Critics are quick to invoke the South Sea Bubble of 1720 or the Tulip bubble in 1637, but it’s not clear they know enough about our financial past to make those episodes relevant for today.

“South Sea Bubble, 1720: Narratives of the First International Crash” was organized by Baker Library Special Collections. Harvard Business School’s (HBS) Baker Library has opened a new exhibition that ...

We have all the makings of a classic bubble here. Yes, Bitcoin has gone through $1,000 but that's not the real signifier of us being in a bubble. Rather, all of the other digital currencies are ...

The South Sea Bubble didn't happen in isolation. The backdrop to the bubble is the War of the Spanish Succession (1701 - 1714) which left France and England (and many other European nations ...

The first great financial bubble can be traced back to 1720, when England's South Sea Company decided to expand its activities by issuing new shares and buying up government debt.

The South Sea Bubble never returned a profit on its operating expenses during the entirety of the bubble, and what little trade it did attempt (mostly in slaves) was performed at a net financial loss.

As Tseng, Diehl and Akalin write: “The South Sea bubble presents the most explicit historical parallel to the cryptocurrency bubble.” Bitcoin and the copycats Bitcoin was the first crypto.

Before that, there was the South Sea bubble of 1720 in England. And before that, there was the Dutch tulip bubble of the 1630s. But most Americans were blissfully ignorant of these episodes.

Critics are quick to invoke the South Sea Bubble of 1720 or the Tulip bubble in 1637, but it’s not clear they know enough about our financial past to make those episodes relevant for today.