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ARE CRYPTO AND THE METAVERSE THE NEXT BREAKTHROUGH WAVE?

 I looked closer at the Worldometer and Our World in Data for COVID-19 this morning, and can make several observations:

  • The World is approaching 300 million cases and 5.5 million deaths, a mortality rate just under 2% and 0.75 deaths/1000.  On the last number, picture a thousand people.  Less than one death.
  • The USA has 56 million cases and will soon reach one million deaths, a mortality rate of 1.5% and 2.5 deaths/thousand.  For a thousand people, 2.5 deaths.  In a two-year period (to be about equal to the time frame of these COVID-19 deaths), there would be 3.6 cancer deaths in the U.S.
  • Japan has 1.7 million cases, 18,393 deaths, mortality rate of 1% and 0.15 deaths/capita.
  • Denmark has a tests/capita rate of 18.5, with #2 Austria at 13.7, and the UK at 5.9.  The U.S. has a tests/capita of 2.4.
  • Fully vaccinated % (not including booster)
    • UAE  91%
    • Portugal 90%
    • Singapore  87%
    • Cuba  85%
    • China  84%
    • Japan  78%
    • UK  70%
    • European Union  69%
    • U.S. 62%
    • Asia  57%
    • India  44%
    • Egypt  20%
    • Africa  9%
    • Low Income  4%
    • Nigeria  2%

Transmissibility comparison:

  • Original SARS-CoV-2 virus in China = 1
  • Alpha variant = twice as contagious as the original
  • Delta variant = 50% more transmissible as Alpha = 3 times more than original
  • Omicron variant = 70 times more transmissible than Delta = 210 times more than original
I suspect that this factor of 70 will be adjusted over time.  In any case, the Omicron variant is a lot more contagious than the Delta variant

Again, this number will be refined as more data arrive, but, relative to Delta:
  • Omicron patients have a 40% to 75% reduced risk of hospitalization.
  • Omicron infections were 70% less likely to bring severe disease.
  • While two dosages of the Pfizer vaccine show definite weakening in preventing contraction of Omicron, a booster increased by 25-fold a body's virus-fighting antibodies.
  • The Moderna booster appears to provide protection against the Omicron variant.  However:
    • A 50 microgram booster increased effectiveness 37-fold.
    • A 100 microgram booster gave an 83-fold increase in neutralizing antibody levels.
  • Johnson & Johnson's booster provides high levels of protection against the omicron variant.  
    • A booster improved protection against hospitalization from 63% to 85%.
    • There however is a growing sense that anyone who got an initial J&J dosage should use Pfizer or Moderna for the booster.
  • Pfizer and Moderna vaccines work better than J&Js, but even the latter well protects against hospitalization and death.
  • Those who have been vaccinated and boosted, but still get infected by Delta or Omicron seem, if showing any symptoms at all, have only a sore throat, some fatigue and muscle pain.  No difficulty breathing and no shortness of breath.  In summary, a little uncomfortable, but fine.  However, if vaccinated but not boosted, you also get a milder form of illness, but slightly more intense.
  • If you are one of those who got fully vaccinated and boosted, and still got infected with Omicron or Delta, the Oregon Health and Science University found that these individuals acquired a SUPER IMMUNITY to this virus in the future.
  • In any case, hospitals around the world say those most ailing from COVID-19 in hospitals today are those who have not been vaccinated.
  • IN SHORT, IF YOU WANT TO LIVE LONGER, GET VACCINATED AND BOOSTED.

My speculation is that if Omicron was the first variant to infect the world, because there was no vaccine, there would have been, very quickly, a much higher rate of COVID-19 cases, and more deaths than we have today.  By striking humanity when we were already mostly vaccinated, it is more and more appearing that Omicron will in time become just another virus to worry about for the seasonal flu. Fortunately, the mRNA vaccines developed for COVID-19 can easily be adjusted for this purpose.  If Omicron is anything close to 70 times more contagious than Delta, the odds are very low that a new variant of COVID-19 will replace Omicron.  Still, it would be wise to invest in a full court press to vaccinate Africa and other developing parts of the world.

From the New York Times this morning:


From the top graphic, while cases are zooming up because of the Omicron variant, deaths are not.  The second?  Again, if you want to live longer, get vaccinated and boosted.

My topic of the day looks at how our world has changed from the internet, smart phones and coming metaverse.  The evolution of this technology has come in three waves:

  • Web 1.0 was the era of decentralized and open protocols.
  • Web 2.0, social media, which we're now in, is centralized, shared and regulated by governments.
  • Web 3.0 or web3, again is decentralizing, in that there will not be any central gatekeeper, and instead, users will earn ownership by helping to develop and maintain those services.  While computers will still be useful, a simple smartphone might well be the ideal device for this next phase.  This is the ultimate metaverse espoused by libertarians.

If you want to, you can go back to the 1920's to link the history of the internet to information theory.

  • The transistor was invented in 1947 and IBM dominated the early days of computers.
  • Telecommunications began to develop in World War II and became computer science in the 1950's.
  • I vaguely remember using Sperry Rand and Burroughs computers in my college years.
  • Distributed networks gained interest and the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense in 1969 began ARPANET.
  • Norm Abramson at that time designed ALOHAnet, the foundation of wireless communication, connecting the four islands of Hawaii with ARPANET.
    • He earned his PhD in electrical engineering in 1958 from Stanford when I entered in chemical engineering.
    • We later worked in the University of Hawaii College of Engineering.
    • He passed away two years ago.
  • Internetworking advanced in the 1970's joining a network of networks.
  • I taught computer programming in this period and dabbled in graphics.  The campus computer was an IBM mainframe, and I used a million cards in my days.
  • Apple was founded in 1976, and has driven the home computer market.
  • IBM, which incorporated in 1911, attempted to compete with Apply in personal computers, but sold this business to Lenovo of China in 2005.  
  • The National Science Foundation funded national supercomputing centers to build the NSFNET, providing access to research and academic organizations in the U.S. from the 80's.
  • The notion of a World Wide Web came from CERN in Switzerland around 1990 to access the internet.
  • This  is when I first got involved in electronic mail.
  • Search engines/directories began in 1993 with Lycos and Yahoo in 1994.
  • I use Hotmail, which was founded in 1996 and acquired by Microsoft in 1997.  It was renamed to Outlook in 2012.
  • The first mobile phone with internet connectivity was Nokia from Finland in 1996, followed by NTT CoCoMo from Japan in 1999.
  • Blackberry was launched from the U.S. in 2001.
  • Google was founded in 1998, bringing relevancy ranking to the field.
  • Napster in 1999 shared files.
  • Dropbox was released in 2007 to hold files.
  • Microsoft and Yahoo partnered in 2009 with Yahoo? Search.
  • By the mid-90's social networking systems began, sometimes referred to as Web 2.0.
  • Facebook was launched in 2004, paving the way for social media.
  • MEGA came in 2013 from New Zealand as a FREE cloud storage site.
  • The internet now as 4.66 billion users.

So when did the internet start?  Well, let's say thirty years ago when in 1992 the Internet Society formed.

  • Mosaic came in 1991.
  • Netscape Navigator arrived in 1994 and took over.
  • Only the following year Internet Explorer overwhelmed them all.
  • Then in 2012 Google overtook Explorer to become the most popular web browser.  Today?

Is crypto the NEXT BREAKTHROUGH WAVE?

  • Well, not web3 itself, but definitely one of the key features.
  • Investors have advanced $28 billion into global crypto and blockchain start-ups, with $3 billion into nonfungible tokens.
  • Good minds from Google, Amazon and Apple are leaving their companies to start or help run crypto companies:
    • Sandy Carter left Amazon to start Unstoppable Domains.
    • Surojit Chatterjee became chief product officer for Coinbase.  In 14 months his value soared to $600 million.
  • Swidhar Ramaswamy of Google created Neeva.
  • Brian Roberts of Lyft joined OpenSea.
  • Jack Dorsey of Twitter jumped to Square, now called Block.
  • David Marcus at Meta went to pursue two cryptocurrency projects.
  • Evan Cheng of Facebook skipped out to start Mysten Labs and invested in Parsiq.
  • Bitcoin has jumped 60% in the past year and Ethereum more than five-fold.  Will Ethereum replace Bitcoin?
  • Web 3.0 is a term used to describe a metaverse that uses the internet as its substrate, utilizing crypto activity as one of the applications.
As for what will happen next within metaverses themselves; they’re likely going to become more popular with time because people are naturally drawn towards them. As mentioned earlier, they allow us not only to socialize with others but also to take up new hobbies and build communities. A functioning metaverse is still a long way away, but Facebook and Epic both want to take the lead in developing it.
  • Some say that crypto will bust monopolies like Google and Facebook (owned by Meta).
  • Then again, cryptocurrency could well be a house of cards and crash.
  • While the metaverse will be a key part of education, business and the like, nothing wrong with having fun and enjoying life.  So this will become the playground of the future.

It's a new year.  First, the Dow Jones Industrials broke, again, their all-time big, rising 247 to 36,585.  Heck, good time to hug and enjoy life:


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