The Pulse by EllisX: Tech & Business Trends Worth Writing About — Dec 21

Here we are in the final days of December. In what is typically a slow month, we’ve seen a whirlwind of activity this year, with exciting new trends catching our eye week after week. We don’t know if this will hold throughout Christmas and the New Year (who’s ready for 2021?), but continue monitoring the tech and business landscape for anything interesting. If we don’t spot anything interesting, this will be our last Pulse for 2020, and we want to take a moment to wish you a happy and healthy holiday season.

And without further ado, here are the trends that caught our attention during the past week:

Cryptocurrency may be moving into the mainstream

On December 16 Bitcoin’s price rose to more than $20,000 for the first time and is now on its way to $23,000. The cryptocurrency had been deemed worthless multiple times in the past and its price has been very volatile over the last couple of years. In addition, crypto exchange Coinbase filed to go public next year and is expected to be among the first IPOs of 2021. Coinbase was most recently valued at $8 billion and its IPO, together with Bitcoin’s doubling in price this year, signal that investors may finally be ready to embrace crypto, elevating its status as an investment opportunity.

Can the Passion Economy help creators earn sustainable income?

The Creator Economy has been credited as a way to uplift people and offer a path into the middle class for those who aspire to create and cater to specific audiences. We’ve seen many prominent journalists leave established publications to launch their own Substacks, but as Josh Sternberg of The Media Nut wrote a few month ago, the reality is that the majority of them are not able to make a living out of their writing. While this year has seen an uptick in creator tools, the majority of creators still struggle to generate sustainable income. However, according to Li Jin, we’re just scratching the surface of the Passion Economy’s potential, and if we put the right support systems in place, it provides a solid pathway to a primary or secondary income stream that would uplift and empower the majority of creators.

Is Big Tech under a threat?

The idea of breaking up Big Tech has become quite popular with regulators in the last couple of years. This year alone the CEOs of Twitter, Facebook and Google were called to testify in front of Congress. And the EU has been leading its own fight against Big Tech. This trend is set to continue into 2021. Last week, Texas filed a lawsuit against Google, accusing the behemoth of anticompetitive behavior. Google is also under a lawsuit from the DOJ for the same reason. In the meantime, Massachusetts filed a complaint against trading platform Robinhood. While Robinhood is not quite a Big Tech company, this goes to show that large unicorns are not immune to regulators’ scrutiny — something that might become more common next year.

And if you’re writing a story about any of these trends, you can always find qualified experts available to comment on them here.