Ledger and Alpine F1 Partner in Branded Wallet

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Ledger and Alpine F1 Launch Branded Stax 🏎️

Ledger, the leading hardware wallet business in crypto, have partnered with Alpine Formula 1 to launch a branded, limited edition hardware wallet.

It’s Alpine Formula 1 Team x Ledger Stax™ limited edition, and is one of the first public merchandising partnerships I’ve seen between a blockchain business and a sports entity. Of course, this is not a surprise, considering so much of the offering within this space is digital in itself.

The Ledger is custom-engraved with an F1 car and Alpine branding, and also features a co-branded protective case.

For the uninitiated, a hardware wallet is a secure way of storing crypto assets offline. The idea is to ensure that consumers are safe from online phishing attacks and hacks. Ledger is the market leader in this space, and the ‘stax’ product is the first they have launched with a digital interface.

While the company have partnered with crypto native projects and companies on branding, this is the first we have seen a) publicly and b) with a sports team.

This is not Ledger’s first sports partnership, announcing a multiyear partnership with NBA’s San Antonio Spurs earlier in 2025. Ledger themselves are a french-based unicorn, and the partnership with the San Antonio Spurs, considering their Tony Parker french connection, felt like a matchmade in heaven.

They also cited several other pieces of demographic data supporting the partnership

• Nearly 1 in 3 NBA fans in the U.S. say they’re interested in learning more about digital assets. A

• Texas, where the Spurs are based, have one of the youngest fan bases in the league

• Texas also has one of the largest college student populations per capita in the U.S.—over 1.6 million enrolled today

There is a trend here, with French-influenced or French-based companies supporting each other.

Indeed, Alpine F1 partnered with ApeCoin DAO, this time last year in a multi-year partnership.

At the time, David Gendry, Alpine’s Chief Commercial Officer, said;

“Being French, BWT Alpine F1 Team was the first name that came to mind”

Concluding Thoughts 💭

(1) Ledger’s French Strategy Continues

Ledger, like Sorare, and others, are proud of their French roots, and indeed have influenced the country’s policy surrounding cryptoassets.

Their partnerships thus far in the sports space have reflected this.

(2) Hardware in Crypto

Whilst the crypto world has largely moved towards software solutions and mobile-first experiences, hardware wallets remain the gold standard for serious crypto holders. Ledger continue to dominate this space, but the challenge is making hardware relevant to a generation that expects everything to be digital and instant. The Alpine partnership suggests, alongside the partnership with the San Antonio Spurs earlier this year, both suggest that Ledger’s next growth phase will come from everyday customers. Making them care about self-custody however, is a real challenge.

(3) Ledger have the edge for now

In the hardware wallet space, Ledger face limited serious competition. Trezor remain their primary rival, but they are not at the scale that Ledger is. Ledger made $70m+ revenue in 2024, growing from $36.7m in 2023. The French unicorn’s Series C extension round in March 2023 valued the business at ~$1.5 billion.

(4) Incumbents may Compete

The competition is likely to come from software, mobile products and exchanges. As these respective digitally native businesses become more secure, trusted and more difficult to hack — on top of the creation of more sophisticated insurance guardrails — hardware wallets may become niche. Indeed, many exchanges have begun to partner with banks for off-chain custody, in the same way we currently custody our money now. Google, Apple and others will no doubt have embedded wallets in the future, on devices, also. Whilst there is no ‘direct’ competition, the TAM for Ledger may be eroded at the edges by a diverse range of companies.

(5) Trust and Brand

Associating with prestigious brands helps position Ledger as a premium, trustworthy business. In an industry, and indeed sub-industry (crypto security), where trust is paramount, these brand associations could be more valuable than the direct sales they generate.

(6) The struggle to breach the mainstream

The demographic of buyers for hardware wallets right now is people who have a significant amount of crypto.

Ledger’s current customers have spent between $200-500 on a hardware wallet. So the question becomes: how much crypto does one need to hold, to make it worthwhile to buy a hardware wallet? Whether that number is $10,000 or $1000 — for Ledger to increase sales at a significant rate, they ideally need a) that number to reduce and b) the size of the demographic that reach that number to increase. This throttles their b2c business TAM.

Whether that is different within the enterprise side of their business is something that remains to be seen. And to what extent these large partnerships help with that market in particular, is something that we will assess via their revenue numbers in the years to come.

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