Morning Minute | Did Ledger Just Alienate Their Original Customer Base?
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TylerD's Market Summary
Ledger revealed a major new product yesterday, which caught severe immediate backlash. Here's what you need to know, plus catch up on the hottest NFT project of the week, Opepens.
🙈 Ledger Reveals "Ledger Recover" Product
Ledger became the main character of Crypto Twitter drama on Tuesday (hint: you never want to be the main character).
The reason - backlash to their announcement of their new Ledger Recover product.
The Ledger team immediately went on a full press tour, jumping on Spaces and holding their own conversations to try to set the narrative straight, but the damage was done.
What happened and why was it such a big deal?
The Details:
Ledger's newest product Ledger Recover offers a backup option for the Secret Recovery Phase (SRP) via a monthly subscription service.
This is a move to support mainstream users, who don't want to be fully responsible for management of their SRP and want the peace of mind of a custodial solution.
Here's how it works (s/o to Logan Hitchcock for the great summary):
- Ledger Recover encrypts and splits your private key into three fragments, securely stored by different parties.
- This process does not compromise your SRP as it is generated and managed on the device's Secure Element chip.
- The fragments are useless individually but can restore your SRP when combined, providing an additional layer of security for users.
- The service is optional and not automatically enabled, underscoring Ledger's commitment to user choice and self-custody.
On their press tour, Ledger mentioned that they had polled their user base and the majority wanted this backup feature.
So why the backlash?
The Problem
The main concern raised by Crypto OGs is the risk vector that this new feature opens up.
Prior understanding was that there was no way to get the SRP out of the Ledger device - it was truly cold storage if managed correctly.
This Recover feature opens up an API allowing the SRP to be sent to those custodians (through Ledger's sharding process).
And while there are no security concerns with the process itself, its existence is the issue.
Now there is a potential channel for hackers to invade devices that didn't previously exist. And Ledger has been hacked before.
Several Crypto OGs weighed in on the issue, many with very heated takes.
DCInvestor has a fairly level-headed one:
"you have to “trust” the new firmware (which is now explicitly capable of exporting your encrypted sharded key to 3 trusted parties) will not do so without your consent (they say it can’t)...
now maybe it was always the case that your key data could be exported in such a way, but many users misunderstood and thought that your key data was sacrosanct on these devices and could not be touched in any way other than to sign tx’s"
It comes down to trust. And that trust has been lost for many Ledger users.
Conclusion
The hardest part of this drama is that this product actually makes a ton of sense.
This backup option is a great service for most mainstream users!
The problem is, it was applied to the existing product (and user base) vs rolled out via a new stand-alone product.
I found it telling that the Ledger team kept referring to their $50,000 in coverage for any loss - they're basically telling anyone with a balance higher than that to go elsewhere.
Unfortunately, they probably will. Which means most crypto-rich Ledger users are now forced to turn elsewhere.
Ledger may be winning with mainstream, but they have lost their OG support with this move.
✅ Jack Butcher's Opepens Soar
The hottest NFT project of the week isn't from Yuga or Memeland.
It's Opepens, from rising star Jack Butcher, fresh off his Christie's debut.
Let's take a quick look at the numbers.
By The Numbers:
Some notable floor prices for various Opepen types as of this morning:
- Floor: 0.28 ETH
- R001 floor: 18 ETH
- R002 floor: 1.15 ETH
- Unrevealed 1/4 floor: 1 ETH
- Unrevealed 1/1 floor: 8 ETH
The floor is up 57% on the week, dragged up by some massive sales on the R001 (Release 1) set.
The R001 floor was around 3 ETH last week, before a bevy of sales drove it to 18 ETH today, as the true scarcity of an 80 supply set starts to kick in.
The Opepen above floor sales (multiple in the 8-12 ETH range) put it above most major PFPs in recent action (outside Yuga, Memeland, DeGods and Azuki).
It's too early to call, but it looks like the Jack Butcher eco (Checks and Opepens) might be one of the big winners of the 2023 bear market.
Confused about these terms or the mechanics of the Opepen reveal process?
Check out our primer over on Lucky Trader.
🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?
Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:
- Trading volume notched up to 13k ETH on Tuesday, with NFTs seeing some mjaor green on the day
- Yuga revaled the HV-MTL collection to generally positive community feedback, though the floor fell 31% to 0.87 ETH post-reveal
- Yuga also released a strategy guide for its upcoming Legends of the Mara game
- NBA Top Shot upgraded their mobile app, including a discover function, pack opening, offer notis and more
- Invisible Friends is launching its first-ever physical collectibles, in two sizes (24"" and 8"), priced at 0.6 ETH and 0.18 ETH respectively
- LooksRare debuted their Raffles, where users can enter low cost contests to win big prizes such as Bored Apes
- ApeCoin DAO opened applications to run for the Special Council until Saturday, May 20
🌎 Around Crypto and Web3
A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:
- The crypto market fell on the day; BTC -1.75% at $26,620; ETH -1.5% at $1,790
- The Sandbox launched its May Festival on May 11, with over 800 guests across 74 experiences with rewards for participants, open through June 12
- Redbeard VC closed a $25M funding round, with plans to use the funds for accelerating the adoption of Web3 technologies, while supporting the launch of its tokenomics accelerator program called Denarii Labs
🚀 NFT Total Volume
- Wrapped Cryptopunks (2,161 ETH, 48.7 ETH Floor)
- BAYC (1,397 ETH, 45.75 ETH)
- Milady (802 ETH, 5.17 ETH)
- MAYC (761 ETH; 10 ETH)
- HV-MTL (709 ETH, 0.87 ETH)
📈 NFT Floor Price Increase
- Pixelady Maker (49%, 0.28 ETH Floor)
- Where My Vans Go (40%, 20 ETH)
- Checks - Edition (27%, 0.59 ETH)
- Checks - Originals (26%, 0.47 ETH)
- Redacted Remilio (22%, 1.8 ETH)
🗓 Upcoming NFT Mints and Reveals
Several mints on the radar today, spanning memes, art, sports and more.
The likely highight is the Code.Lawless mint, but the entry price is not cheap at 0.08 ETH for 8,192 supply.
The wildcard is the Nike OF1 public sale today - if they can sell out their full 100k+ supply, every major brand will be put on notice. But will their tech hold up to meet demand? We will see.
- Memes by 6529 (11:00 a.m. ET); 0.06529 ETH
- AB Presents: Crypt by The Cyclops Group (1:00 p.m. ET); 0.09 ETH
- Candy Digital: This Month in Baseball - May (1:00 p.m. ET); $50
- Nike Our Force 1 - Public (12:00 p.m. ET); $19.82
- IDOL III by Steve Aoki (3:00 p.m. ET)
-
Code.Lawless Phase 2 (TBD); 0.08192 ETH
Enjoy this write-up? Follow along with me on Twitter @tyler_did_it or reach out via email tyler.warner@luckytrader.com.
For all volume and floor price data, see Lucky Trader's Project Rankings page.
For all upcoming mints, see Lucky Trader's Project Schedule page.
