Is Bitcoin the biggest bubble ever?

Bitcoin’s recent wobbles have given fresh urgency to a question that’s gripped market observers for much of the past year: Will the cryptocurrency go down as one of history’s most infamous bubbles, alongside tulipmania and the dot-com craze?
The magnitude of bitcoin’s boom (before it lost as much as 48% from its 18 December high) suggests investors have reason to be worried.

The cryptocurrency’s nearly 60-fold increase during the past three years was truly extraordinary.
It dwarfed the Nasdaq Composite Index’s gain during the headiest days of the 1990s. Going further back, it comfortably outstripped the Mississippi and South Sea bubbles of the 1700s. It even topped the Dutch tulipmania of the 1630s, though that last comparison should be taken with a grain of salt given the scarcity of recorded tulip values.