Chris’ note: Colleague Jeff Brown is our go-to guy for all things tech.
He spent 25 years as a high-tech executive at some of the best tech companies in the world, like Qualcomm and NXP Semiconductors. And as an active and successful angel investor in early-stage tech companies, he has access to information the public never sees. He’s on the front line, in the field, seeing things months or years before the crowd catches on.
Our mission at The Daily Cut is to help spot market megatrends early on… so you can profit ahead of the crowd. So today, we’re sharing five of Jeff’s tech predictions for 2021. Stay tuned until the end to learn how to discover all the details of a new way for you to invest – before companies go public.
At the end of each year, I like to take a look at the big picture and predict what’s coming just around the corner.
Longtime readers of my work know I follow the most exciting tech trends on the verge of mass adoption.
That includes things like 5G networks, biotech, artificial intelligence (AI), and much more.
These trends are experiencing exponential growth and creating incredible opportunities for investors. I want to make sure all my readers are prepared for what’s next.
So with that in mind, I’ll share five things I see coming in the next 12 months…
Our new 5G (fifth-generation) wireless networks are a topic I’ve been covering for years now. But despite what many readers may think, this trend is just getting started.
Even with the COVID-19 pandemic raging, an impressive 250 million 5G-enabled devices were still sold last year.
But especially in the second quarter, there were supply chain disruptions, manufacturing delays, and work stoppages. All of this ultimately led to Apple (AAPL) delaying the release of the 5G-enabled iPhone 12 by two months.
Losing two months of manufacturing and sales really impacts how many 5G devices are sold in the calendar year. When you consider that, selling 250 million units is remarkable.
More importantly, the delays the pandemic caused created a ton of pent-up demand. That demand has now been pushed into 2021.
In fact, I predict that more than 500 million 5G devices will be shipped in 2021.
And that’s not my only 5G prediction…
The 5G network rollout has three different phases.
In Phase One, companies and governments build out the infrastructure of these new networks, including all the new towers and fiber-optic wiring 5G needs.
In Phase Two, 5G-enabled devices go on sale. 5G phones and other products begin to reach consumers.
In Phase Three, telecommunications companies begin offering 5G services. That’s when we start to see applications running on 5G networks. Think of things like massively multiplayer games over a mobile phone. That’s not possible with 4G. It will be with 5G.
And my second 5G prediction for 2021 is that we will begin Phase Three by this summer.
This starts something of a virtuous cycle: Most people don’t really care about the technology. But they will care if there are exciting applications they can access only with a 5G phone. So more and more consumers will buy 5G phones to access these applications. That leads to the development of more 5G apps.
In fact, 5G is going to open up a suite of incredible applications: self-driving cars, the Internet of Things, robotic surgery, and more. All of these technologies need 5G. The investment opportunities going forward will be enormous.
Stepping away from 5G, the next important technology I foresee booming in 2021 is CRISPR genetic editing. CRISPR stands for “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat.” It’s a mouthful. But it’s one of the most exciting developments in biotechnology.
At a high level, CRISPR can edit our genetic makeup as if it were software. If there’s a “typo” in software code, it can be disastrous. A program can crash or not function correctly. CRISPR uses a similar idea – but with our genetic code. “Typos” in our genomes can lead to disease. CRISPR can correct these “typos.”
For years, CRISPR was mostly a niche technology that wasn’t well understood. During that time, there were really only three companies operating in this space.
But things are changing. CRISPR is no longer just theoretical. We’re seeing actual results. We’re treating diseases and seeing that this technology works. As a result, a “second crop” of early stage CRISPR companies is going public and delivering incredible returns.
This entire industry is effectively a greenfield opportunity. The size of this opportunity is in the hundreds of billions of dollars. There’s room for many companies to exist in this space. And there will be more.
My prediction for CRISPR in 2021 is that two or three more genetic-editing companies will hold their initial public offerings (IPOs).
Sticking with biotech… we’re seeing amazing things happen at the convergence of biotech and AI.
Google’s AI subsidiary, DeepMind, announced at the end of 2020 that its latest AlphaFold software can accurately predict the folding of a protein based solely on its amino acid sequence with 92.4% accuracy.
That’s important, because the way a protein in the human body folds determines if a pharmaceutical will be able to bind to that protein and be effective. In other words, we have to know how these proteins fold if we want a drug to work. Historically, this has been a trial-and-error process.
But now, AlphaFold can predict protein folding with 92.4% accuracy. That’s going to make it much easier to create drugs that do what they’re designed to do.
This was a breakthrough almost nobody noticed. But it’s going to have profound implications for curing disease.
I predict that AlphaFold will be 98% accurate by the end of 2021. We’ll see not just one, but several drug therapies produced using this technology.
And, of course, there will be plenty of investment opportunities in this space, too.
Shifting topics… It’s going to be a good year for bitcoin. I’m bullish on it in 2021. That said, I still think bitcoin will continue to be volatile. We’re close to all-time highs. I wouldn’t be surprised if it pulled back – perhaps significantly – before going higher.
I’ve been covering bitcoin for a long time now. One of the first research reports I ever published was on bitcoin. That was in June 2015. At the time, bitcoin was trading for about $240.
Bitcoin trades for over $34,000 today. So that’s a 14,066% return on investment for anybody who followed my recommendation.
But at the time of that initial recommendation, I titled my report “What’s the Big Deal With Bitcoin?”
That shows you where the conversation was at the time. We were mostly educating readers. But that’s not the big question anymore.
Now we’re seeing institutional money finally take an interest in bitcoin. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance took a $100 million stake in bitcoin in December. This is not some small, niche enterprise. MassMutual is a trusted 170-year-old institution.
So think about that. In five years, we went from educating readers on what bitcoin is to a company like MassMutual taking a $100 million stake.
I predict the institutional adoption of bitcoin will continue in 2021. And that’s a big reason I’m bullish on it this year.
Regards,
Jeff Brown
Editor, The Bleeding Edge
P.S. I have a bonus prediction… 2020 was a record year for IPOs. 552 U.S. companies went public – the most in more than 20 years. These companies raised a total of $172 billion. That’s an all-time high… beating the previous yearly record by 43%.
I predict 2021 will be another record year in IPOs. There are so many great private companies on the verge of hitting the public markets…
And I’ve been working on a new way for you to invest… even before these companies go public.
Private shares are typically reserved for hedge funds and high-net-worth individuals, but I’ve found a way for everyday investors like you to participate.
This opportunity has been building over the last few years. I can’t wait to tell you all about it.
Join me tomorrow at 8 p.m. ET for my Pre-IPO Code Event to find out all the details.