The current bear market has shown with countless examples why it is so important to manage your own cryptocurrencies yourself. Earlier this year with the implosion of the Terra (LUNA) ecosystem and the domino effect with big names like Celsius and Voyager. Now the fall of FTX, and the domino effect that came with it, is another perfect example of the importance of hardware wallets.
How big the domino effect will be after the FTX drama remains to be seen, but crypto lending platform BlockFi seems to be the first victim. BlockFi indicated that it has significant exposure to the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange and has had to pause its withdrawals as a result.
Popularity Trezor
Trezor, the well-known hardware wallet manufacturer, has experienced a significant increase in sales revenue since the demise of FTX. Jozef Tetek, ambassador of the brand, told this Cointelegraph.
Sales revenue is up a whopping 300% last week, compared to a week earlier, and it’s still growing. Tetek also said that revenues are currently higher than a year ago when bitcoin (BTC) is all time high had reached. In addition to the sales revenue, the traffic on the website has also increased considerably, by no less than 350% in the same period.
The surge in demand for Trezor hardware wallets spiked as rumors of FTX’s insolvency began to circulate. The low confidence in centralized exchanges is also reflected in the BTC outflow: historic amounts of bitcoin are flowing from exchanges.
The hardware manufacturer expects further growth in the near future as confidence in central parties will decrease:
“We expect this trend to continue in the short to medium term as the contagion of FTX continues and bitcoin or cryptocurrency holders losing faith in custodians and finally starting to explore their options to self-serve their digital assets.”
Ledger was having trouble
Trezor’s competitor, Ledger, even experienced some scalability challenges due to massive adoption of their platforms. This took place on November 9, the same day that Binance had decided to abandon the acquisition of FTX. It is clear that hardware wallet manufacturers are one of the few who are currently looking with a smile on all the problems that are unfolding in the current bear market.