2020, The Year That Was

2020, The Year That Was

Following worldwide protests, from environmentalists in London to Free Hong Kong, 2020 opened with optimism.

The millennials had risen, demanding accountability and a say in how we are governed. Now all were waiting for Ursula Von Der Leyen, who had promised a European Summit in the style of a Citizen’s Assembly.

After a terrible year for bitcoin and the wider crypto space, with an ethereum co-founder selling 90,000 eth and Vitalik Buterin revealing the Ethereum Foundation had sold at the top, some began to wonder whether there was anyone left to sell any longer.

And then Trump reminded us all why we bitcoin by revealing 52 stealth fighter jets on January the 7th. America was on the brink of war with Iran.

To bitcoin, these drums were singing to the bull that was to come as the global situation began taking a dangerous turn with that concert playing once more.

Italy could fall to nationalists, something that would have been a great escalation. Russia had penetrated deeply into Europe. As later was learned, as far as to Austria, and Northern Europe had allowed them to.

Surrounded by chaos, Turkey finally rose to play an exquisite game of chess this year that geopolitically re-aligned the modern concert to create a balance in this European continent.

A Europe that rises in prestige and global leadership as 2020 may be noted for America’s global absence.

Global failure, as the United States was outplayed at every turn to the point March brought it a big blow.

Calculated or otherwise, China buoenoed a lot. Their people somehow immune to what in Europe and America became the new bogieman.

That European Summit was cancelled, and for a period, politics was cancelled completely as the elected began to rule by diktat.

Salvini was charged, Trump lost, Putin went quiet, Erdogan outplayed Macron, and a reset was on.

For the better, hopefully, as the millennials get some of what they wanted with Ark Invest promising $3 trillion.

The ‘peasants’ somewhat failed. So it was time for their better ones, with the flashloans invention opening again imagination.

Slowly it was revealed a lot had been invented during the bear years, with summer bringing a new decentralized financial infrastructure that prototypes what in ten or twenty years might be the new code based financial economy.

As the real one collapsed, the digital one thrived. Bitcoin was to rise as the only choice for hedging mass devaluation, and for some accountability in economic management.

So making 2020 a more visible dual trajectory in that continuing race between techies and geopolitics with it creating a parallel world of significant oppression in real life, while there is blossoming freedom, creativity, innovation and dynamism in this digital one.

The year therefore in the grand tale of history may be remembered less for the lockdowns, and more about how the cream of the millennials got the upper hand in the end, with some small scale Citizens Assemblies successfully tried in France, while decentralized tech rises to grab the imagination of everyone.

There has thus been a structural change in the power relations between the governed and the governing, with technology empowering the latter in a trend that may well re-shape our culture and society this decade.

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