Hey all,
I want to talk straight about why tulip mania matters today and what that can teach us about bitcoin, real estate, and how to protect your money.
WHAT HAPPENED BACK THEN and WHY IT MATTERS NOW
The story is simple. 400 years ago in the Netherlands people paid crazy money for special tulip bulbs. Some bulbs were worth as much as a house. People traded paper promises to buy bulbs later, they used leverage, and many never owned the bulbs. When buyers stopped showing up the market crashed fast. Whole towns felt it.
Why this is not just history
I study cycles and human behavior. Bubbles repeat because people act the same way when greed and easy credit meet two other things.
People think prices will always go up.
Leverage allows small money to control big bets.
When those three line up you get parabolic moves that end with big losses.
TULIP MANIA KEY FACTS
Tulips were rare and pretty which made people want them.
A broken tulip had strange stripes and was extra valuable.
Traders used taverns and simple contracts to bet on future prices.
At the peak some bulbs sold for tens of thousands of guilders, equivalent of a mansion.
Margin and leverage pushed prices to levels unrelated to real use.
The crash happened fast and left many ruined.
THE HERENGRACHT LESSONS for REAL ESTATE and BUBBLES
There is data for house prices on the Herengracht canal during the tulip era. House prices fell when tulip trading got wild, then recovered later after the crash. That tells us the speculative fever moved from tangible land into a paper market. A similar pattern happened in the 1920s in the US where land markets cooled and speculation moved into leveraged stock trusts. Markets shift where the action and easy profits are.
Source: ResearchGate
WHAT IS THE 18.6 YEAR REAL ESTATE CYCLE and WHY I WATCH IT
The 18.6 year cycle is a long term rhythm in land prices and credit. Think of it like a heartbeat for property markets.
Expansion phase: When credit eases and confidence rises, prices climb.
Mania phase: Many people chase gains, leverage grows, and emotion peaks.
Bust phase: Credit tightens, prices fall, and losses happen.
I track the cycle because this applies to all assets. Year 13 of a cycle tends to show classic late cycle behavior: hubris, risk ignoring, and peak speculation. That is where we are now in my view, and it matters for bitcoin.