Tulip mania is an interesting point in history, and for sure has some interesting lessons that still apply today but it isn't a very apt comparison to the investment fever behind cryptocurrency because it has hard or at least preknown economic limits which makes it unlike money, gold or anything else that has really existed before.
If you could "know" that the amount of tulips from tulip mines would reduce by 50% every 4 years then it'd be a better example, but its not.
A lot of the "business 101" and "economics 101" with all of their reading and listening intently to their university professors fail to understand one thing about the current system of "money"--the vast majority of it simply doesn't exist.
Bullshit you might say?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_requirement
That's right, most banks are only required to actually have 5-15% at most in capital of what money they actually "hold" because the money doesn't actually exist. Every time you deposit cash into your bank its written on a little IOU note that flies around in a computer system. If you transfer money across the world or withdraw money from your ATM then you cash in one of those IOU notes.
Now some might argue that banks know what they're doing, and that governments do a great job of making sure they are "true & honest"
But when you look into it a bit deeper you see stuff like this:
http://www.zdnet.com/article/moneytaker-apt-steals-millions-from-us-uk-russian-banks/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbanak
That's right, hackers have been inside banks computers, manipulating those little virtual IOU notes for years. Not only banks and other "financial institutions" but also SWIFT (which is used by almost every bank that allows international transfers).
So the computer system that backs the entire world's transfer of money? Hacked.
The issue with these little "virtual IOU notes" is that they are highly flawed.
The problem is called the "Byzantine Generals Problem" and its been around for decades:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_fault_tolerance#Byzantine_Generals'_Problem
Bitcoin is simply a program that provides one solution to the Byzantine Generals Problem. If people don't understand that element, or how banks work (which few people bother to read into) then they will probably never understand why exactly Bitcoin is what it is.
So lets recap:
- Cash: Hacked (forged bank notes aren't exactly a new problem)
- Credit cards: Hacked
- Your bank: Hacked
- Your bank's bank: Hacked
- Your ATM: Hacked
- Mastercard: Hacked
- Visa: Hacked
- SWIFT: Hacked
- The companies that keep track of people's credit and make all those other systems work (i.e. Equifax): Hacked
There is no real comparison to it when people bring up Tulips because Tulips never provided a solution to a known problem with communications and computers, they're just flowers.
People are free to call it "useless shit" too, there's no requirement for people to divvy their life savings into investing into it, its just a computer program.
The only way to look at it is a multiplayer version of Microsoft Excel with a so-far unbeaten anticheat. That's it. If anyone looks at it as anything other than that, then they're exceptional. If anyone takes a computer program that solves computer problems and uses "human problems" (i.e. getting hacked, taking out loans or printing non existent money like Tether) then they're exceptional.
