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seer comments on Bitcoin value and small probability / high impact arguments - Less Wrong
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The difference is that it's easy to make more tulips or Beanie Babies, but the maximum number of Bitcoins is fixed.
There are other collectible items whose supply can't be easily increased, Elvis Presley's original records, for instance, or artworks in general.
Sure, new popular artists arise and increase the supply of collectible artworks, but this is like new popular altcoins arising and increasing the supply of digital currency.
Yes, this is what I mean by reference class tennis :)
Actually, according to Wikipedia, it's hypothesized that part of the reason that tulip prices rose as quickly as they did was that it took 7-12 years to grow new tulip bulbs (and many new bulb varieties had only a few bulbs in existence). And the Beanie Baby supply was controlled by a single company. So the lines are not that sharp here, though I agree they exist.
Also, one of the curious aspects of the tulip-breaking virus is that the patterns only temporarily breed true; so the supply of particular tulips is inherently limited both by how long it takes to grow them and by how many generations you'll get before the coloring disappears from offspring. (This is why when you read about Tulipomania, you'll usually see old illustrations of specific tulip varieties and not photos of modern plants - because they're all gone, they no longer exist.)