Ledger shelves IPO plans, cites poor market condition reasons

Ledger has officially paused its previously planned IPO and U.S. stock market listing today, citing unfavorable market conditions, according to people familiar with the IPO process.

The hardware wallet producer has engaged with banking and financial institutions since the year began to advise on the possibility of launching an initial public offering that could value the company at about $4 billion. These financial institutions included Goldman Sachs, Jefferies, and Barclays.

A confidential S-1 filing with the SEC is usually the first formal step towards a U.S. stock listing, and none has been filed by Ledger till now.

Ledger is now weighing alternatives, which include raising capital through private funding.

What is Ledger?

Ledger designs hardware devices that let crypto holders securely store their tokens offline by securing their private keys which control access to the crypto tokens. The company was founded in Paris in 2014, and reached a valuation of about $1.5 billion in 2023 with annual revenues said to exceed $100 million.

The demand for hardware wallets has grown alongside rising crypto prices and an increase in security breaches and crypto scams. Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis estimated that losses from cryptocurrency scams and fraud reached about $17 billion in 2025, up from roughly $13 billion the previous year. .

Crypto IPOs have seen a decline

Ledger’s decision follows a wider pullback among crypto companies regarding their interests in going public. After a wave of crypto stock market listings in 2025, multiple factors including volatile markets, dropping crypto prices, and lower trading volumes have reduced investor appetite in new IPO offerings.

Kraken, one of the largest U.S. crypto exchanges, suspended its own multibillion-dollar IPO earlier this year despite having confidentially filed with the SEC in late 2025. BitGo, which remains the only crypto-native firm to complete a U.S. IPO so far in 2026, has not fared very well as a public company pos-IPO. It raised about $213 million in January, pricing shares above the marketed range at $18 and briefly rallying more than 20% on debut, a momentum that faded quickly as BitGo shares now trade about 36% below their offering price.

Ledger’s U.S. expansion not stopping

Ledger has continued invest in its American operations since the turn of the year. In March, the company opened a new office in New York and appointed John Andrews, a former Circle Internet executive, as its chief financial officer. Andrews previously led capital markets and investor relations at Circle, the issuer of popular stablecoin USDC.

Ledger described the New York office as part of a multimillion-dollar investment in continuing its U.S. expansion. The location is expected to be a working hub for Ledger Enterprise, the company’s infrastructure platform, and will create dozens of new jobs in the organization, according to CoinDesk.

CEO Pascal Gauthier has previously been open about the company’s interest in U.S. capital and stock markets. In January, told reporters that the money for crypto “is in New York today; it isn’t anywhere else in the world, especially not in Europe,” as previously reported by Cryptopolitan.

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