"Collectibles" bubbles have been a feature of (at least) American society for many decades. The tendency of some people to fall for marketing that describes some mass-market junk as an "investment" or "collectible" and to think they're really getting in on something good, is documented in Fussell's Class, so it was already a recognizable trend by 1983.
[EDIT] This is distinct from, or a useful subcategory of, some other "manias" or bubbles chiefly because the effect is often deliberately cultivated by a manufacturer or trade group, and the goods are mass-market in price and quality and lacking in (meaningful) natural constraints on supply. Think Franklin Mint junk on the Shopping Channel, or Precious Moments, or early '90s Topps cards. Pop-culture themed dinner plates intended only for display. Or Beanie Babies.
It's easier to spend money when purchasing things with a credit card versus cash. Or, users are more likely to make in-app purchases when it's with pre-loaded Robux or V Bucks rather than dollars.
There's got to be something like that at play here with ETH/BTC. It's so much easier to spend it when it's hard to put into perspective just how much physical cash the purchase represents.
If you want to see some market caps[0] they're still staggeringly high for what they represent, but beware: you can't see the demand curve on a price history chart. There's no way of knowing how much of the market could decide to sell before they ran out of buyers. Market caps are used to estimate value on wall street because it's imagined that the number of people who would want to buy MSFT today for $1 less than the price today are inexhaustible.
That's much closer to the truth on the NASDAQ than on whatever exchange people are using to trade their beanie babies.
I call bullshit. We're supposed to believe people have invested almost $20B in NFTs? I have no data one way or the other, but this fails the smell test.
[EDIT] This is distinct from, or a useful subcategory of, some other "manias" or bubbles chiefly because the effect is often deliberately cultivated by a manufacturer or trade group, and the goods are mass-market in price and quality and lacking in (meaningful) natural constraints on supply. Think Franklin Mint junk on the Shopping Channel, or Precious Moments, or early '90s Topps cards. Pop-culture themed dinner plates intended only for display. Or Beanie Babies.