No White Knights: Ledger CEO Throws Mt. Gox Shade While Spy-Chip Storm Hits $90M

Ledger CEO Pascal Gauthier publicly clashed with former Mt. Gox chief Mark Karpelès over a wave of tampered hardware wallets that has already cost users more than $90 million, accusing Karpelès of being "no white knight" in an exchange that quickly turned personal.

Karpelès, who helped expose the threat after unboxing a sealed Ledger device and discovering a hidden circuit board capable of exfiltrating the 24-word recovery phrase, argued the wallet maker had knowledge of advanced implants as early as March. He pointed to a March 6 Ledger security guide depicting both handmade and mass-produced spy chips, though the article was later updated in September, raising questions about when the images first appeared. Ledger has acknowledged that its Genuine Check cannot detect implants when the original secure element remains intact.

Karpelès posted a correction on X on October 17, 2026, conceding that Ledger had published an Academy topic on the issue in March 2026 that recommended purchasing directly or through Authorized Resellers, a detail he said he had initially overlooked.

The dispute escalated when Gauthier, after urging Karpelès to "stick to facts," referenced the 2014 Mt. Gox collapse, in which approximately 850,000 Bitcoin went missing under Karpelès' watch, telling him, "Coming from the Mt Gox CEO… Come on man, you are no white knight. Get real." Karpelès countered that his experience running a failed exchange was precisely why he expected higher security standards from a hardware manufacturer.

The fallout has extended beyond the war of words, with Ledger halting sales through CryptoBilis resellers amid widening reports of tampered devices in Europe and rival Trezor moving to shrink its own reseller network. The episode lays bare a persistent gap in offline custody: even a genuine Ledger device cannot prove the unit reaching a buyer's hands has not been modified, leaving holders of substantial $BTC and $ETH balances to weigh trust, supply chain, and tamper-evidence on their own.