 The war in Ukraine is sending shockwaves through the crypto markets. Since Russia started a military operation against its neighbor last month, Bitcoin briefly dropped and it is now strongly rebounding. On both sides of the conflict, people are increasingly relying on crypto to face the financial turmoil. How is this geopolitical crisis impacting the crypto markets? Is Bitcoin showing the properties of a safe haven asset? We talked about this with Jody Pasquale, CEO at BitBull Capital, in our latest Cointelegraph interview. Following Russia's attack on Ukraine, we saw Bitcoin tanking together with equities. That sparked the usual criticism around the Bitcoin narrative of being a safe haven asset and a store value. Now we are seeing Bitcoin rebounding significantly from these laws. So what do you make of Bitcoin's behavior in this geopolitical crisis? Well, that's been a long lasting criticism of Bitcoin. I hear people say a lot. Well, if it's so volatile, how can it be a store value or a safe haven asset? I think it's important for people to recognize that Bitcoin started just over 10 years ago. It will be interesting to see, especially with the war on Ukraine, whether even Ukrainians use Bitcoin as a safe haven asset. We've seen certainly a drop in the value of currencies in the region. And time will tell. Bitcoin is new, but we do still see it as a hedge against global uncertainty and inflation. This volatility is also still, this low is still higher than its low point during the summer. So yes, it's volatile, but yes, it's also up over the year. So we also need to point out that Bitcoin behaved significantly different from gold in this crisis because while Bitcoin tanked together with equities, we saw gold going up on the other end. So do you think it still makes sense to call Bitcoin a digital version of gold? Yeah, I think we need to see Bitcoin as not maybe digital gold, but as a currency that doesn't follow the whims of a central bank, but rather has a very finite quantity. And so with gold, we did see gold fall last year overall. And even this year, and kind of starting in the end of last year, it started rising. So there was this thesis that Bitcoin is both this interesting mixture of both a risk on asset and some sort of, you know, as you're saying, digital gold or hedge against inflation. But it's a mix of both and that's what's made it over the long term uncorrelated with both gold or equities. But of course, in the near term, in the short term, we have seen a correlation. We've seen this almost everything bubble in the last couple of years and now really a drop in any sort of risk on asset like Bitcoin or equities. So the West has responded to Russia's aggression with unprecedented sanctions. Some of them are now hitting Russia's banking sector and are limiting Russia's banks capabilities to transact in foreign currencies. But also they are hitting the Russian political elite, which is now seeing their asset being frozen in Europe, in the US. And also, yeah, their possibility to interact with the global financial systems are being heavily limited. So a lot of people are saying that now crypto could be used by the Russian political elite to circumvent the sanctions imposed by the West. So do you see this as a possibility and would Bitcoin risk becoming politicized if that happened? Well, we've seen this before in Bitcoin where in its early days, people had fears of Bitcoin as harboring nefarious activity. But since then, Bitcoin, people have recognized that Bitcoin, unlike cash, is completely traceable. Unfortunately, since then it's become mostly apolitical. We've seen El Salvador, places in Africa, the Middle East, et cetera, go into Bitcoin as a way to have a less inflationary currency. But there is a danger of it becoming politicized. My hope, though, is that what we'll really see is a lot of Ukrainians also fleeing into Bitcoin. Since then, Bitcoin has shown for its strengths, which is to help an economy cling to a more stable currency, potentially a more stable currency, or a currency that actually increases in value rather than decreasing in value. So we'll see how it goes. I think if Russia and Russians do flee to Bitcoin, it will just be the millionth proof point that, and I just read an article in The New York Times this morning arguing that we should sanction and even confiscate more foreign Russian assets to put pressure on Putin. But essentially, Russia and Russians have some of the highest ratio of money laundering and hiding money. So if Bitcoin is just the millionth way of people, Russians doing that, then I don't think it should be blamed on Bitcoin. Yeah, let's also not forget to differentiate the Russian political elite from the Russian people. Of course, there are many people in Russia, common people that have been using crypto and will be using crypto, not for nefarious purposes, but for achieving financial freedom and in order to protect their wealth. So switching topic, according to a recent GlassNode report, the Bitcoin market is likely to stay down for a while, mainly due to a relatively high amount of network entities in a negative position. So the report says, the longer the investors are under water on their position and the further they fall into unrealized loss, the more likely those health coins will be spent and sold. So do you agree with this reading? Well, I agree in theory with the analysis, Giovanni, but when I think of network entities, for me, as a hedge fund manager, a crypto hedge fund manager, I think of other crypto hedge funds. And I have to tell you that I'd be remiss not to tell you that for active managers of crypto, as many of us are up this year, my fund was up over 10% in January and at least several percent to date in February. And that's because there's a lot of volatility that we like trading around. So when I think of network entities, I think of some institutional investors, including hedge funds, who like volatility like myself. But it's true that, you know, large entities who might have just done a passive buy and hold strategy will be down, depending on when they purchase. Of course, we saw Bitcoin touch 30K in the summer twice, you know, over a couple of months, and so it is higher than that. But if you bought at the all-time high in November at 68K, then yes, you're down about 50% from there. But if you bought even in the beginning of 2021, you'd be up. So it just depends on when. But in general, the longer that thing stays down, it is bad because, you know, you see the moving averages and you'd be under a whole set of moving averages, depending on how long we stay down for. And then that does, you know, especially for technical traders, create kind of a fear of an ongoing bear market cycle and a need for even stronger news to pull us out of that. I don't think we're there yet, depending on which moving averages you look at and how much fund you agree with. But it is the longer we are down, the worse. Right. And in general, would you agree that right now we are in a bear market? I don't agree with that. And here's why. We are the one impressive thing, one of the impressive things about Bitcoin is that it repeatedly overtakes all-time highs. We saw, you know, in December of 2017, the 20K all-time high, yes, there was a bear market absolutely in 2018, was one of the only two significantly down years for Bitcoin. And then after, you know, 2018, it went up strongly in 2019, 2020, and even up in 2021. So we're not there yet. This is, yes, December was down, January has been down, and February to date. But that does not yet indicate a long-term bear market. Even in 2018, in April of 2018, I remember the market really shot up. So we'll see if there is a bounce, what you would call a bounce from these lows. And again, over the last day, we have seen that bounce. When it hit 34, 35, we saw it go up to 39. And so if there is that support, which is higher than the low it reached over the summer, then we are reaching higher lows and even higher highs, as we saw when it went to 60K last spring summer, then went down to 30, then went up to 60 feet, a new all-time high in November. So we are taking a breath here, but it has bounced in the last day. So co-founder of Huobi, Hu June, said lately that we won't see another crypto bull market until late 2024. So after the next Bitcoin halving. So what do you think about this prediction? No, unfortunately, I think Hu June got it wrong. I would be surprised if we don't over the next by 2024 or 2023, even a year before his prediction of the next bull market hit 100K for Bitcoin. So at that price prediction, 40K is a good deal, as is of course 35K or even 50K. So it strongly disagreed with Hu June. And I think the flows in and out in the last day show again repeated support around the 35K price range. OK, so as far as I understand, you see the next Bitcoin bull run coming earlier than 2024. And so you see Bitcoin reaching 100K before then. Can you be a bit more precise on your on your time frame for Bitcoin achieving 100K? I think 2023 is a safe bet. We might need some time during 2022 to take a breath and to kind of let out some of the steam as we've seen. But because of the repeated support, I believe that it will go up over the next year and especially over the next two years. So certainly by the end of 2023. OK, thanks a lot, Joe, for being on our show. Thank you, Giovanni. Great to talk with you again.