Eric Larchevêque is the CEO and Co-founder of Ledger, a Bitcoin security company. He initially founded la Maison du Bitcoin, which in 2014 merged with BTChip and Chronocoin to become Ledger. He stores more than 1,000 bitcoins on his personal Ledger Nano.
This is a hardware wallet based on a smart card. A smart card is a secure element, so it looks like a USB key but in fact, it's a small computer. And what does this small computer do? It holds on your private keys and it will also sign your transactions, so let's take a very simple example. This is a Chrome application so it works on any kind of computer. I put this in the USB port and then I will enter my pin code which I selected during initialization.
Hardware wallets are going to evolve to personal security devices. Not only they'll be used to secure your bitcoins or other digital assets, but they'll manage your digital identities (FIDO) and secure your communications.
Interview with Eric Larchevêque from the 2014 North American Bitcoin Conference.