Ledger Records 100% Increase in Crypto Hardware Wallet Sales Following Binance Exchange Hack

While the Binance hack that led to the loss of $40 million is regrettable, it has increased Ledger’s sales since the incidence. CEO of Ledger, Pascal Gauthier confirmed this at The Block’s Atomic Swap conference in New York on 15 May 2019.

“Binance got hacked, and the day Binance got hacked, our sales doubled,”

he said.

Speaking on the importance of security on exchanges and holders maintaining their keys in a panel discussion during the event, Gauthier said security is important in earning users’ trust in the industry, especially for exchanges.

“We at Ledger believe that there is not enough security to protect those cryptos. We think that it’s great technology, there’s probably one weakness which is the [securing] of the end point and the private keys,”

he said.

He further added that the challenge of securing the industry will increase with the increasing market cap and even though Ledger is happy to help boost security, it will need to invest more resources to be able to put up with the increasing security challenge in the surging market like the one that is currently experienced.

Binance was hacked on the 8 May resulting in the loss of $40 million in users’ funds. According to Binance management, the hackers took advantage of the weakness in the API, 2FA, and withdrawal validation areas. In one of several updates concerning the issue and Binance’s commitment to ensuring things return to normal, the exchange said it was doing an upgrade to ensure such does not happen again.

Today, Binance announced it has resumed deposits and withdrawals through a Twitter post by the company’s CEO Changpeng Zhao. According to previous updates, the exchange is also embarking on an upgrade of its security infrastructure to better monitor activities on the exchange to prevent any future occurrence.

Ledger is a leading crypto security company and the makers of Ledger hardware cold wallets. The company has partnered with several firms and foundations in the industry to provide security. Its hardware wallet Ledger Nano S has sold over 1.5 million worldwide, but with the new 100% increase as a result of Binance hack, it may be well over 3 million sold.  

While Binance said it has consulted a number of security companies to help upgrade the exchange’s security infrastructure, it did not make mention of Ledger. With this announcement from the CEO, will Binance now consider a partnership with them as well?