I’m not saying that cryptocurrency, “meme stocks,” and NFTs are big scams. I’m also not saying they’re like pyramid schemes or tricks to take your money. Some people say those things, but I’m not one of them.
All I’m doing is sharing a list of famous scams, financial bubbles, and frauds from history. You can look at the list and decide for yourself if they remind you of anything. Maybe you’ll think, “Bitcoin is nothing like tulip mania! They didn’t even have computers back then!” Or maybe, “Of course, I should invest all my savings in an internet meme dog!”
But who knows? You might end up thinking, “What was I even thinking?”
Lotteries

Please stop playing the lottery. Lotteries are legal in most states, but winning one is so unlikely that they’re basically a tax on people who don’t understand math.
Thanks for helping to fund schools and colleges, lottery players, but seriously, stop. You’re not going to win. And even if you do, it’s not a good way to get rich. Lottery winners are more likely to go bankrupt within three to five years than people who never win at all.
There’s a darker side to lotteries. Most players are people who can’t afford to waste money. And lotteries are run by the government, which should care about helping people—not encouraging them to make bad choices.
Tulip mania

In 17th century Europe, people went crazy for tulips. These flowers were rare, hard to grow, and came in many unique types. They were also very expensive. Rich people started buying tulips to show off their wealth. But then, tulips became something people invested in, and that’s when things went wrong.
Tulip bulbs could be dug up and moved between June and September. During those months, people bought and sold the actual bulbs. The rest of the year, they traded promises to buy or sell bulbs later.
This created a market for “future” tulips. People traded these contracts so often that some changed hands 10 times a day! Prices went sky-high—some rare bulbs sold for what would be $750,000 today.
Many people borrowed money to buy bulbs, thinking prices would keep rising forever. But then the excitement disappeared, partly because of the bubonic plague. Suddenly, tulip millionaires were in big trouble. They were deeply in debt and stuck with tulip bulbs that had lost their value.
The bright side? At least tulip bulbs could grow into real flowers—unlike NFTs.
Beanie Babies

In 1993, Ty Warner, a toy maker, created a line of small, bean-filled stuffed animals. He sold them at gift shops in places most people didn’t visit. At first, no one paid much attention to them. But by 1996, Beanie Babies became a nationwide craze.
Smart marketing and the growing internet helped create a market for these toys. Collectors and resellers used online price guides to find out how much the toys were worth. They bought as many as they could and resold them on eBay for higher prices.
The craze grew as more people joined in, but it ended just as quickly. People realized it was silly, and the market collapsed. Many collectors were left with piles of Beanie Babies and empty wallets.
The good news? Unlike bitcoin, at least your kids can still play with Beanie Babies.
Star names and extra-terrestrial real estate

Remember when you turned twelve, and your weird aunt and uncle from Florida gave you a framed certificate that said a star was named after you (instead of the skateboard you really wanted)? Well, sorry, but there isn’t actually a star named after you.
Anyone can sell the name of a star—or even a piece of land on Venus—but those names and claims aren’t officially recognized. They don’t mean anything.
Star-naming companies keep their own lists of star names, like “Stephen Johnson Is A Double-Rad Skater Dude,” but no one else uses them, not even other star-naming companies.
Astronomers call stars things like “GSC 0139-01372” because, well, they’re not very creative. But the idea is still popular because people like to look up at the sky and say, “That one’s mine!” The truth is, you can do that without paying $45.
Selling pieces of the moon or other planets is a bit different. Even though the 1967 Outer Space Treaty says the moon belongs to “all mankind,” some people still claim to own parts of it and sell them. Dennis Hope is one of those people. He claims he found a loophole in the law and says he’s made over $12 million selling the moon.
But really, he’s just selling pieces of paper that say you own a part of it. You could make your own certificate for free in five seconds and skip the middleman.
Can you imagine paying real money just to say you own something you can’t actually touch? *cough* NFTs *cough*
NESARA/GESARA

Understanding NESARA/GESARA is like stepping into a world of strange conspiracy theories. Honestly, I’d ignore it because it’s so silly, but it’s becoming popular with some people.
Here’s the story: In the 1990s, a man named Harvey Barnard (who wasn’t an economist or government official) wrote a book about NESARA. His ideas were supposed to make the U.S. economy perfect.
They included things like using gold and silver as money, getting rid of income taxes, and abolishing compound interest. He sent his book to Congress, but no one cared. It didn’t sell well either, so he put it online. In 2005, Barnard died, and that’s where the real story ends—but the conspiracy theories begin.
A woman called Dove of Oneness started spreading wild claims. She said NESARA was secretly passed by Congress and would soon change everything: all debt would be erased, and peace would come to Earth. (She also talked about aliens, lizard people, and other strange ideas, but we’ll skip that.) GESARA is the same idea, but for the entire world.
Now, fast forward to QAnon. When Q stopped posting, QAnon followers started believing in other conspiracy theories, including NESARA/GESARA. Some of them think this will lead to all currencies being revalued.
For example, they believe that if they buy Iraqi dinars (a currency worth very little outside of Iraq), GESARA will make them rich. They think three million Iraqi dinars, which are worth about $2,000 now, will suddenly become worth three million dollars. How? That part isn’t clear, but they’re sure it’s happening.
On a related note, some people online are buying and holding shares of GameStop, a chain of video game stores. They believe in something called the MOASS, the “Mother Of All Short Squeezes.” They’re convinced that GameStop’s stock price will shoot up to $5,000 or more if they just hold their shares. They blame a supposed conspiracy between hedge funds, the SEC, and others for keeping the price low. Honestly, it’s hard to explain. You can try to figure it out if you want, but it’s exhausting.
The Albanian civil war

The story of Albania’s civil war is truly wild. From 1945 to 1991, Albania was a closed-off communist dictatorship. When the communist rule finally ended, the people were poor and didn’t know much about how a market economy worked. But they learned fast—and the hard way.
In the beginning, Albania’s state banks offered normal interest rates for savings, but it was hard for people to get loans. So, “unofficial” lending companies started popping up. These companies began taking money from people as investments and promised huge returns. The profits seemed amazing! People sold everything—houses, farms, and even their livestock—to invest in these companies, hoping to get rich.
At first, it looked like the plan was working. The companies built hotels, shopping centers, and other businesses (though they also smuggled goods and committed crimes). The economy seemed to be thriving, and by 1996, two-thirds of Albanians had invested their money in these private companies.
But there was a big problem. The amazing returns were fake—they came from new investors’ money, not real profits. It was a pyramid scheme. And when most of the population had already joined, there were no new investors left. The system started to collapse in January 1997 when people rushed to take out their money and found that there wasn’t any.
The country fell into chaos. Angry citizens took to the streets. The prime minister resigned. The government couldn’t keep order, and criminal gangs took over large parts of the country. Even Albania’s exiled King Leka I returned from Australia and declared himself king. Thieves even stole from the national treasury.
But help eventually came from an unexpected team: the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank. A UN-led peacekeeping force brought enough stability to hold elections. The IMF and the World Bank helped set up better banking rules and worked with the new government to rebuild the economy. By August 1997, Albania had started to recover.
A financial system built on promises of quick riches, relying on constant new investments, and with no real rules… does that remind you of anything?
The redemption movement

The “redemption theory” is an idea connected to the “sovereign citizen” movement. People who believe in this theory think that a secret fund is created for every U.S. (and sometimes Canadian) citizen at birth. According to them, you can access this fortune if you know the right steps.
Some of their methods include using a birth certificate as a bond, claiming copyright on your name, paying bills with fake checks, or signing documents in red ink. (Yeah, it doesn’t make much sense.) For the record: none of these things work. In fact, they could get you in trouble for fraud, tax evasion, or forgery.
Interestingly, this idea doesn’t seem to be part of a big, organized scam meant to take people’s money. Instead, it’s more like a collection of random ideas that keep going because people love to think, “What if I’m already super rich?” It’s the same kind of dream as hoping to find a big bag of money on the street one day.