ETF expert Eric Balchunas argued Bitcoin’s 17-year track record and multiple recoveries make tulip mania comparisons obsolete despite recent criticism.
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Bitcoin can no longer be compared to the “Tulip Bubble” due to its endurance and resilience over the years, according to Eric Balchunas, Bloomberg’s exchange-traded fund expert.
“I personally would not compare Bitcoin to tulips, no matter how bad the sell-off,” said the senior ETF analyst on Sunday.
Balchunas pointed out that the tulip market rose and collapsed in around three years, “punched once in the face and knocked out,” but Bitcoin (BTC) has “come back from like six to seven haymakers to reach all-time highs and has survived 17 years.”
“The endurance alone warrants shedding tulip comparison, let alone the fact that it’s still up like 250% [over the] past three years and was up 122% last year.”
Some people just hate this asset and want to enrage the people who like it, and that will probably never change, he opined.
Earlier this month, “The Big Short” investor Michael Burry called it “the tulip bulb of our time.” In 2017, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon famously said Bitcoin was “worse than tulip bulbs” and a “fraud.”
Tulips pumped and dumped in three years
The Dutch tulip mania was a speculative frenzy in the Netherlands during the Dutch Golden Age. Tulip bulbs, which had been introduced to Europe from Turkey, became status symbols among wealthy Dutch merchants.
Prices began rising rapidly in 1634 and reached peak mania in 1636, when some rare tulip bulbs sold for more than the price of a house in Amsterdam. The market suddenly collapsed in 1637 with prices plummeting by over 90% in a matter of weeks.
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The tulip mania is often cited as one of history’s first recorded speculative bubbles, and gave rise to the famous pump and dump chart pattern.
Bitcoin and Tulips: a flawed comparison
Balchunas continued to state that all Bitcoin has done so far this year is give up the extreme excess of last year.
So even if 2025 ends up flat or moderately down year, BTC is still operating at around 50% of its annual average. Assets are allowed to cool off once in a while, even stocks, and people are “overanalyzing it,” he said.
The ETF expert also questioned arguments about Bitcoin being non-productive.
“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 have to be productive to be valuable.”
Tulips were “marked by euphoria and crash,” and that’s it; Bitcoin is a “different animal.”
Head of strategy at German Bitcoin treasury company Aifinyo, Garry Krug, concurred, stating, “Bubbles don’t survive multiple cycles, regulatory battles, geopolitical stress, halvings, exchange failures and still return to new highs.”
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