title: [Book Sharing] From Tulips to Bitcoin's Bubble Frenzy - 400 Years of Speculation in Commodity Markets
published: false
date: 2023-09-07 00:00:00 UTC
tags:
canonical_url: http://www.evanlin.com/reading-from-tulips-to-bitcoins/
---
[](https://moo.im/a/23rCRV "從鬱金香到比特幣的泡沫狂歡")
從鬱金香到比特幣的泡沫狂歡 - 大宗商品市場400年投機史
From Tulips to Bitcoins: A History of Fortunes Made and Lost in Commodity Markets
Author: Torsten Dennin
Original Author: Torsten Dennin
Translator: Pei-Yi Lu Publisher: Da Xie Publishing
#### Book Recommendation Website:
- Readmoo: [Purchase Link](https://moo.im/a/23rCRV)
# Preface:
This is the 11th book I finished reading in 2023. The reason I read this book seems to be that the surge in many commodities made me not quite understand the reasons behind it, and I also wanted to understand the story of tulips in the past, so I bought this book to read. But because this book is a financial management book, I would read it very slowly. So, it was only now that I finally finished this book.
# Summary:
Quickly read through four centuries of speculation and commodity futures markets!
The cycle of huge losses and rapid gains, a trading field older than the stock market!
Anything that can be monetized will have a speculative myth of betting on rises and falls - in the Great Inflation cycle, people must review a financial history book
Includes trading knowledge of crude oil, precious metals, crops, and cryptocurrencies
Glimpse the expectations and unexpected of commodity speculators and large institutional traders...
From the "Dutch Tulip Mania" to the fascinating observations of major financial market commodities like Bitcoin today. This book covers the misfortunes of "Silver Thursday" and the Hunt brothers and many investment institutions; witnesses the rise and fall of copper and gold, rare earths, energy metals, and Bitcoin, with fluctuations of hundreds of times within a year.
The pricing of commodity markets is often at the crossroads of historical and geographical trends, and urgent events and artificial speculation often make it highly deviate from the actual transaction price. By studying and learning from the disasters and frenzies of this market, this book understands a more astonishing speculative field than the stock market, and also witnesses the financialization effect of politics, economy, and weather on the world of important resources.
### About the Tulip Bubble
The first FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) of major commodities, that is, the situation of crazy following, came from the Netherlands in the 17th century. At that time, because tulips were very beautiful, but the growth rate of tulips was very slow, the supply was quite insufficient. As a result of the crazy rise in prices, tulip bulbs became speculative items. Originally, tulip bulbs were bought and sold by farmers, but they also became commodities used by many nobles and merchants to buy and sell.
By 1637, 99 tulip bulbs cost 90,000 Dutch guilders, which is currently one million US dollars. Suddenly, one day, there were no buyers willing to buy tulip bulbs at the auction market. Thus, the first market record crash began. But after the bubble, tulip bulbs are still one of the most important export agricultural products in the Netherlands.
### The Great Chicago Fire and Wheat
In the United States, wheat is traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Kansas City Board of Trade. Due to the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, the price of wheat soared, and the price continued to rise until early July of that year. However, the high price caused every farmer to desperately harvest wheat, resulting in a surge in deliveries, and also caused the price to fall rapidly.
# Thoughts:
Although this book lists 42 chapters (42 chapters of scriptures?!) to share the changes in commodities throughout history, the reasons for many price increases and decreases are not described in detail. Instead, it's like letting you know that some changes in some commodities happened in a certain year. I don't really like this. So, this is one of the rare books I don't recommend.
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