Facebook closed above $1 trillion in market capitalization for the first time on Monday, adding to the number of tech companies breaking thresholds despite the pandemic.

The social media giant had had to contend with lingering antitrust cases, compounded by Apple’s new privacy policy that poses a great threat to its ad revenue. However, it has recorded defiant numbers that put it in the zone of trillion dollars US tech companies.

Facebook has thus become the fifth U.S. company to hit the milestone, joining Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Google-parent company Alphabet. Per CNBC, the company’s shares closed up 4.2% at $355.64 after a favorable legal ruling that dismissed an antitrust complaint brought by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and a coalition of state attorneys general. The move pushed Facebook shares up nearly 5%.

Facebook derives nearly all of its revenue from personalized advertisements that are shown to users of the Facebook and Instagram social networks. The company also has a burgeoning hardware business where it is building products like the Portal video-calling device, Oculus virtual-reality headsets and smart glasses, which are set to be released sometime in 2021.

Facebook held its initial public offering in May 2012, debuting with a market cap of $104 billion.

The company suffered a colossal 19% drop in 2018 after posting disappointing revenue and user figures for the second quarter of that year. That drop came amid a number of scandals that year, including data leaks, fake news and, most notably, the Cambridge Analytica scandal — in which a data firm improperly accessed the data of 87 million Facebook users and used it to target ads for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.

Despite the scandals, Facebook was able to bounce back and has continued to grow its user base and steadily increase its average revenue per user. The stock price is now up more than 90% since July 27, 2018.

The company is still working on so many ideas across its platforms, and they’re believed to have the potential to accelerate further growth. CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced last week the launch of new commerce features to support businesses and make shopping easier. They include Shops on WhatsApp and Marketplace, Instagram Visual Search and Shops Ads; Instagram Visual Search that helps buyers discover products based on images.

Cowen analysts had predicted in August, when its stock rose to $280.82, that the company would be the next to cross the $1 trillion milestone, given how its stocks were moving despite the pandemic.

The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the country’s watchdog for financial activities, had on Saturday, restricted crypto exchange, Binance Markets Limited, from carrying out regulated services in Britain without express approval.

Binance Markets Limited is part of the wider Binance Group, the world largest cryptocurrency exchange and the issuer of (BNB) Binance coin. Its platform, Binance.com is an online centralized exchange that offers users a range of financial products and services, including purchasing and trading a wide range of digital currencies, as well as digital wallets, futures, securities, savings accounts and even lending.

Binance does not have a single location for its headquarters, but it allows users to trade crypto derivatives – including futures and options which require approval.

The UK regulator said “Binance Markets Limited is not currently permitted to undertake any regulated activities without the prior written consent of the FCA,” and It has until Wednesday to comply with the ruling. It also warned the UK division to stop any form of advertising by 30 June, after adivising the public to “be wary of adverts online and on social media promising high returns on investments in cryptoasset or cryptoasset-related products.”

“While we don’t regulate cryptoassets like Bitcoin or Ether, we do regulate certain cryptoasset derivatives (such as futures contracts, contracts for difference and options), as well as those cryptoassets we would consider ”securities,'” the FCA statement said. “A firm must be authorized by us to advertise or sell these products in the UK.”

But Binance has an exchange registered in the Cayman Island, which means the decision will not stop UK crypto traders from using Binance exchange.

However, the FCA decision has added to the growing push back against crypto exchanges by governments globally, signaling intent by the UK government to crackdown on crypto activities sooner or later.

In April, British authorities announced that they are exploring the possibility of creating a new digital currency that Treasury chief Rishi Sunak touted as “Britcoin.” It is part of the global trend of central banks creating digital currencies to counter the influence of cryptocurrencies and protect their traditional financial system.

Following that announcement, Britain is making for the first time, a crypto regulatory move. BBC’s tech analyst Rory Cellan-Jones said “the FCA is sending a strong signal that it is worried about the dangers of investing in cryptocurrencies in general,” and the decision means the government is becoming overly concerned about their potential use as a cover for illicit activity – and it wants consumers to be very careful indeed.

The FCA also forbids Binance from setting up an exchange in the UK and warns consumers to check and withdraw from any exchange that is not registered in the UK. It also ordered the exchange to keep record of UK customers and be ready to hand them over to the authorities upon request.

China followed a similar pattern of warning consumers about the potential dangers of using cryptocurrencies while working on e-yuan, its digital currency, before it cracked down on cryptocurrencies.

While there have been similar situations in other countries like Japan, where the authorities have warned Binance about operating in the country without authorization, and Canada, where the platform was forced to leave Ontario in December, due to regulatory dispute, there is growing speculation that FCA’s move has more than exchange regulatory intent.

South Africa’s highest court has found former President Jacob Zuma guilty of contempt of court and sentenced him to 15 months in prison on Tuesday, for failing to appear to a panel of inquiry probing corruption allegations against him.

Zuma has been at the center of a judicial probe in South Africa for allegations of corruption perpetrated during his time in power between 2009 and 2018.

The Constitutional Court of South Africa ordered that Zuma present himself at a police station in his home town of Nkandla or Johannesburg within five days.

In a scathing judgment, Justice Sisi Khampepe ruled: “There can be no doubt that Mr Zuma is in contempt of court.”

Zuma had denied any wrongdoing, dubbing the corruption inquiry a ‘political witch hunt.’

Judge Khampepe said that Zuma attempted to corrode the legitimacy of the Constitutional Court by conducting a “politically motivated smear campaign” against it, the commission and the judiciary.

“He (Mr. Zuma) elected instead to make provocative, unmeritorious and vituperative statements that constituted a calculated effort to impugn the integrity of the judiciary.

“I am left with no option but to commit Mr. Zuma to imprisonment, with the hope that doing so sends an unequivocal message… the rule of law and the administration of justice prevails.”

She said the court needs to make a bold statement to deter future occurrence of Mr. Zuma’s behavior.

“No person is above the law … whatever his rank or condition,” she said, continuing: “An act of defiance in respect of a direct judicial order has the potential to precipitate a constitutional crisis.

“If with impunity litigants are allowed to decide which orders they wish to obey, and which they wish to ignore, then our Constitution is not worth the paper on which it is written.”

Mr. Zuma was ousted in 2018 following internal discord among the ruling African National Congress (ANC), against a backdrop of public outrage over alleged corruption and mismanagement of state resources.

Following his ouster, Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, set up judicial inquiry after an ombudsman report called for an investigation into possible improper contact between senior members of Zuma’s former administration and three wealthy businessmen — the Gupta brothers — all of whom have denied wrongdoing. The Guptas fled South Africa upon Zuma’s ousting.

His successor, President Cyril Ramaphosa, who has vowed and made a concerted effort to rid the corruption within the government and his own ANC party, faces a giant hurdle of a rift between his supporters and a core of Zuma loyalists.

South Africa is riddled with an economic crisis that has been largely attributed to corruption. Economists broadly agree that the pilfering of state resources in recent decades has had a negative impact on the nation’s economy, state-owned enterprises and public services.

The ruling is expected to have an impact within the governing ANC that has been divided between supporters of Mr. Zuma and President Ramaphosa. For president Ramaphosa, it will be a source of vigor to reinforce his fight against “state capture” corruption within the party and the country as whole, while for those with Zuma, it will mean a deadly blow as he is the figurehead of their camp.

Meanwhile, Mr. Zuma’s sentence puts a soul-searching challenge to other African countries. The continent is engulfed by graft epidemic that is buoyed by lax anti-graft laws and lack of political will by state actors to prosecute perpetrators. Hardly do African leaders involved in corruption get prosecuted, and when they do, they are easily exonerated.

Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy is also bedridden with graft. Nearly all of its leaders have been fingered in corruption scandals, but only a few, excluding presidents, have been convicted for corruption due to political, tribal and personal interests. It is hoped that president Ramaphosa’s political will to fight corruption within his own party and government, will send a wake up message to the rest of the continent.

Nobody enjoys investing his hard-earned money on businesses that crumble shortly after it kicks off. It hurts when you give someone money to start a business because you believe in helping others to grow only for the person to call you a few months later to say he has lost interest in that business and wants to go into another one. This is something many of us have witnessed.

A lot of people have lost credibility before their sponsors and investors because they couldn’t sustain their businesses. Some jump from one business venture to another without giving the previous one a chance to grow before closing it down. The reason behind this migration, most times, borders around seeking ventures that yield a lot of profits, especially the ones that require little effort. But what these business migrants fail to realise is that businesses, like babies, are meant to be nurtured until they grow.

When a woman becomes pregnant, she starts getting things ready for the baby’s arrival. She registers for antenatal, begins to take her routine drugs, and does everything the doctor and the midwife tell her. She drops her habits that might hurt the foetus and becomes careful not to do things that might jeopardize her own life. She looks out for herself and her unborn child.

This is also what happens when people incubate plans to establish businesses. Like the woman that put things in place to prepare for the baby’s arrival, business owners prepare for the setoff of their businesses. However, many of them fail to drop their bad habits that will harm their businesses and they do not take routine drugs (such as training) that will help the businesses to kick off on a good start. By the end of the day, their businesses start poorly like the malnourished babies from careless mothers. Businesses like this, just like those babies, can easily die on arrival.

When women give birth, whether to healthy or unhealthy babies, they begin another round of nurturing. Today, mothers practice exclusive breastfeeding because they want their babies to have a high IQ, develop strong immunity, have less contact with germs, and grow properly while meeting all their milestones at the right time. Some add good baby formula to the diet to ensure that their babies do not starve. Babies are taken to health centres for immunizations to prevent childhood killer diseases. As they grow into infants and toddlers, they are monitored closely because they can easily harm themselves or have accidents. Even as all these were going on, the children’s behaviours are modified to align with the values of their parents and society as well. A lot of works take place in the life of a child from the time he was born to when he turns five. Coincidentally, many businesses become stable at the fifth year of conception.

From the moment a business venture is established, as far as I am concerned, the owner has given birth to an individual. If you look at it, you will see that the same way a birth certificate is created at the birth of a human child is the way a certificate of business registration is given to an individual when he registers his business. As a child is a legal being, so also is a registered business a legal entity. But many people want their businesses to start running the day it was born, forgetting that it took a baby an average of two years to start learning how to run. This is the mistake of many business owners; they expect magic from the moment they start their business.

What am I trying to say here?

The same way we have patience with raising our children from birth is how we should be patient with growing our businesses. The same way we passed through sleepless nights while our babies kept us awake, is how we should endure sleepless nights as we figure out how to take our businesses to the next level. The same way our babies go to sleep healthy and wake up with fever is how our businesses can make a profit today and huge loss tomorrow. And the same way we take our children to hospitals, change their diets if it doesn’t stay well with them, keep them warm and cool, and monitor their abilities to reach the next milestone at the right time is also how we should monitor, evaluate, insure, invest, and seek help when necessary to make our businesses grow.

There is no magic in building a thriving business; you must work for it. Even if you move from one business to another till thy kingdom comes, if you don’t settle down and nurture one of them, you will remain a rolling stone until you burn out. Be patient and grow your business.