The founder of the iPod, Tony Fadell, a well-known Silicon Valley businessman, announced his most recent invention on Tuesday: an offline hardware wallet for storing cryptocurrencies.
Fadell, 53, worked for over ten years at Apple under Steve Jobs, where he managed the creation of the portable music player and later assisted in the development of the iPhone, the company’s most well-known product.
He founded Nest Labs, a manufacturer of smart home gadgets, in 2008 after leaving Apple. Google, a leading technology company, later purchased Nest for $3.2 billion.
To create a new offline cryptocurrency wallet, Fadell has now partnered with the French technology company Ledger.
Complex cryptographic keys are needed while trading cryptocurrencies because they are used to validate transactions.
The fact that these keys are frequently kept online, such as with an online exchange, makes them more vulnerable to theft or hacking.
Demand for offline, or “self-custody,” services like Ledger has increased at an unprecedented rate as a result of the recent collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which resulted in the disappearance of more than $1 billion in user cash.
Ledger has previously produced USB memory stick-like devices, such as the Nano S and Nano S. The Ledger Stax is a new creation from Fadell that has the size of a credit card and an electronic-ink display.
It was time for an iPod, according to Ian Rogers, chief experience officer at Ledger, who compared all secure hardware up to this point to MP3 players.
Fadell had previously expressed doubt about a few aspects of “Web 3.0,” a catch-all name for a variety of cutting-edge decentralised technologies, including cryptocurrencies and the metaverse.
From early 2023, the Ledger Stax will be available for $279 online.