From Cold Storage to Wall Street: Ledger’s $4B IPO Bet Signals a New Era for Crypto Security

Crypto’s most recognizable hardware wallet brand may soon trade alongside blue-chip stocks.

Ledger, the French company behind some of the world’s most widely used crypto hardware wallets, is reportedly preparing for a U.S. initial public offering—a move that could value the firm at more than $4 billion and cement Wall Street’s growing embrace of digital asset infrastructure.

If the plan moves forward, Ledger would join a rapidly expanding list of crypto-native companies choosing the U.S. as their public-market home, drawn by improving regulatory clarity and deep pools of capital.

According to the Financial Times, Ledger has enlisted heavyweight investment banks Goldman Sachs, Jefferies, and Barclays to explore a potential IPO in the United States. Sources familiar with the discussions say the listing could happen as early as this year, though plans remain subject to change.

The valuation being discussed—north of $4 billion—would represent a dramatic leap from Ledger’s $1.5 billion valuation in 2023, when it raised capital from investors including True Global Ventures and 10T Holdings.

Ledger has declined to comment publicly, but the direction isn’t surprising.

In November 2025, CEO Pascal Gauthier was blunt about where crypto capital lives today:
“Money is in New York today for crypto. It’s nowhere else in the world—it’s certainly not in Europe.”

That statement now looks less like speculation and more like a roadmap.

Ledger’s IPO ambitions come at a time of strong financial momentum. Gauthier revealed that company revenues reached triple-digit millions by November 2025—a milestone fueled by a grim reality.

Crypto crime is booming.

According to estimates from Chainalysis, more than $17 billion may have been lost to crypto scams and fraud in 2025 alone. As hacks, phishing attacks, and exchange breaches multiply, investors are increasingly abandoning online storage in favor of cold wallets—Ledger’s core business.

In an ecosystem built on self-custody, fear has become a powerful growth driver.

Not everyone is cheering Ledger’s Wall Street ambitions.

Prominent crypto investigator ZachXBT has criticized the company’s track record, pointing to past security breaches and ongoing product concerns.

“Ledger…has been breached multiple times which resulted in its customers’ private data being leaked, leading to targeted thefts and millions stolen,” he wrote, also highlighting issues like battery problems with the Ledger Nano X and the company’s recent move toward charging a percentage fee for clear signing.

Those criticisms aren’t theoretical. Earlier this month, Ledger confirmed a data breach linked to a third-party processor, Global-e, which exposed customer information. The incident followed a much larger 2020 breach that also leaked user data—an event that still looms large in the community’s memory.

For a company built on trust and security, those incidents are likely to face renewed scrutiny from U.S. investors and regulators.

Ledger’s timing may be strategic.

The company’s reported plans come just days after BitGo became the first major crypto IPO of 2026. The custody firm listed on the New York Stock Exchange on January 22, pricing shares at $18 before opening 24.6% higher at $22.43, giving it a valuation of roughly $2.2 billion.

BitGo’s debut followed a broader wave of crypto listings in 2025, including Circle, Figure Technology, Gemini, and Bullish. Meanwhile, Grayscale and Kraken have already filed for their own IPOs.

The message from markets is clear: crypto infrastructure—not just tokens—is finding a welcome reception on Wall Street.

A successful U.S. listing would do more than boost Ledger’s balance sheet. It would signal that hardware wallets—once seen as niche tools for hardcore crypto users—are now viewed as systemically important financial infrastructure.

It would also underscore a broader shift: the center of gravity for crypto innovation, capital, and regulation is tilting decisively toward the United States.

But the path won’t be frictionless. Ledger’s past security lapses, evolving business model, and premium valuation will all be tested under the unforgiving spotlight of public markets.

Ledger’s reported IPO plans reflect crypto’s maturation—and its contradictions. Demand for self-custody is surging as trust in centralized platforms erodes. At the same time, security companies themselves are being held to ever-higher standards.

If Ledger can convince investors that it has learned from past missteps and can scale securely, its leap from cold storage to Wall Street could be one of the most telling crypto stories of the year.

In a market built on trust, the ultimate question isn’t whether Ledger can go public—it’s whether it can stay bulletproof under public scrutiny.