Bitcoin & Beanie Babies: How to Spot a Tech Bubble

We're headed into another collapse. All the signs are there, and the latest portent of tech-doom is bitcoin.

I've personally witnessed at least two tech bubbles. One was in the 1980s, triggered by the game console market collapse in 1982-1983, which would later affect the computer industry. More recently was the dotcom collapse of 1999-2000, which was exacerbated by money wasted on Y2K scams followed by the 9/11 attacks, throwing everything into a tailspin.

If you were to take this as a cycle of perhaps 17 years then it should happen again in 2016-2017. This coincides with a lot of economic doomsaying.

These collapses are visible to those on the lookout. Anthony B. "Tony" Perkins released a book in 1999, just months before the collapse began in earnest, called The Internet Bubble. If everyone had sold every bit of equity owned the day the first edition came out, they'd have been in great shape. But nobody was interested at the time.

I'm personally fascinated by these ups and downs and there is no doubt that one is underway now. Just look for the signals.

One is simply what you hear on the street. Comments like "Wow, that's nuts." Or "Apple is the most valuable company in the world."

During these massive bubble-creating upswings the news becomes vacuous, as if nobody wants to do any real thinking when things are going so well. Take, for example, the publicity garnered over the past few weeks by Taylor Swift (look, even I am writing about her). For what? A new album? How is this news? Why has she appeared on every news show? Even my friend at The Register, Andrew Orlowski, wrote about how she is taking her music off Spotify without noticing that this too was a publicity stunt. This is a sure sign of a bubble. In 1999, the Taylor Swift icon was Britney Spears. Perhaps Olivia Newton-John or Joan Jett in 1982. Seventeen years earlier it was Diana Ross.

Of course these pop icons come and go and may not be a harbinger. But there's one thing I'm convinced is a harbinger: an insane illogical fad. In 1999 it was Beanie Babies.

Today it is bitcoin.

I've said before that bitcoins are the new Beanie Babies, and suffice it to say that it looks, sounds, and feels like the Beanie Baby era without the TV shows that cropped up around the stupid stuffed animals.

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Bitcoin & Beanie Babies: How to Spot a Tech Bubble