While in 2021 the value of Bitcoin had reached an all-time high, this year the cryptocurrency market is in crisis. And this has led to the downfall of many companies. The problem is that when a crypto platform gets into trouble, its users can pay the price.
This happened, for example, in June, when the Celsius platform prevented its users from withdrawing their money. “Due to extreme market conditions, we are announcing today that Celsius is suspending all withdrawals, swaps and transfers between accounts. We are taking this action today to put Celsius in a better position to meet its withdrawal obligations over time.”said a press release from the platform.
In any case, for the boss of Ledger, Pascal Gauthier, the situation shows that it is preferable for those who own cryptocurrencies or other digital assets to store them physically, instead of entrusting them to a third party.
“Don’t give your coins and private keys to anyone because you don’t know what they will do with them”he said recently during an intervention at Surfin’ Bitcoin 2022, according to the site Cointelegraph.
According to Ledger, you need to control your cryptos
According to Gauthier’s explanation, although most players have good intentions, the crypto market is still “too young” and currently the economy is “under stress”. Also, intermediaries will not hesitate to prevent investors from accessing their possessions if necessary.
And precisely, Ledger is one of the companies that offers the general public physical wallets to store their cryptos. As we explained previously, “Most cryptocurrency exchanges that offer hot wallets also have your private key. To be the sole owner, you have to go through a platform like ZenGo or a physical wallet like Ledger. »
Indeed, if many people store their cryptos on platforms with intermediaries, one of the advantages of this technology is precisely the fact that it allows total freedom for the management of our assets, since intermediaries are no longer essential. .
However, for the CEO of Ledger, a lot of people have seen cryptos as a way to make easy money. And they haven’t really grasped that this technology gives them real control over their assets, as well as financial freedom.
Gauthier also revealed that the French company, which has already sold millions of physical crypto wallets, would invest heavily in educating the general public to help them understand how web3 works.
“We spend a lot […] of our money […] to create content and education [pour essayer] to educate people, legislators, regulators […] for people to understand what all of this means, why this is an opportunity, why freedom is being questioned today […] in the current society [et] why [cette] technology must evolve to […] to make people freer than they are today”said the boss of Ledger, according to our colleagues from Cointelegraph.
