If we look closely enough, we may be able to see a light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel.
Ever since the United States began to shut down in March, the greatest hope for a return to normalcy has been an effective vaccine.
The news was spectacular this week. Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) and BioNTech (NASDAQ:BNTX) applied today for emergency use authorization (EUA) for their candidate, which is estimated to be 95% effective. They say they can ship the first doses within hours of FDA approval.
And you probably heard that another vaccine also shows 95% estimated effectiveness. Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) expects to file for its EUA within a few weeks.
The first vaccinations could come in December, less than a year since this all started. That’s staggering, and it shows how far health technology has come. The previous fastest vaccine was for mumps, and that took four years.
We all hope everything continues in the direction it’s heading. Assuming it does, we face the unprecedented challenge of vaccinating basically the whole world as fast as possible.
That will require keeping track of everything. Who has been vaccinated? Which vaccine did they receive? From which manufacturing batch? Where did it ship from? Was it stored properly?
It’s a logistical jigsaw puzzle perhaps bigger than any the world has seen. To effectively track all this information, government and health officials are turning to the next great transformational technology platform …
The first thing I ask is that you set aside any notion that cryptocurrencies are fantasy internet money.
Cryptocurrencies and the blockchain technology they are built on are revolutionary software programs.
Simply put, blockchain is the safest way to store and transfer information ever created, which makes it ideal for tracking vaccines.
Let me give you a tiny and somewhat silly example that happened to me last weekend. I went to a tailor to get a couple of new suits, including a wool one for winter. I picked out a fabric I liked and noticed it had something on the side that said “blockchain.”
I asked what that meant, and the tailor said, “We can scan this and see exactly where this wool came from. Which country, which county, even which sheep.”
Amazing, right? But while it’s super cool, I wouldn’t call knowing which sheep wool came from life changing.
However, using blockchain to track a vaccine for the deadliest pandemic in more than a century is life changing. Vaccinating the whole world will require one of the most complicated supply chains ever built. Nations as well as the World Health Organization believe blockchain can help.
This is the direction we’re going. In the future, pretty much everything in the world will be tracked by blockchain.
It’s going to change everything. The way you buy everyday goods and services … buy a home … pay your taxes … maybe even how we vote in the future.
This transformation is already underway, but the truly seismic shift — when the massive profits are made — comes as businesses, consumers, and big-money investors realize what’s going on.
Charlie Shrem, one of the earliest pioneers in cryptocurrencies, and I call this “The Awakening.”
It won’t just be the biggest thing to happen to cryptocurrencies. We think it will be the biggest thing since the mass adoption of the internet.
Over the last 10 years, the cryptocurrency industry has been defined by bitcoin. That means a lot of ups and downs. But things are changing as the technology comes into its own.
And don’t look now, but bitcoin is on a huge run and approaching new all-time highs …
That spike in late 2017 is when bitcoin popped over $20,000. You can see how it’s surged roughly 275% since the March lows, including a powerful 78% shot higher just since October 1. It’s no stretch to say that bitcoin should make new all-time highs sooner than later … and then keep going over time.
Transformational platforms bring about a wholesale change … like when a caterpillar becomes a butterfly… or when a child become a teenager.
Electricity is a great example. The harnessing of electric power in the early 1900s transformed the world. It gave birth to our use of light bulbs, refrigerators, radios, televisions, telephones, air conditioners … the list goes on.
Electric power was the “platform” from which all those incredible innovations sprang to life. The world after we harnessed electricity looked totally different than the one before it.
These revolutions are rare. We saw the emergence of probably just a handful in the 20th century — electric power, the internet, even smartphones.
Each one presented colossal wealth-building opportunities.
The MORE a technology changes the world for the better, the MORE revenue it will generate, and the BIGGER the gains will be for investors.
That’s why blockchain is going to be so huge. It’s why some high-profile insiders are saying it will be bigger than the internet. It’s going to touch virtually every industry on Earth.
I’m talking about your financial and banking information … your personal healthcare information … proprietary business information … contracts … tax information … credit card payments … real estate transactions … energy … and on and on.
It is already being used in more and more places all the time, and this massive disruption creates a once-in-a-lifetime financial opportunity for anyone who acts today.
The world’s biggest companies — those with long track records of backing the biggest and most important trends — have just kicked off a new battle for crypto supremacy. Companies like Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), and Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) are all investing billions.
Wall Street wants in, too. Paul Tudor Jones, who’s easily one of the most successful and influential investors in history, admitted that he’s a big buyer of bitcoin and that it could outperform all the other assets his legendary fund holds.
As governments, businesses, and individuals awaken to blockchain’s transformational impacts, it could singlehandedly drive the price of bitcoin and other select cryptocurrencies to never-before-seen heights. If you position yourself correctly, it could hand you a fortune that you could only previously dream of.
On the date of publication, Matthew McCall did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.
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