Crypto company Ledger spends 'millions' on new HQ to bring a slice of Apple to Paris

In the heart of Paris's bougie Le Marais district lies what blockchain company Ledger hopes will be Europe’s answer to Apple Park in Silicon Valley crossed with the history of a flashy French castle.  

The French unicorn company worth $1.3 trillion (€1 trillion), which builds hardware cryptocurrency wallets, marked its 10th anniversary this year with the opening of a new nine-floor headquarters.

The building boasts a basketball court, exercise studio, and an impressive 360-degree rooftop view over the capital, complete with a bar.

The building cost several million euros and took some convincing of the company’s shareholders, says Ledger’s CEO. 

"My thinking [for the building] went to what Apple did for designing hardware in Cupertino," Pascal Gauthier told Euronews Next. 

"The other inspiration was Château de Chambord in France, built by France’s King Francis I. Chambord was built as a marketing/propaganda tool to show that François I was the king.

"And so that was also an inspiration for designing the building," Gauthier said in an online video call, which coincidentally or not, displayed an image behind him of a dusty pink castle on a hill.

He says that being CEO of a company that works with crypto has forced him "to be very humble and to know how to manage a company extremely well" during the crypto market’s turbulence. 

"It sort of forces you to stay frugal, live off the land,** and be very good at investing your time and effort to sort of maximise opportunities when they arise," he said.

'Crypto is where the party is'

For the moment, the company is reaping the rewards of crypto, which is tipped to continue its bull run in 2025, in large part due to the re-election of pro-crypto US President-elect Donald Trump.

It comes after the price drops and crypto scandals of 2022, which saw the arrests of crypto bosses Sam Bankman-Fried for fraud and Binance’s Changpeng Zhao "CZ" arrest a year later for money laundering. 

But Gauthier says after these years of turmoil "crypto is where the party is right now".

The building, which has been themed to look like hardware, with a largely black colour scheme that contrasts with the bright light that comes from the massive windows, also has a range of original NFT artwork and what it calls generative art on the walls as well as a hip café and French bistro. 

"It's a physical location that shows what Ledger is about: hardware products that you can see and touch and the hardware, wallet is a link between your physical world and digital world," he said. 

Gauthier hopes the building will serve as a meeting place for the crypto community, not just in France or Europe, but around the world.

One of Ledger’s key client bases is the US, and last week the company welcomed a new board member Tony Fadell, the creator of Apple’s iPod and co-creator of the iPhone. 

"Tony has the experience of being at Apple and so being at a great company and reporting to Steve Jobs is definitely a one-of-a-kind experience," said Gauthier. 

"But also, he's been a very successful entrepreneur. And we really welcome him at the board and I welcome every bit of advice that he can give to me to run the company better".

On the re-election of Trump to the White House, Gauthier says that while it boosted Bitcoin and the crypto industry in general, it is not the only reason for the crypto industry enjoying a rebound.

Gauthier says it is largely thanks to the CEOs at Wall Street companies and the world's largest asset manager BlackRock embracing Bitcoin in September. 

"I don't think anyone can stop Bitcoin or stop this movement now because it's too deeply entrenched now in the way that people want to exchange value," he said.  

"You have everything that you need now [in crypto], so it's really now a mature industry," he says, referring to an increasing amount of financial institutions backing crypto. 

"What the industry can do in the next ten years I think is mind-blowing compared to what has happened in the past," he said.

Ledger has sold over 7 million of its hardware wallets and says none of them have ever been hacked.

Gauthier says he hopes Ledger’s wallet will protect 10 per cent of the world’s population in the next 10 years. 

"There will be an amazing change and Ledger will become the Apple of this world," Gauthier added.