Bitcoin critics often use the Dutch Tulip Mania as their main argument. I've read multiple articles in which the similarity between Bitcoin and the Tulipmania is mentioned. In my opinion, this comparison makes absolutely no sense. Here's my six reasons why...
1. The tulip mania lasted only six months.
As you can see in the chart below, the tulipmania lasted from November 1636 to May 1637. The trade in tulips had been going on for years, but the real hype lasted only six months. Bitcoin exists since 2009 and the price has seen many ups and downs. People said it was a bubble when Bitcoin surged to $200 and the same thing happened when Bitcoin skyrocketed to over $1000 in 2013. Was the price surge from $1 to $200 a bubble? Or from $50 to $1000?
Image source: Wikipedia
2. Bitcoin is divisible, a tulip is not.
You can't break a tulip bulb into a million pieces. 0.0001 of a tulip would be worthless. You wouldn't even recognize it as a tulip. 0.0001 Bitcoin on the other hand can actually buy you something.
3. Tulips are not scarce
Bitcoin has a hard limit of 21 million Bitcoins. You can't just grow more Bitcoins like you can grow more tulips.
4. Tulips are not easily portable.
You can't easily carry thousands of tulips around with you or give a tulip to someone hundreds of miles away from you. They can be transported of course, but it takes time and is expensive. Bitcoin can be sent around the world with the speed of sending an email.
5. A tulip is not secured by millions of computers around the world
The Bitcoin blockchain is the most secure blockchain around and is maintained by an increasing number of nodes and miners around the world. Bitcoin has never been hacked since it's inception in 2009 and will never hacked in the future, because in order to hack the Bitcoin network you need more computation power than 51% of the whole Bitcoin network. This makes Bitcoin payments more secure than any other existing centralized payment method.
6. Tulips die!
People declared Bitcoin dead multiple times in the past, but Bitcoin is here to stay. A tulip though, has a certain future. Every tulip, no matter how beautiful, will eventually die... This makes a tulip unsuitable as a "store of value". Unlike Bitcoin, which is like digital gold.
Bitcoin in a bubble? - Chart
But the Bitcoin chart below is clearly a bubble, you might argue...
This price rise of Bitcoin is insane! ...Sure! Look at this chart...
Oh, wait... This is the US debt ;-)