The deal was a liquidity event for an existing shareholder, not a capital raise. No fresh money entered Ledger's balance sheet. The company declined to disclose its implied valuation in connection with the transaction, and Gauthier told Bloomberg the company currently has "no imminent plans" for an IPO. That statement marks a notable shift from January 2026, when the Financial Times reported Ledger was targeting a New York listing at a valuation above $4 billion, roughly three times its last known valuation of $1.5 billion set during a $109 million extension of its 2021 Series C, completed in March 2023.

The gap between Gauthier's current messaging and the company's recent structural moves is worth examining. Ledger recently appointed a former Circle executive as its chief financial officer and opened a New York office. It also engaged Goldman Sachs, Jefferies, and Barclays in connection with the potential NYSE offering, according to the FT reporting. These are not the actions of a company that has closed the door on public markets. The Block characterised the IPO question as deferred rather than cancelled.

Gauthier has been direct about where any listing would happen. In a prior interview with Sifted he said: "It's in the US or no IPO." He expanded on that logic in November 2025, telling the Financial Times: "Money is in New York today for crypto, it's nowhere else in the world, it's certainly not in Europe." The most relevant comparable is BitGo, a crypto custody and infrastructure firm that debuted on the NYSE on January 22, 2026, pricing at $18 per share and closing its first trading day up 2.7% at a valuation exceeding $2 billion.

Revenue growth is real, and the hack cycle is driving it. According to publicly available estimates compiled by third-party sources, Ledger recorded 2023 revenue of $36.7 million, a figure that nearly doubled to $70.9 million in 2024. Gauthier has described 2025 as a record year, with revenue reaching "triple-digit millions." The timing is not coincidental. Hackers stole $2.7 billion in crypto assets globally in 2025, a 131% increase year over year. The Bybit exchange exploit alone accounted for roughly $1.4 billion of that total, making it the single largest crypto hack ever recorded. Chainalysis data shows the share of losses coming from personal wallet compromises (rather than exchange hacks) grew from 7.3% of total stolen value in 2022 to 44% in 2024. That shift has contributed to increased demand for hardware wallets, which store private keys offline and away from exchange custody.

Ledger holds approximately 40% of the global hardware wallet market and says its users collectively hold around $100 billion in Bitcoin, according to market data compiled by Coinlaw.io. The company has raised roughly $575 million in total funding since its founding in Paris in 2014, according to data compiled by Tracxn.

The revenue story looks different depending on the region. In India, Chainalysis has ranked the country first globally in crypto adoption for two consecutive years, according to its Global Crypto Adoption Index. The WazirX exchange hack in July 2024, which resulted in $235 million stolen from more than four million users, contributed to growing interest in self-custody solutions. Ledger sells through Amazon.in and authorised resellers including Etherbit, and its pivot toward developer-facing infrastructure could find traction in a market with a substantial technical user base.

In Nigeria, the picture is more complicated. Sub-Saharan Africa as a whole received $205 billion in on-chain crypto value in the year to June 2025, growing 52% year over year and making it the third-fastest-growing crypto region globally, according to Chainalysis. Nigeria alone processed $92.1 billion of that total, making it the largest crypto market in Sub-Saharan Africa by volume. But hardware wallets carry entry prices between $50 and $250 before import duties, placing them out of reach for most users. Free software wallets such as Trust Wallet and MetaMask remain the dominant self-custody tools. Competing hardware startup Cypherock has sold only around 200 units across all of Africa combined, illustrating how little market penetration hardware devices have achieved on the continent despite strong underlying adoption.

In East Africa, Kenya's Virtual Asset Service Providers Act took effect in November 2025, creating licensing requirements for custodial wallets and exchanges. Industry observers note that hardware wallets, as non-custodial devices, could provide technically capable users with a compliance-neutral alternative to regulated custodial services.

South Africa represents the most developed hardware wallet market on the continent, with both Ledger and rival Trezor establishing physical distribution channels. A local competitor, Cardware Wallet, offers a device at approximately US$77. Analysts project the South African hardware wallet segment could reach $2.77 billion by 2033, implying a compound annual growth rate of 26.2%.

A Ledger IPO would not automatically resolve the affordability and distribution challenges in these markets. Public capital could theoretically fund local reseller networks and warehousing infrastructure currently absent in Sub-Saharan Africa. Brand visibility from a major listing could also accelerate institutional sales pipelines. Whether Ledger allocates that capital toward emerging markets or concentrates resources on its core markets in the US and Europe is a strategic question a prospectus would eventually need to address.

Any prospectus would also face scrutiny of Ledger's security track record. The company has experienced three notable incidents: a 2020 breach that exposed customer data, a 2023 hack that resulted in approximately $500,000 in losses, and a third-party payment processor breach in early 2026. For a company whose value proposition rests on the security of digital assets, that history is material context for public market investors weighing a listing. For now, the company is offering no timeline.