According to Eric Balchunas, Bloomberg’s ETF expert, Bitcoin’s endurance and resilience over the years make it incomparable to the “Tulip Bubble.”
“I personally would not compare Bitcoin to tulips, regardless of how severe the sell-off,” stated the senior ETF analyst on Sunday.
Balchunas highlighted that the tulip market experienced a rise and collapse within three years, being “punched once in the face and knocked out,” while Bitcoin (BTC) has “recovered from six to seven significant blows to reach all-time highs and has endured for 17 years.”
“The endurance alone justifies moving away from the tulip comparison, not to mention the fact that it’s still up roughly 250% in the past three years and was up 122% last year.”
He suggested that some individuals simply dislike this asset and seek to infuriate its supporters, a trend that is unlikely to change.
Earlier this month, “The Big Short” investor Michael Burry referred to it as “the tulip bulb of our time.” In 2017, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon famously declared Bitcoin to be “worse than tulip bulbs” and a “fraud.”
Tulips pumped and dumped in three years
The Dutch tulip mania represented a speculative frenzy in the Netherlands during the Dutch Golden Age. Tulip bulbs, introduced to Europe from Turkey, became status symbols for affluent Dutch merchants.
Prices surged dramatically in 1634, reaching a peak in 1636, when some rare tulip bulbs sold for more than a house in Amsterdam. The market collapsed abruptly in 1637, with prices plunging by over 90% within weeks.
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The tulip mania is often regarded as one of the earliest recorded speculative bubbles, leading to the well-known pump and dump chart pattern.
Bitcoin and Tulips: a flawed comparison
Balchunas further stated that Bitcoin has merely relinquished the extreme excess observed last year.
Thus, even if 2025 turns out to be a flat or moderately declining year, BTC is still running at about 50% of its annual average. It’s normal for assets to cool off periodically, including stocks, and people are “overanalyzing it,” he remarked.
The ETF expert also challenged claims about Bitcoin’s non-productivity.
“Yes, Bitcoin and tulips are both non-productive assets. But so is gold, so is a Picasso painting, rare stamps. Would you compare those to tulips? Not all assets need to be productive to hold value.”
Tulips were “characterized by euphoria and crashing,” while Bitcoin is a “different animal.”
Garry Krug, head of strategy at the German Bitcoin treasury company Aifinyo, agreed, asserting, “Bubbles don’t endure multiple cycles, regulatory challenges, geopolitical tensions, halvings, exchange failures, and still come back to new highs.”
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