How The Act Of Speculating Became A Financial Mania – From Tulips And Scrips To Bitcoin And Meme Stocks
In the late 1990s, America experienced a dot-com mania. In the 2000s, the housing market went wild.
Today, there are manias in everything from bitcoin and nonfungible tokens to SPACs and meme stocks – obscure corners of the market that are getting increased attention. Whether these are the next bubbles to burst remains to be seen.
The sudden rise of all these relatively new asset classes – or the astronomical heights they’ve reached – may seem irrational or even enchanted. Describing them as speculative manias implies that individuals are lost in forces beyond their control and needn’t take responsibility for the actions of the crowd.
But, as I learned while researching my book “Speculation: A Cultural History from Aristotle to AI,” which will be published in June 2021, financial specul...