Ledger's Latest Nano Crypto Hardware Wallet Offers a Punch of Personality

Crypto hardware wallet maker Ledger is leaning into personality and fun with its latest product rollout, introducing the new Ledger Nano Gen5, which features a series of badges developed by artist Susan Kare—the influential designer of early Apple Macintosh iconography.

Kare’s badges can be used to personalize the firm’s newest Nano device, which is designed to expand crypto users' understanding of the brand beyond that of merely a hardware wallet provider. Ledger said that Kare was brought in by iPod co-creator Tony Fadell, who joined the Ledger board last year after previously creating its Stax wallet.

“If we were going to complete the touch screen line, we knew that meant bringing the classic Nano forward—and so it would only make sense if we thought about a digital art component within this,” Ledger EVP of Marketing and Communications Ariel Wengroff told Decrypt.

“Everyone's making all of this art that's made by AI. What would it mean to actually go back to basics? And who's an incredible artist that evokes these pivotal moments of consumer adoption?” she said of working with Kare. 

Kare’s imprint on consumer adoption extends back to the 1980s when she developed the “Happy Mac” iconography that greeted users when booting up their Mac devices. Last year, she brushed up against crypto, releasing an NFT collection called “Esc Keys” that featured her familiar style. 

Alongside the more personalized device, Ledger is shifting the narrative surrounding its products, no longer referring to them as “hardware wallets,” and instead referring to them as “signers,” to more accurately characterize the device’s role in crypto and blockchain activity.

“There's a misnomer that a hardware wallet means that I have a device and my crypto is in my device,” Wengroff said. “We see this time and time again, where we think everybody gets it—and something happens, and it's so clear that they don't.” 

The term “hardware wallet” has become synonymous with securing crypto, contributing to the misunderstanding that the physical hardware devices actually hold crypto assets much like a physical wallet would hold dollar bills.

Instead, however, they merely allow users to manage a set of private and public keys, or crypto wallets, via a physical device that adds a layer of security given its detachment from the internet.

According to Wengroff, some of the difficulty in understanding the Ledger’s true role may come from the classic Nano’s industrial design, which makes it look like a USB drive—or a portable memory device which contains files and data.

Now, Wengroff said, the firm is debunking that idea.

“We're gonna myth-bust this right now,” she said. “Actually, what you do with your Ledger is you're securely authorizing your signature. Now we're going through a revolution of value. At first, it was only Bitcoin. Now there's so many other things you can use with your crypto that you're authorizing.” 

Ledgers have historically been used to authorize the signatures required when taking an action on the blockchain, like moving crypto assets or selling a meme coin. But with additional features like Bluetooth and NFC technology, the signers can allow you to protect other logins with passkeys. 

In the same vein as the signer rebrand, Ledger is also renaming Ledger Live, its portfolio tracker and asset management application, to Ledger Wallet—more accurately describing its role among Ledger products.

“When I first joined the brand was much more still known as a utility, and it was probably more of a ‘hodler’ mindset,” said Wengroff, who has been with Ledger since 2021. 

But success for the brand and its products has shifted as opportunities to participate in crypto have grown and taken different forms. 

“We continue to look at success as having more customers who are doing more things regularly with Ledger,” she said. 

The firm’s latest device, the Ledger Nano Gen5, is available directly through its website or via its retail partners worldwide for $179.