Topic: what is key differences between Bitcoin and tulip bubble (Read 351 times)

For a simple comparison, let's consider the utility of both. As for tulips, besides being used as a decoration, it has no utility anymore. As for bitcoin, you see, it has a technology that many industries and companies are starting to adopt today, which is blockchain. In addition, bitcoin is not only an investment to earn profit but bitcoin can become a means of cross-border payment with just a few taps, the biggest utility that bitcoin gives us is becoming its own bank. Don't just compare bitcoins and tulips but try to find today's assets like gold, diamonds, fiat...Is there any asset as many utilities and features as bitcoin? definitely not, that's what makes bitcoin different.

One of them happened nearly 400-500 years ago? That is a good enough difference believe me, I understand that you may think that this doesn't matter, but time definitely matters.

Plus, if we look at it logically, tulips are things that are cheap, and it was cheap back in the day as well, for the ottomans who brought the tulips to Netherlands it was cheap, but it wasn't cheap only in Netherlands because they didn't harvested it yet, so for the short period when it really worth something, people sold it for a lot, instead of farm it, but when it started to drop in price just a bit, they bought a few and farmed it and dropped the value a ton. Bitcoin cannot be used like that, or farmed that way.

I don't know if you mean the shitty altcoins you promote and your scams are more tangible?


Bitcoin certainly has nothing to do with tulips or your scams. As a means of payment in terms of speed, as you point out, it is not the best, but that is what second layer solutions are for. Otherwise, it is the best invention for storing and transferring wealth.

The Tulip bubble happened because of the pure speculation and the assumed over estimated value of flower bulbs, which only served as ornaments.
On the other hand, I believe Bitcoin has properties which makes it value: can't be censored, it is scarce  and it is not only accepted as a valued assets in one country or collection of countries but around the whole planet.

The fact it cant be shut down by any government or company should be enough to make it valuable and desirable as currency, in the end, currency should not be censored for political reason, for example, and Bitcoin solves it.

Also, it is worth noticing the huge liquidity Bitcoin has nowadays, which is something those tulips did not have back in the day.

Dishonest economists compare bitcoin to the tulip mania that happened hundreds of years ago, with this in mind it is important to have some arguments ready in the case someone mentions something like this to you.

So I think the points the OP bring are valid, even if they are very obvious for us we must remember that not every other person is as informed as us about bitcoin, the economy in general and history, so while those economists can easily deceive the average Joe we can always present our case in the case they ask us about this specific topic.

I'm funny to see that there are still people who equate the tulip bubble with bitcoin. The Tulip Buble occurred in the Netherlands several decades ago and it was caused by the excessive FOMO that a few people did to profit from the sale of tulips.
bitcoin is much different, bitcoin is a cryptocurrency that you can use for anything (investment or payment) depending on your wishes. so we have to stop the narrative of people who always link the tulip bubble with bitcoin.

I still find it difficult to believe that someone could get up one morning and all he/she could think up is to compare Bitcoin with an ordinary flowere.. It is quite funny, but i'm not surprised as this is not the first time someone comparing Bitcoin to something else. However, i just made my little research about this and i was able to realize that "tulip bubble" was a flower own mostly by thr rich people back in the days, of which it wasn't always that common due to its beauty and fragrance, unlike Bitcoin,
a decentralized digital currency, borderless and independent on its own.

I think they just reference a comparison between bitcoin and the tulip bubble in the 1700's if I'm not mistaken. Because that time, tulip is one of the most sought after flowers and it become a commodity, the price skyrocketed that time. However, when the market becomes saturated, i.e. when everyone is planting tulip and selling them, then it collapses.

However, we can't say that for bitcoin, yes we have highs and lows, bulls and bears market, but the thing is that bitcoin always recover so there is no bubble as per definition of it. And so the comparison with Tulip mania or bubble is very flaw in the beginning.

Tulip bubble was a fast up and down. Bitcoin has been here for much longer.
Tulip bubble had no utility background. People were investing to sell higher. With bitcoin is different because many people invest to hold and hedge against inflation and centralized markets.
Tulip value was pumped just because many new people were coming in. With bitcoin is more miners, more businesses, more software, more holders. It's not just one layer but many.


If you really want to compare a dotcom bubble is a much better example than tulips.

How is bitcoin a tech bubble, because it is in a winter period? Bitcoin can fall in price due to volatility that is most times caused by weak hands, but that doesn't make it a bubble, it is still widely used and growing fast, a coin that is already a legal tender in two countries, with more to come in the future is surely not a bubble.
BTC will survive even after after that period, block rewards will stop for miners because there is no more bitcoin to be 'mined', but they will continue receiving transaction fees as reward, and it will be more valuable then than what it is now.
You managed to get this part slightly correctly, the near future is long and one can't predict what will happen, but bitcoin will surely be right up there!

People especially those who are anti-Bitcoin always compare Tulip bubble to Bitcoin price surge due to the common factor and that is market price speculation.  No one can deny that Bitcoin market is still driven by speculation even though bitcoin has already established its real life use case.  The same thing with tulip bubble which on that time the market is also driven by speculation.  The difference between these two speculation is already given by the earlier replies.

Tulip bulbs are inflationary but Bitcoin is not inflationary. It is deflationary.

Total supply of tulip bulbs increase with time but total supply of Bitcoin is capped at 21M. The total supply of Bitcoin even decreases with time when more people lost their Bitcoin.

With basic differences like above, Bitcoin is better than tulip bulb and I don't imagine about Bitcoin bubble or any bubble that is similar to tulip bubble.

Main difference is that the tulip bubble immediately went straight down and totally died, whereas bitcoin already had multiple bubbles and is far from being "dead" — both as a protocol and as an asset.

In some way, there is no difference between a tulip and Bitcoin. Both have their prices formed purely by supply and demand on an open market. Tulips had one huge bubble and they didn't recover from the crash. Bitcoin has many bubbles and it recovers from them. But there's no guarantee that Bitcoin will continue recovering, it could stabilize or even decline. Tulips utility was overestimated, same can happen to Bitcoin or any other asset.

We all know that Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer currency, censorship-resistant payment method and so on, but how much such solution should cost? 100 billions? 1 trillion? 10 trillion? No one can make a good argument here, it's pure guess, pure speculation.

a bubble is not about utility, its about price going too high to be sustainable

every ATH is a bubble. ATH prices are not the sustainable value line they are the short term events of hyped up speculation that do correct down

here is the thing. many people think tulips are a example of market failure where tulips died after the failure

but guess what even today hundreds of years on you can still buy tulips.

the things you need to realise is tulips were not used as common currency for a nation they were an asset currency, driven by the elites wanting to show off their wealth by having gardens full of what they claimed were unique exotic flowers

it was not a plain tulip breed where thousands of bulbs were selling for near house prices... it was actually only a single bulb that sold for a house price

the mania was not that tulips were being used to pay rent and buy groceries.. it was that elite/rich/politicians were going through a frenzy outbidding each other to try to compete for higher social/economic status  it was where if you can have a garden in the political/rich guy streets of a notable town you are displaying your nobility

it was never about a failed nations FIAT. it was about a reproducable plant that starts off rare and becomes common.

tulips were never meant to be a value guage of "money" or utilised as money. they were just a display of wealth by decorating their lawns with the "first" rare hybrids they could get their hands on which they were all trying to create the next best beautiful plant to display in their garden

tulip mania is more on par with ICO. creating new hybrid things to display as something unique trying to get as much money for the initial premine before the widespread production begins of that hybrid

Is Op relating the Bitcoin market to the tulipmania event like centuries ago? The people were rather undeveloped back then about a lot of technical stuff and you're comparing a flower to a currency, not to mention Tulips can be grown, hence an ever-growing supply, unlike Bitcoin with its limited supply. The people then lacked a lot of information but now? The internet is a sea of information.

Technology is improving at a rapid rate, it wouldn't be odd for it to be replaced a few decades later on imo. It's the king now, but who can say the same a decade later? I guess most just ignore the possibility since we're like 2 decades in and none has gotten near its place, but I still wouldn't consider it an impossibility.

Who exactly are those people asking such questions?
Why would people lay comparisons between the two? I think it’s ridiculous. Anyways, I thank you for laying out the key differences from something that’s totally different.

Great thread. I have idea for your next one. We need comparison between tomatoes and bitcoin because it may be confusing for some people.

I think that this new thread should explain everyone that bitcoin is an innovative monetary system while tomato is only a red fruit. I'll think about other necessary comparisons like btc vs potato, or btc vs rain. People should know the difference.

The tulip bubble is a metaphor used to describe a market situation in which prices go up dramatically. And personally I'd say it's quite an unhealthy comparison if used against Bitcoin as if you observed during it's reign centuries ago, it's value climbed to an ath and crashed suddenly. Which is not the case of Bitcoin.
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 Bitcoin has intrinsic values and has been referred to as a store of value whereas the tulip mania has known and it's acquisition was as a result of greed of then investors which ended in foolishness, because when prices crashed, so many lost.

Don't compare Bitcoin to tulips. This is dumb. You have to compare that market forces of supply and demand, which created the tulip mania centuries ago and which created several Bitcoin price bubbles not long ago.
The technology and the utility of both Bitcoin and tulips doesn't matter. What matters is the greed, that creates short term market deviations.
The FOMO effect, which creates the price bubble. That urgent need to buy something which costs 100 USD, because you know that it will cost 1000 USD tomorrow. You know the saying "Something costs as much as someone is willing to pay for it."