Nokia’s new CEO has warned that the West cannot afford a self-inflicted technology cold war as EU curbs on China’s 5G collide with the borderless reality where prices are set every day by Bitcoin and Ethereum.
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- Nokia CEO Justin Hotard told Reuters that Europe and the US are “significantly co-dependent” and warned that splitting the 5G and 6G markets would hurt scale just as the cycle accelerates.
- Brussels’ plan to phase out “high-risk vendors” like Huawei within 36 months deepens security-led decoupling, even as Huawei attacks the rules as discriminatory and disproportionate.
- Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana trade as 24/7 macro benchmarks, with open networks quietly arbitrating the geopolitical fragmentation that nation-states seek to impose on their physical infrastructure.
Nokia’s new chief executive, Justin Hotard, has issued a clear warning to politicians on both sides of the Atlantic: the West cannot afford to continue a technology cold war with itself. “Each of us cannot live on one continent or the other. We need both,” he told Reuters. “In a field where the right to win depends on technological cycles, it is very important to have the greatest possible market access.”
Merging European security promotion with market realities
Hotard’s intervention comes as the city of Brussels seeks to strengthen its network against so-called “high-risk vendors.” Earlier this month, the European Commission proposed amendments to EU cybersecurity law that would require operators to phase out equipment from designated high-risk suppliers (an abbreviation for Chinese groups such as Huawei and ZTE) within 36 months. EU technology chief Hena Virkunen hailed the plan as a “major step forward in ensuring Europe’s technological independence”.
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Nokia and Sweden’s Ericsson are positioning themselves as the West’s default vendor for 5G and future 6G networks after the United States banned Chinese suppliers on national security grounds, leaving American carriers reliant on Nokia, Ericsson and Samsung. But, as Hotard points out, “everything of European and American size depends on the European and American markets for their size. Even an analysis shows that there is a significant co-dependence.” Huawei complains that the EU’s approach “violates the EU’s fundamental legal principles of fairness, non-discrimination and proportionality.”
Crypto benchmarks in a fragmented world
The debate over technological sovereignty is unfolding against the backdrop of a market where borderless digital assets quietly price geopolitical risks in real time. Bitcoin (BTC) is trading at around $88,235, with a 24-hour high of around $90,476 and low of around $87,549, with trading volume of approximately $32.8 billion. Ethereum (ETH) changed hands between $2,943 and $2,953, with about $23.4 billion moving in the last day. Solana (SOL) is trading around $192, up about 2.7% in 24 hours, on volume of just under $9.8 billion.
As Brussels and Washington debate who will build and secure the backbone of the next Internet, permissionless networks present an uncomfortable counterexample. It is a system where value and data flow regardless of geography and where attempts at hard decoupling are adjudicated on the spot. For investors, the tension between managed fragmentation and open networks is quickly becoming a key macro theme.
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