apparently Macron said, "Okay, you guys are crazy, you need to stop talking about these things. We will fly in private jets". So, I don't think private jets are going away, but this is the debate that's happening in France, this is the debate that's happening in Europe, etc. If you look at the last elections in France, the next elections in Italy, or even what's happening England, it's funny what's happening. People have a very strong reaction to the social democrat policies. Europe is a big socialist state.
Peter McCormack: Agreed.
Pascal Gauthier: This is why the UK left.
Peter McCormack: Of course.
Pascal Gauthier: Boris Johnson just got told off because after he left, he was running with European policies and your next Prime Minister is, can't remember her name?
Peter McCormack: Oh, Liz Truss. She's fucking terrible as well. But there's hardly anyone who's any good these days.
Pascal Gauthier: No, it's very difficult. For us, politics is extremely difficult, etc. But my point is, in Europe, you can see that there is a swing towards the right right now, the Italians, the French recently at the last election.
Peter McCormack: Even here, you nearly had, what was it, Le Pen?
Pascal Gauthier: Le Pen was 80 or 89 seats at the parliament, etc. I mean, it's a fucking earthquake. And so, I think this is a strong reaction to people saying, "Okay, we want more of that individual freedom back, and we're annoyed by people telling us what we need to do and what we're allowed to do and not to do. And you can see where both arguments are coming from, and you can see where people are voting, etc.
So I will say Europe is polarised, not so much in terms of each side hating each other, which they do, but less than in the US, but more in terms of the arguments that are being put, and more in terms of that argument of individual freedom versus state control.
Peter McCormack: So, do you believe our trajectory is more towards individual freedom in Europe; and do you think France will have a Frexit?
Pascal Gauthier: No. I mean, Frexit, I don't think so, but then what do I know? I'm not a politician. But I think, yes, I think people, especially with Bitcoin, Bitcoin influences. It's not just money, I think, it's more profound. It influences people, the way they think about the world and the control that they know that they can have now. And so, I think Bitcoin will be an eye-opener for many people to try to vote towards more individual freedom. Some of this is happening right now, and I think you asking me about Europe, and specifically about crypto, I think there are some people that can be convinced, and some people that are just enemies of all of this.
Peter McCormack: I like that. So, they're either somebody we can work with and discuss, or they're an enemy; I like it.
Pascal Gauthier: Yeah, but they are.
Peter McCormack: All right, man. All right, what's coming up for Ledger, tell me?
Pascal Gauthier: Look, there are many things that we've already done, so Ledger Market we launched in July, it was a super-success. We minted 10,000 passes that gives you a good access to the marketplace, etc. We sold those in 24 hours.
Peter McCormack: Wow!
Pascal Gauthier: Actually, it was the best that has ever happened on a drop or something like that, it was really good. So, the first two drops are happening in September, the first one is with BRICK, the second one I cannot tell, so the marketplace is going start to be in action. And it's the only place on Earth where you can do a first drop in a secure manner; nowhere else you can do that. And the experience, because security is good, but the ease of use is really beautiful. I know it's not Bitcoin, this is a Bitcoin show, but --
Peter McCormack: I know. Anyone listening, they're going to be flaming you on YouTube comments now, they're going to be hammering on, "What the fuck is this crypto shit?"!
Pascal Gauthier: Hey, you do Bitcoin but sometimes… You watch football, but sometimes you watch rugby, right?
Peter McCormack: No!
Pascal Gauthier: No?
Peter McCormack: No, I do, I watch a little bit of rugby. You have good rugby down here in the South of France.
Pascal Gauthier: Yeah, you have good rugby down here. Actually, you know what, I prefer watching rugby than watching football these days.
Peter McCormack: Wow, okay.
Pascal Gauthier: I watched the last game, what was it, when I was in South Africa, the Bucks versus New Zealand; it was pretty good.
Peter McCormack: Were you actually at the game?
Pascal Gauthier: No, I was not actually at the game.
Peter McCormack: I was going to say.
Pascal Gauthier: No, because they play everywhere in South Africa now, it's not just in Jo'burg, or whatever. They actually take it all round South Africa to create a type of spirit, which they do. People are very excited about rugby in South Africa, which is great. Anyway, but that's a thing, so Ledger Market is a thing. There are so many things that we do.
We've just have a full run map. What I would tell people is, if you haven't checked Ledger Live in the past six months, because sometimes people use other products they buy and hold and they never check us out, which is wrong for two reasons. One, you should always upgrade your firmware, always check that everything is good, etc. Your security is not something that you forget for two years and when you come back, you're like, "Oh my God, the thing has changed so much and now I need to upgrade everything", etc, which can be a stressful experience.
So, I would say, use your Ledger from time to time, just to upgrade things, to check that everything is all right, etc, that's one thing. And two, check what we've done with Ledger Live. Ledger Live is probably the best wallet, as in wallet interface, the best wallet in the space right now. You have everything. Even if you're Bitcoin only, it's a great experience. If you have more than Bitcoin, we have this App Store now. You have an App Store inside Ledger Live where you can find so many projects, and we've developed everything as an open platform, so people can connect to it.
People should really check it out, just to see what's out there, what can connect to their coins, how can they use their coins, etc, because it's all about usage. You can buy and hold forever, which is cool, and if you want to do that still, upgrade your firmware from time to time. However, maybe sometimes you want to buy something with your coins, or you want to participate in something, or you want to transfer, or whatever you want to do, but there are many apps. You want to pay your taxes, for example? There is a great app to pay your taxes within Ledger Live.
Peter McCormack: Really?
Pascal Gauthier: Yes.
Peter McCormack: All right, I'll take a look at that. Well listen, Pascal, we will get you over to the football, we'll get you to go and see Bedford, we'll change your view on it. It's better than Bedford rugby. I appreciate all your support. I've been a Ledger customer since 2017. I love the product, love working with the company, and love everything you do. And, yeah, I'll be checking out this issue with software wallets, so appreciate you letting me know about that. Good luck here at the conference, and yeah, appreciate talking to you.
Pascal Gauthier: Merci, Peter, et merci d'être venu a Biarritz pour me rencontrer.
Peter McCormack: Agreed! Fuck off!
