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> And in 2019, when you hear people complaining about Bitcoin and warning about it, what you are hearing are the voices of people in 1637 saying: you shouldn’t be involved in this trade. You’re the wrong person, you don’t know enough. Only this exact analogy is trotted out every time the Bitcoin exchange rate swings up or down very quickly. It's happened about a half dozen times now over the last 10 years. You see th…
People who had been absent from Holland, and whose chance it was to return when this folly was at its maximum, were sometimes led into awkward dilemmas by their ignorance. There is an amusing instance of the kind related in Blainville's Travels. A wealthy merchant, who prided himself not a little on his rare tulips, received upon one occasion a very valuable consignment of merchandise from the Levant. Intelligence of its arrival was brought him by a sailor, who presented himself for that purpose at the counting-house, among bales of goods of every description. The merchant, to reward him for his news, munificently made him a present of a fine red herring for his breakfast. The sailor had, it appears, a great partiality for onions, and seeing a bulb very like an onion lying upon the counter of this liberal trader, and thinking it, no doubt, very much out of its place among silks and velvets, he slily seized an opportunity and slipped it into his pocket, as a relish for his herring. He got clear off with his prize, and proceeded to the quay to eat his breakfast. Hardly was his back turned when the merchant missed his valuable Semper Augustus, worth three thousand florins, or about 280 pounds sterling. The whole establishment was instantly in an uproar; search was everywhere made for the precious root, but it was not to be found. Great was the merchant's distress of mind. The search was renewed, but again without success. At last some one thought of the sailor. The unhappy merchant sprang into the street at the bare suggestion. His alarmed household followed him. The sailor, simple soul! had not thought of concealment. He was found quietly sitting on a coil of ropes, masticating the last morsel of his "onion." Little did he dream that he had been eating a breakfast whose cost might have regaled a whole ship's crew for a twelvemonth; or, as the plundered merchant himself expressed it, "might have sumptuously feasted the Prince of Orange and the whole court of the Stadtholder."
>“And in 2019, when you hear people complaining about Bitcoin and warning about it, what you are hearing are the voices of people in 1637 saying: you shouldn’t be involved in this trade. You’re the wrong person, you don’t know enough.” Why would you torpedo a good article at the very end with such a stupid paragraph?
Summary message: The wealthy are discouraging the lower classes from speculating in Bitcoin, saying the lower classes don't understand it, only because they fear the undesirables will become rich like them.
The last sentence doesn't undo that.
This same research was discussed in 2018: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16399756
And my favorite comment from there: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16399944 And a part from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania#Modern_views "Research into tulip mania since then, especially by proponents of the efficient-market hypothesis,[17] suggests that his story was incomplete and inaccurate." So there is an actual agenda ("the efficient-market hypothesis" and obviously also the political…
Sure, we can spend all day speculating about records may have existed but were lost. I mean, there are no evidence of alien involvement, maybe those records were lost too?
It's also possible that the Tulip bubble was both short-lived and not very widespread and is just one of those stories that keeps getting bigger the more it gets re-told.
In 1637, one gilder was worth about $10 in today’s money. 300 gilders would be about $3,000. That amounts to quite good yearly wage at the time. How does that work? $3k is not "quite good yearly wage" in most places these days.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power Purchasing power has increased along with inflation
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And my favorite comment from there: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16399944 And a part from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania#Modern_views "Research into tulip mania since then, especially by proponents of the efficient-market hypothesis,[17] suggests that his story was incomplete and inaccurate." So there is an actual agenda ("the efficient-market hypothesis" and obviously also the political…
>disprove that many poorer people could have spent less and were actually bankrupt, but that their fate wasn't recorded the way it was for the highest transactions and their initiators. Sure, we can spend all day speculating about records may have existed but were lost. I mean, there are no evidence of alien involvement, maybe those records were lost too? It's also possible that the Tulip bubble was both short-lived…
There are apparently still records of 37 transactions paying more than a what was then "good yearly wage" for a bulb.
Moreover, from another history book, after the "crash" "in Haarlem, the city with the biggest volume of tulip bulb trading and thus the city with the most problems" ... "the local court there refused to hear disputes relating to the tulip trade." That obviously lowered the chance of having the records about the direct effects of the crash.
> And in 2019, when you hear people complaining about Bitcoin and warning about it, what you are hearing are the voices of people in 1637 saying: you shouldn’t be involved in this trade. You’re the wrong person, you don’t know enough. Only this exact analogy is trotted out every time the Bitcoin exchange rate swings up or down very quickly. It's happened about a half dozen times now over the last 10 years. You see th…
so you're claiming... "It's different this time" ?
> And in 2019, when you hear people complaining about Bitcoin and warning about it, what you are hearing are the voices of people in 1637 saying: you shouldn’t be involved in this trade. You’re the wrong person, you don’t know enough. Only this exact analogy is trotted out every time the Bitcoin exchange rate swings up or down very quickly. It's happened about a half dozen times now over the last 10 years. You see th…
Ah, only the ignorant and fools dare to criticize the magnificent world of crypto. It's an investment for the brightest and brilliant among us.
HN in 2010: don't touch bitcoin. HN in 2019: it's Dutch Tulip Bubble! (in the midst of the next bull run) Meanwhile, those who followed contrarian advice did great. It feels like Slashdot calling the iPod lame. Sometimes, it's not irrationality, but a true change.
...except everyone who did not.
"Bitcoin crash: This man lost his savings when cryptocurrencies plunged"
https://money.cnn.com/2018/09/11/investing/bitcoin-crash-vic...
Some people do great in pump-and-dump schemes, and they keep pumping even when everyone got fleeced.