Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it
-Traditionally attributed to Publilius Cyrus
Since I started as a lawyer working with cryptocurrency projects, I've heard endless versions of the tulip bulb story and the classic tales of bubbles. The first bubble
was the South Sea Company, a quasi-government fraud that exploded into speculative frenzy then collapse. But the more famous bubble story is that of the tulips.
I heard the tulip story when crypto was worth low billions, and I still see it at the multitrillion dollar level it's now at, but with a lot less ferocity. The story goes that everyone in the Netherlands was stupid and greedy, and plowed their life savings into worthless tulip bulbs. The real story is that a novel new flower product was brought to market, and speculators didn't know how much a good quality tulip bulb might be worth. There were sales at very high prices as people competed to buy rare tulips. Then interest suddenly plummetted and some speculators lost money. The economy of the Netherlands didn't collapse. The economy of the Netherlands today, centuries later, actually does depend in part on tulips, which are cultivated at enormous scale today in the Netherlands.
The South Sea Company bubble is the less well-known story. The story goes that there was a stock frenzy that led to everyday people losing their life savings on South Sea Company stock. Public anger at the South Sea Company's failure was even a factor in the American Revolution decades later as Cato's Letters was originally published in response to the bubble, and later informed American revolutionaries. The truth of the company is that it was a quasi-government entity that defrauded holders of English public debt (significantly held by ship manufacturers) that had been built up during war with France. The South Sea Company happened to also cause losses for others, but there was no significant effect on the UK economy, and certainly not one much larger than the losses to the bondholders. The South Sea Company bubble is much more a cautionary tale about allowing government to participate in the stock market, and the use of essentially off-balance sheet entities that are later bankrupted (a tactic not permitted under modern laws).
Every popular new thing to invest in will always have people blindly putting money in, and losing a portion or all of it. Cannabis stocks in Canada were a speculative frenzy a few years ago, and regular people lost billions. This is a relatively common occurrence. And it's the flip side of the winners. Not every popular new thing will be a money maker, but it's hard to know in advance which ones will be, and the nature of markets means there'll be winners and losers.
Bitcoin (and its solid cousins like Ethereum) is not like the many scam tokens or frauds that have characterized the crypto field for many. These would be like people who were sold counterfeit stock in the South Sea Company. These losses are severe, and a big problem, but not one that's related to the integrity of Bitcoin or Ethereum. Frauds are bad, but they're different than a speculative bubble.
After more than 15 years, it's time to stop considering Bitcoin a bubble. It's also time to start reevaluating the language used about new markets and speculation. Referring to centuries ago bubbles, or rather, to the myths they've become, is not helpful.