Ledger, the French hardware wallet manufacturer, announced a new in-app lending feature on Wednesday at the TOKEN2049 conference in Singapore. Called Crypto Loan, the tool allows users to borrow USDC or USDT stablecoins by pledging wrapped bitcoin, in either cbBTC or wBTC format, as collateral.
The feature targets a familiar problem for bitcoin holders who want liquidity without selling their holdings or moving them onto a centralized exchange. By keeping the collateral and the loan process inside the Ledger app, the company says users can access stablecoins while retaining custody of their assets on their own device, rather than entrusting them to a third-party platform.
Loan actions themselves are managed directly within the app: opening a loan, tracking the loan-to-value ratio, adding collateral and making payments are all handled from the same interface. Each of these steps still requires physical approval on the Ledger device before it is finalized, a safeguard consistent with the company's broader security model for hardware wallets.
Built on Morpho, via Yield.xyz
The technical infrastructure behind Crypto Loan comes from Yield.xyz, while the lending itself runs on Morpho, a decentralized credit network. Morpho is not new to this kind of partnership: Coinbase already uses the same protocol for its own bitcoin-backed loans. Ledger's implementation goes a step further by giving its teams direct access to connect to Morpho without relying on browser extensions, a detail that points to a tighter integration between the wallet and the lending layer than a simple plug-in connection.
Paul Frambot, co-founder of the Morpho protocol, described the arrangement as creating a self-reinforcing liquidity loop. According to Frambot, the integration generates a liquidity cycle, as stablecoins deposited through Ledger's existing yield product can fund loans requested by borrowers. In practical terms, stablecoins that users have already parked in Ledger's yield offering become the capital that backs the new lending feature, rather than requiring fresh liquidity to be sourced elsewhere.
A European wallet maker moves into credit
For Ledger, the move extends a product line that began with secure storage into an area closer to financial services, placing the Nantes-based company alongside larger exchanges such as Coinbase in offering bitcoin-backed credit. The announcement at TOKEN2049 did not include details on interest rates, liquidation thresholds or geographic availability for the feature, though the mechanics described tie the loan-to-value tracking and collateral top-ups directly to the hardware device that underpins the rest of Ledger's product range.
