Ryder

Ryder is a hardware wallet that protects crypto assets through a social recovery model. Its core business combines a physical device with an NFC-based mobile app, allowing users to manage assets through tap-to-confirm interactions. The product's key differentiator is TapSafe, a backup system that splits the wallet's recovery seed into encrypted shares distributed among trusted contacts and NFC tags, eliminating the need for a single written seed phrase. This addresses the common pain point of seed phrase loss or theft, which the company cites as a major cause of crypto losses. The device itself is fully air-gapped, using NFC's short-range communication to avoid remote attack vectors associated with Bluetooth or USB.

Market pain points include the vulnerability of traditional seed phrase backups, the complexity of hardware wallet setup, and the risk of remote exploits. Ryder solves these by simplifying backup through social trust and physical tap interactions, while maintaining self-custody. In the past six months (February to August 2026), Ryder shipped OS 1.7.0, introducing Ryder Earn, a staking feature supporting Solana and STX, along with local currency display and in-app guides. The company also received a grant from the Solana Foundation to develop an official C++ SDK, positioning itself as infrastructure for hardware wallet developers. A rebrand and Ryder 2.0 are announced for August 2026. Notably, the company has not yet delivered on its promise to open-source its code, which was planned for 2026, and no major security incidents have been reported during this period.