Bitcoin can no longer be likened to the “Tulip Bubble” because it has shown endurance and resilience over 17 years, Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said. “I personally would not compare Bitcoin to tulips, no matter how bad the sell-off,” he tweeted, noting that tulips rose and crashed within about three years—“punched once in the face and knocked out”—whereas Bitcoin has recovered from “like six to seven haymakers to reach all-time highs and has survived 17 years.”
Balchunas highlighted Bitcoin’s long-term performance: roughly 250% up over the past three years and 122% higher last year. He argued critics who equate BTC to tulips overlook that assets can cool off after extreme runs and that people often overanalyze temporary pullbacks. He also questioned the criticism that Bitcoin is “non-productive,” pointing out that gold, Picasso paintings and rare stamps are also non-productive yet still considered valuable.
Historically, tulip mania in the Netherlands saw prices surge from 1634 and peak in 1636, with some rare bulbs selling for more than Amsterdam houses, before collapsing in 1637 with prices plunging over 90% in weeks. That brief, euphoric boom-and-bust pattern is why tulips are often cited as an early speculative bubble.
Balchunas stressed that tulips were defined by euphoria and a rapid crash, while Bitcoin has endured multiple cycles, regulatory challenges, geopolitical stress, halvings and exchange failures, yet repeatedly returned to new highs. Michael Burry recently called Bitcoin “the tulip bulb of our time,” and in 2017 JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon called it “worse than tulip bulbs” and a “fraud,” but Balchunas and others say those comparisons miss the longer, more complex reality.
Garry Krug, head of strategy at German Bitcoin treasury firm Aifinyo, agreed: “Bubbles don’t survive multiple cycles, regulatory battles, geopolitical stress, halvings, exchange failures and still return to new highs.”
