Totally right. Tulips were a tangible asset with intrinsic value.

- Tulip mania was concentrated to specific parts of Europe vs. a global market.

- Tulip bulbs are perishable items that you have to repurchase when they go bad so they cannot store value.

- Tulip bulbs have an infinite supply since you can always grow more, Bitcoin has a maximum supply of 21 million and there will never be another.

- Anyone can plant seeds to grow a tulip bulb whereas mining a bitcoin has real costs associated with it ($800 to $2,000).

- Tulip bulbs cannot cure poverty and starvation in the world. Bitcoin has already been very useful in countries like Venezuela where inflation of their own currency is causing poverty. See https://mobile.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/12/13/world/america...

Also tulip mania itself is a poor comparison since it has spread like a game of telephone over the years. None of us were alive in the 1600s, and the actual events that unfolded were probably much less grand than the media plays it out to be: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/there-never-was-real-...

You gave a good laugh thanks

Because bitcoin and tulips have nothing in common? Bitcoin is a commodity, tulips are a commodity. Tulips went through a particular phase of hype with a famous bubble (and crash). It's not irrational to look at bitcoin through that lens. Bitcoin might be new tech, but commodity markets and the human psychology and greed that drive them are old as dirt. Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.

In my understanding, bitcoin and its supporting technology is a monetary system. So, in my opinion, comparing bitcoins with tulips will be similar to comparing Fractional Reserve Banking with tulips.

but is bitcoin really a monetary system if it's not being used as a currency, but as a commodity?

The increase in dollar value of a bitcoin does not bear any resemblance with an increase in use of bitcoin as a currency.

If anything, there seem to be less hype about using BTC to pay for things these days than a few years back.

In analyzing this, it doesn't matter what something purports to be, it matters what it is actually used as. By and large bitcoin is a digital commodity, not a currency. That may well change in the future, but that's not relevant to the analysis.