Except the fact that the first 2013 bubble (the $260 one) doesn't look like that tulip chart at all.
Also, the dude from your link posted the tulip comparison during the pump, that's not a very efficient way of making an analogy like that.
Let's take a step back: the link I grabbed was from -your- tulip bubble chart. Not mine. I would not have referenced someone who ended up postulating a theory proven false and then try to claim that today it's true.
I showed the tulip-BTC comparison after 1 year of bear market from the $1200 bubble to show you in
hindsight that the two charts indeed look very similar.
If anything the first 2013 pump (that I repeat, doesn't look like that tulip chart that much) fits in the larger picture as the first bubble that doesn't correct completely in the tulip chart here:
Calling a top of a bubble is stupid. These comparisons make sense in hindsight.
Again, the tulip bubble had 2 bubbles. The BTC bubble had 3.
Are you saying that the first bitcoin bubble (that happened when BTC was very easily pumpable and an obscure experiment very few people knew about, perfect for smart speculators to pump&dump) alone is sufficient to invalidate the tulip-bitcoin price comparison even though the 2 tulip bubbles look EXACTLY like the last 2 bitcoin bubbles (something that you can say only in hindsight)?
You're making a lot of weird assumptions now to try and support your point, such as BTC being easily pumpable or whatever. Those are getting thrown out. The main point you appear to be trying to make is that BTC is just like tulips because when looking at one view, their bubbles have a similar form - and even that is false.
Right here:
even though the 2 tulip bubbles look EXACTLY like the last 2 bitcoin bubbles
You keep using this word "EXACTLY"...
Because, in the chart that -you- brought up, it very clearly shows Tulips going down directly to zero.
Bitcoin has never once done that, it didn't do it after the first bubble, it didn't do it after the second, and it hasn't done it after the thirdZoom out or in to any point you want, but you appear to be adding your own speculation that it will go to zero and then trying to make the subsequent claim that tulips = BTC.
Getting back to your flawed point:
The tulip bubble fits better than any other bubble in history chart wise.
Except that it doesn't. The tulip's value bubble correlates with all of BTC's bubbles for possibly 90% of the initial duration. The ridiculously important detail you missed was the last 10% when Tulips go right to 0 and BTC corrects down, does some price finding and then survives, and has historically gone on to do it all the fuck over again, and see a new ATH due largely to speculation.
Is the price of a tulip bulb zero today?
I don't know what the value of a tulip bulb is today - however, the evidence that you provided to create your theory shows this:
If you'll note, at the bottom where the line stops, that number is zero. We are using your own graphs here, so if you have an issue with it, you're more than welcome to throw it out.
Now, conveniently you say this:
As long as bitcoin can be used for illicit activities or some people can make a quick buck with a daily pump&dump, it will have a price that is not zero. That doesn't mean that its price wasn't a bubble that bursted.
The price of quarkcoin or countless other useless shitcoins is not zero today. So what?
The reason why it's convenient, is that once again you've contradicted your own evidence, by saying that Bitcoin will have a price that is not zero. Here again, you're admitting that Bitcoin provides value, while Tulips went up, and then went to zero. They never had another bubble. The sheer fact that Bitcoin exists and has relevance *after* the bubble also disproves your theory.
Now, the author was correct in saying BTC was in a bubble at that time. Plenty of people were saying it and were right. He then went on to incorrectly make the assumption that because BTC was in a bubble that it would behave identically to something else in history that also went through a bubble... despite the two assets/items in question having nothing else in common. At one point in their history, tulips did have scarcity in common with BTC - again, given that we're discussing ridiculously different assets, their scarcity was not limited by their design. Supply of tulips started to catch up. The supply of BTC is fixed.
Oh, I see what you are trying to say: "tulips were just useless flowers, bitcoin is a revolutionary technology".
The tulip comparison works well because the charts look identical and it works to prove a point using their respective charts. But sure, fundamentals wise is not quite the same. I agree.
Identical? No. Nothing is identical about the two charts you posted. I've shown it clearly many times, and your refusal to accept that is starting to become indicative of your refusal to accept the fact that words have meanings:
Identical:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/identical Adjective
1. Similar or alike in every way
Exactly:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/exactlyAdverb
1. in an exact manner; precisely; accurately.
Regarding fundamentals, another better analogy I like to bring up is
pets.com (or any other domain that went into a bubble like World.com) during the dotcom bubble.
With the idea that:
distributed ledger technologies -> the internet
cryptocurrencies -> pets.com
You can read all about it in my post here (the second part of the post, mostly)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=931714.msg10236780#msg10236780No offense, but nothing you've written here gives me any confidence of your ability to construct a well-thought-out argument supporting a theory. If you want to start talking about fundamentals somewhere else, you're more than welcome. Your original point was that BTC's recent bubbles and tulips' bubbles were exactly/identically the same (therefore, they are comparable?) but that is false. The fundamental differences between tulips and BTC are so wildly different that bringing them up here in anything other than a cursory mention would just further derail the discussion. I can absolutely see why you would want to derail it now given that your initial premise was inherently flawed.
Oh, and scarcity, the thing you bitcoiners always like to talk about. bitcoin's scarcity is 100% artificial. It the world doesn't need cryptocurrencies (or at least it doesn't need them for use cases that justify a high price/marketcap), it doesn't need them, whether they are scarce or not.
Awww "you bitcoiners"? Now you're showing your true colors. In no way was I trying to suggest that BTC's scarcity is what provides it with value, but here you've gone and taken one aspect of what I wrote and attempted to turn it into something of a point.
What you missed was that I brought up scarcity as one of the only similarities between tulips and BTC, and even then it was only a quality they shared for part of the time, as Tulips scarcity was never limited. BTC's scarcity is limited by design. I was arguing that tulips' scarcity was
part of what drove their prices higher and the inability to limit said scarcity was certainly a contributing factor in their swift demise.
Summing everything up, your two charts were never identical/exactly the same. Attempting to use those two charts and try to say that BTC=tulips is just poor trollsmanship.
