[javert]

The terminology here doesn't work. If you're calling something a "tulip," you're calling it an *unsustainable* bubble, because it comes from Dutch "tulip mania." But to take an easy example, gold isn't an unsustainable bubble. Neither is art. Not like Dutch tulips. It's too late to successfully redefine what "tulip" means.

Even if you use a different word, the category doesn't work. The fact is, bitcoin and ethereum are each sui generis.

Bitcoin, for example, differs from gold in *important* ways. There are various theories people have for why it might be able to hold value in the long run, and none of them are reducible to something that has existed before. It's a new experiment. People can argue that bitcoin won't hold value, but not by a 1:1 reduction to something that has existed before. On that note, the author is very right to point out that bitcoin is not, technically, a Ponzi scheme, and that point is much appreciated.