In February 1637, at the height of the speculative frenzy in the Netherlands we now know as “tulip mania,” a single bulb of the prized Viceroy tulip sold for 6,700 guilders, enough to buy a grand house in one of Amsterdam’s most desirable districts.
The market for tulips collapsed later that month, with prices of more common bulbs falling by as much as 95%. Since then, tulip mania has become a byword for the irrationality of financial bubbles.
So what about NFT mania?
Last week, Nifty Gateway, a specialist online marketplace for nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, held an auction that included a computer-generated illustration by digital artist Mike Winkelmann, known as Beeple, whose JPG collage “Everydays The First 5000 Days,” was sold online by Christie’s earlier this month for a sensational $69.3 million.