- The Ledger chief says that Bitcoin has shown utility in situations of war beyond just Ukraine
- He insists the crypto utility that the Ukraine situation has shown is nothing new
Ledger CEO Pascal Gauthier recently appeared on CNBC's Squawk on the Street in an exchange that dwelt on several matters crypto and where the industry is headed.
The impact of geopolitics
The ongoing war resulting from the Kremlin's incursion of Ukraine has been sort of a revelation for crypto in terms of sanction evasion and the cross-border utility of the assets. Perhaps the best illustration of this is the massive crypto donations that have been either made or pledged so far.
The Ledger boss noted that even beyond Ukraine, places like Lebanon have often seen the rising utility of crypto since war often causes fiat currencies to seek the floor.
He further explained that such events have exemplified Bitcoin's significance as a store of value and a medium of exchange, insisting that the asset's utility isn't anything new.
"[…] I think what you're seeing now is something that the Bitcoin and crypto community has been advocating for a long time […] and even in 2014, when you were saying Bitcoin would be useful in those types of situations, people would look at you and think, this will never happen, and now what has happened between 2014 and now is many fiat currencies have gone down, war has happened… and so these are situations where certainly Bitcoin reveals itself as a great store of value, as a great medium of exchange."
Ledger's performance
Gauthier appeared unconcerned about Bitcoin price, despite the asset showing signs of an uptrend recently.
He explained that Ledger's point of focus is usually around its performance in selling its hardware devices. In this regard, the firm is seeing more people onboarding to the sector, hence the rising price action.
"I think for us, we never look at the price, we look at our own business and how much devices we're selling in terms of security and what was interesting for us in Q1 is to see that we had exactly the same trend as we had in Q4, where Q4 was an extraordinary quarter for crypto markets."
However, he acknowledged that Bitcoin's pedigree has played a role in the recent surge since, as an asset, its relevance is rising by the day.
Gauthier also said that even before this war, Ledger was seeing significantly higher rates of adoption of its products in eastern Europe than in the US. Over the last year, the blockchain infrastructure firm recorded upwards of 800% growth in Ukraine and Russia, but around 150% in the US.