If anything, Bitcoin is closer to the even older Tulip-mania than to a Ponzi scheme.

A Ponzi scheme is a specific kind of fraud based on the promise of an unreasonably high return on investment which is actually payed by late adopters. Bitcoin doesn't make promises and it doesn't have a cover story to hide the source of the money. It may be a bubble, but it is not a Ponzi scheme.

As good a story as tulip-mania is, it seems it may not quite have been what we think.

https://theconversation.com/tulip-mania-the-classic-story-of...

The South Sea bubble is by far a better comparison. It even had ICOs (sort of) and token trading!

See "Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" (public domain on Gutenburg[0]) for both of these and more!

[0]http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24518

Someone really needs to do a "For carrying-on an undertaking of great advantage but no-one to know what it is!" ICO

Hey, some ICOs even make it clear that you won't get any of the profits, so perhaps the description can be reduced to just 'For carrying-on an undertaking but no-one to know what it is!'

Bitcoin doesn't make promises? It is supposedly rendering money obsolete!

The primary market force was pretty obvious -- fraud like cryptolocker and money laundering. Shockingly, fraudulent exchanges and practices were/are pervasive.

could you explain how tulips had a technological innovation? i can't understand how people can even bring it up as a legit comparison

One of the innovations that drove the tulip prices was new strains/the newness of tulips in general.

>>A university study in 1593 led to the discovery that tulips could withstand the harsh northern-European climate... With their intensely colorful petals, tulips were unlike any other flower popular in Europe at that time [0]

Additionally, another innovation that drove the bubble was the widespread introduction of futures trading, allowing year round trading, as well as traders to speculate without needing to take delivery of the crop.

[0]http://www.thebubblebubble.com/tulip-mania/

That's also the regular banking system. It's interesting that holders of lots of assets from different angles converged on a similar method for propping up the value of their assets.

So has caffeine but people still find a way to repackage it.