Ledger ex-CEO and co-founder Éric Larchevêque recently took to Reddit to express his feelings about the recent controversy surrounding the crypto firm’s new recovery feature. However, some of his comments were not well-received by the Reddit community, particularly the ones saying that the feature’s launch was just a public relations mess and not a technical one.

Ledger Ex-CEO Claims Recover Launch was a Total PR Failure, But Not a Technical One

Éric Larchevêque, co-founder and former CEO of the crypto wallet firm Ledger, posted on the /r/cryptocurrency subreddit on the social site where he reflected on the recent backlash over Legder’s newly-launched feature to help users recover access to their crypto funds.

“What a horrible mess” is the first sentence Larchevêque wrote in the post after introducing himself. He then added that he was devastated to come to the subreddit and see all the anger and insults toward his crypto company, where he still holds a stake. The ex-CEO apologized for how the rollout of the new feature, Ledger Recover, has been handled.

“When Recover was abruptly launched, this false sense of trustlessness went into pieces and people started to actually understand how a HW works. At least, that’s a positive note.”

– Larchevêque wrote in the Reddit post.

However, in what appears to be an attempt to defend the company he co-founded, Larchevêque the launch was “a total PR failure, but absolutely not a technical one.”

Additionally, the ex-CEO’s comments in a personal capacity also stated that Ledger users had been implicitly trusting Ledger since day one. And when the new feature released, the “false sense of trustlessness” was broke.

So people started to think Ledger was a trustless solution, which is not the case. Some amount of trust must be placed into Ledger to use their product. If you don’t trust Ledger, meaning you treat your HW manufacturer as an adversary, that can’t work at all.

When Recover was abruptly launched, this false sense of trustlessness went into pieces and people started to actually understand how a HW works. At least, that’s a positive note.

My personal view on the PR disaster, from a Ledger co-founder and ex CEO

Reddit Slams Larchevêque’s Remarks

But it seems that Larchevêque’s claims did not convince Reddit users. Specifically, a user with the top comment opposed his remarks that Ledger Recover is not a technical failure, saying that the feature’s design allows the government to obtain wallet keys by simply sending a subpoena to two of three companies responsible for storing the seed.

To understand this comment, it is important to explain how Ledger Recover works. The feature encrypts a user’s seed phrase and shards it into three parts, each shared with a different custodian. Ledger is one of the custodians, while the remaining two are crypto custody provider Coincover and code escrow firm EscrowTech.

Another user /u/locustsandhoney criticized Larchevêque for blaming the entire situation on Ledger’s bad PR. They explained: “Ledger clearly says – even in the CURRENT product description on Amazon.com, that the private key cannot be accessed by ANYTHING.”

“I DID NOT misunderstand Ledger’s presentation of their product. Ledger MISLED us.”

/u/locustsandhoney’s comment on the reddit post.

Ledger, which recently raised $109 million in fresh funding, fell into a PR crisis after one of its associated Twitter pages, Ledger Support, tweeted that wallet’s firmware “facilitates key extraction.” The tweet faced significant backlash on the social media platform, as users perceived it as contradictory to the key purpose of a hard wallet.

This article originally appeared on The Tokenist

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