Ledger wants to help MicroStrategy secure its $400m Bitcoin treasury

Ledger is mostly known for its consumer-facing hardware wallets, but since last year, a number of enterprises have also begun to use Ledger Vault, according to the company's vice president of product, Jean-Michel Pailhon.

The Ledger team is currently trying to sell MicroStrategy on the advantages of its product.

MicroStrategy is a business intelligence company that made a splash in August 2020 by converting a large portion of its treasury into Bitcoin.

Though SubZero may be a great framework, Pailhon opined that its best suited for tech companies like Square that know how to deploy and manage HSMs. He said that Ledger will set these up for its clients, and that "They don't necessarily need to know how it works. They just need to use the solution."

We asked Paihon to walk us through onboarding a company like MicroStrategy.

When a company officer wants to initiate a transaction, he would log into Ledger Vault and input the desired transaction.

To approve it, they would have to log in and connect their Ledger Blue hard wallet to their computer.

Finally, they would enter their unique Ledger Blue pin to sign the transaction.

Pailhon elaborated that though Ledger provides the backend and takes care of the HSM infrastructure, the client acts as its own custodian.

"If you need a regulated custodian, you can ask a regulated entity to become one of the signees in the transaction process."