Few years before the Coronavirus pandemic, I portrayed an indoor life which I called ‘Living in the Future’, where all human activities would be performed indoors. Education, commerce and virtually every human activity will be behind closed doors except tourism, outdoor refreshment and stuffs in same category.
It appeared much like a farfetched illusion until the emergence of Coronavirus in 2020. All that were described in that prophetic illusion became a reality. We were forced to learn a lifestyle that was meant to come long into the future.
Coronaviruses are a group of related RNA viruses that cause diseases in mammals and birds. In humans and birds, they cause respiratory tract infections that can range from mild to lethal. The Coronavirus attack swindle into a pandemic in a very short time that raised cause for alarm.
The dangerous situation demanded for swift action from governments and institutions all over the world to adopt the indoor lifestyle which wasn’t an easy task at all but left no one with no option than to embrace our fate in good faith.
The Coronavirus Pandemic dealt a severe blow on the global economy, depleting a lot of reserves. But something strange happened: those ‘Living in the Future’ rather became richer while the rest of the world were cracked down.
Those that were solely in indoor businesses became overwhelmingly rich. E-commerce experienced a surge with Jeff Bezos owner of the E-commerce giant Amazon and as well the richest man at the time doubled his net worth to become the first man to hit the 200 billion dollars benchmark.
Another mind-blowing surge was that of Zoom. Zoom usage shot up in March 2020. Eric Subrah Yuan, Chinese American billionaire businessman, and the CEO and founder of Zoom stated in a blog post that over the course of that month, Zoom was seeing 200 million daily meeting participants (not DAU).
The following month, this figure had risen to 300 million. This compares to 10 million in December 2019. So did the surge continued to its stock price all-time high at $588.84 in October 2020.
Note that the company came public in the mid-$60s in April 2019, yielding an immediate uptrend that topped out just above $100 in June. It fell back to the IPO opening print in the fourth quarter and hovered around that level into a January uptick that broke out to a new high in February.
The momentum crowd entered the stock in March, setting off high-volatility and two-sided action into May, when Zoom stock took off in a historic uptrend that initially topped out in July in the $280s. There was a little pull back while it continued in its uptrend into 2021.
Elon Musk the futuristic man broke the jinx to make history. His business module has always been for the future. A fantasy business enterprise meant to drive people into the future.
Elon Musk started year 2020 with a net worth of 20 billion dollars and ended it with approximately whopping sum of 200 billion dollars. That’s 1000 percent growth. For a billionaire to make a thousand percent growth in a single year is mind boggling. It’s highly incomprehensible.
Cryptocurrency which is a very prominent facilitator and driver isn’t left out of the game.
A cryptocurrency (or crypto currency or crypto for short) is a digital asset designed to work as a medium of exchange wherein individual coin ownership records are stored in a ledger existing in a form of computerized database using strong cryptography to secure transaction records, to control the creation of additional coins, and to verify the transfer of coin ownership.
It typically does not exist in physical form (like paper money) and is typically not issued by a central authority. Cryptocurrencies typically use decentralized control as opposed to centralized digital currency and central banking systems.
When a cryptocurrency is minted or created prior to issuance or issued by a single issuer, it is generally considered centralized. When implemented with decentralized control, each cryptocurrency works through distributed ledger technology, typically a blockchain, that serves as a public financial transaction database.
Cryptocurrency is bridging the gap in cashless society and hastening the process and gradually moving to mainstream and taking the place of Fiat currency. Barely at the end of same year 2020 crypto currency hit 1 trillion dollars market capitalization automatically created new set of billionaires.
Bitcoin being the first, most popular and most widely adopted is a cryptocurrency invented in 2008 by an unknown person or group of people using the name Satoshi Nakamoto. The currency began its use in 2009 when its implementation was released as open-source software.
Digital payment system is really making indoor transactions a reality as it requires no middleman and makes business deals faster and private. Any investors in these assets are really investing in the future. It will also be a good idea to bring our minds close to the right investment pattern.
It will be nice that we devote more effort digitalizing our environment with a master town plan as it will facilitate economic growth. Also, open market systems will one day become obsolete and die off.
Right economic decisions will prepare us for the times ahead.
Elombah Michael is a Digital Economist
