The Everything Bubble: Bitcoin, AI, and Financial Hype

Bitcoin, AI, and the Everything Bubble: The Madness of Crowds Today

Bitcoin recently dropped more than $25,000 from its all-time highs, and the volatility isn't going away. The so-called digital gold hailed as the future of money may just be unraveling. And yet the headlines are quiet.

The same analysts who said you should borrow money to buy Bitcoin are still trying to sell the hype and want you to buy the dip. This isn't just about Bitcoin. This is about a financial system built on hype, leverage, and illusion, and one that may finally be reaching its tipping point.

From AI stocks to altcoins to overpriced everything, we're watching the same movie play out again, this time with better resolution. Nearly two centuries ago, one man warned about the madness of crowds when people lose their minds chasing get-rich-quick fantasies. His name was Charles Mackay, and what he described back then, I think it's happening again today.

If he were alive today, I think he'd have a few more chapters to write about, maybe one on the Bitcoin and the AI mania, and of course, the everything bubble.

In this video, I'm pulling together insights from two well-respected people who I believe see what's coming. Peter Grandich, a Wall Street veteran who calls Bitcoin the greatest pump of all time. And Professor Jiang, a scholar scholar who believes the AI boom is a carefully manufactured illusion with government and corporations propping up a story that reality can't deliver.

I'm Noel Lorenzana, and I believe what's happening right now could decide the financial fate of an entire generation. So before you buy another crypto coin, another hot stock, or chase the next big thing, hear me out.

The Madness of Crowds, Then and Now

Back in 1841, Charles Mackay wrote one of the most important financial books ever published that you've probably never heard of. It's called Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.

It wasn't just an important book of its time. It was a dire warning, a warning about what happens when people en masse fall under the spell of quick riches and how logic and sound judgment gets thrown out window once the emotion of greed takes over.

Mackay wrote about financial bubbles of the time, one of which was about tulips. In 17th century Holland, some rare tulip bulbs, like the Semper Augustus, were reportedly sold for the price of a small house. That's not investing. That's mass delusion.

When the bubble burst, it wasn't just prices that collapsed. It was trust. Fortunes vanished, and lots of people were financially ruined.

The same pattern has played out again and again from Beanie Babies, the dot com bubble, to the housing collapse in 2008, and now today. The case genius wasn't in predicting specific crashes. It was in showing how people stop thinking clearly when they see others getting rich.

It always starts with a few early believers. The prices rise, the story spreads, then the fear kicks in. Not the fear of losing money, but the fear of missing out. And that's when the crowd mentality takes over. Logic disappears, and people who should know better start believing the hype against their better judgment. Not because they actually understand it, but because they don't want to be left behind.

Sound familiar? These days, you're praised for taking big risks. But if you question those risks, and suddenly you're the odd man out. You question Bitcoin? Okay, boomer. Skeptical of AI? Well, you obviously just don't get it.

But Mackay would tell you, once the crowd stops questioning, stops reasoning, that's when things become the most dangerous.

Bitcoin, the Greatest Pump of All Time

Let's talk about what Peter Grandich is calling the greatest pump job of all time. Now, if you don't know Peter, he's a Wall Street veteran over four decades in the markets. He's famous for calling the Black Monday market crash in 1987, and he understands market manias.

But even he says nothing compares to the insanity around Bitcoin. In his words, Bitcoin isn't a revolution. It's a cult. And what started out as a grassroots movement for monetary freedom has now become the exact opposite.

Bitcoin was supposed to be pure-to-pure digital cash, decentralized currency, borderless, permissionless, and free from banks, governments, and middlemen. But today, it's none of those things. Nobody's using it for everyday transactions. Volatility makes it almost unusable. Fees fluctuate, and it's slow.

It's become a speculative asset, a digital gold want to be, traded and hoarded by hedge funds and billionaires. And let's be clear, it's not retail investors buying it now. It's institutions. Blackrock, Fidelity, Wall Street, the same players that set out the early years are now rushing in. But if you understand market psychology, that's not a sign of strength. That's usually what the top looks like.

Grandage sees this clearly. While the media hypes up price targets and ETFs, nobody really talks about how far Bitcoin has drifted from its intended purpose or the real damage it's doing for that matter.

Bitcoin mining now consumes more electricity than some entire countries. It's an environmental black hole consuming energy resources, precious water, and infrastructure. And for what? It's a digital asset that doesn't produce anything, doesn't yield anything, and outside of speculation, has almost no real-world utility. And still, the hype train rolls on.

The infamous and controversial Michael Saylor has said to take all your money and buy Bitcoin. The influencers scream to the moon and the network smile and nod. But who's left to buy? Big money... Are they actually still buying or unloading? Retail buyers. Those are people like you and me. They're not buying Bitcoin at these levels.

This isn't about hating Bitcoin. I bought it back in 2015 and sold it a year later. Yes, I was early and I missed out. But back then, the story made sense. But this is not the same story anymore.

When smart people stop asking questions and just start repeating a narrative like, buy Bitcoin or be priced out forever. That's when you need to be especially careful.

AI Mania: Innovation or Illusion

If Bitcoin is the new digital gold, then AI is the new Gutenberg printing press, driving real progress, but also a wave of hysteria. It's being hailed as the next industrial revolution, a technology so powerful it'll reshape everything.

And I don't disagree, but the headlines, the hype, the valuations are simply insane. And once again, nobody's asking the hard questions except for Professor Jiang. He's one of the few voices cutting through the noise.

If you don't know him, he's got an amazing YouTube channel called Predictive History. He's a Yale graduate, a Western philosophy professor, and someone who's living and teaching in China right now in the middle of the world's most ambitious AI experiments. And what he sees isn't progress, it's manipulation.

According to Professor Jiang, the entire AI boom is built on circular financing. Companies are investing in each other, inflating valuations and using hype, not revenue. And that's what's keeping the AI bubble going.

He says it's the same playbook we saw during the dot-com bubble days, and the outcome may be even worse. Professor Jiang points out that many of these AI companies still don't know how to make money. Their platforms are expensive to run, hard to monetize, and in some cases, losing money on every new user.

He even called out OpenAI's recent pivot to AI girlfriends and adult content as a sign of desperation. Think about it. That's not a visionary concept for the future. That might just be a desperate hale-mary.

But there's a darker side, too. AI data centers are consuming massive amounts of electricity and water. Utility costs are rising in communities where these AI data centers operate because of supply and demand. Power grids are being strained, and yet these companies are being propped up by government subsidies.

Professor Jiang says he We've seen this before. In China, the government picks a winner, floods it with money, and then it backfires. Too much supply, not enough demand. Now, he says America is doing the same thing with AI. Big promises, big spending, but not a lot to show for it yet.

Here's the paradox he points out. If AI doesn't work, the entire sector collapses. But if AI does work, it would eliminate millions of jobs, and we're already seeing the effects. Amazon has announced tens of thousands of layoffs, and now IBM has announced the same. And UPS is cutting 48,000 workers, not just to tighten budgets, but to automate operations and close its facilities.

So we're seeing massive layoffs, I believe 1.1 million this year alone. And it's not just about technology, it's about a slowing economy. And let's not forget, the more successful AI becomes, the more people it displaces. The productivity story becomes the layoff story. And the end result, fewer jobs, more consolidation, and again, a society that feels left behind.

Professor Jiang believes we're watching a controlled implosion engineered by the very companies driving the hype. AI may very well be real, but this market, this mania, this blind belief that it can only go up, that's the delusion. And just like Bitcoin, the price of not questioning it could be enormous.

The Everything Bubble

When everything is going up, when the fundamentals don't make sense, it's not a bull market, it's a bubble. Right now, we're not just in a bubble, we're in an everything bubble. Stocks are at or near all time highs. Real estate is still wildly overpriced even as sales dry up. Luxury watches, Pokémon cards, fine art, everything is inflated.

Yet companies are cutting jobs, consumer debt is exploding, and millions of people are falling behind. So how can this be? How can markets look fine while so many Americans feel like they're sinking? The answer is, illusion, smoke and mirrors.

We've replaced real economic strength with stimulus, speculation, questionable data, and hope. Hope that AI will save us. Hope that Bitcoin will protect us. Hope that the Fed can keep things going. Just one more quarter, one more rate cut.

But when you look closer, you see what Peter Grandich and Professor Jiang are both warning about, but from different angles. Peter Grandich sees it from the inside, the media, the financial advisors, the Wall Street machine, all pushing the hype. He says Bitcoin is the canary in the coal mine, and it's gasping for air while the crowd still cheers.

Professor Jiang sees it from the outside, a world engineered to look stable but built on capital misallocation, empty promises, and tech that benefits a few while hollowing out the rest. These aren't just isolated trends. This is what happens when a mania hits its peak. Crowds of people believing the hype, a frenzy of buying, driven more by speculation than logic, layoffs and consolidation disguised as efficiency.

And underneath it all, debt-fueled growth, growing nervousness, and a fragile foundation. The financial media doesn't say much in terms of being a voice of reason. Politicians distract us by demonizing the other party while the real issues go ignored. And the so-called experts keep saying, Everything's fine. This is perfectly normal. But you and I know it's not. You can see the cracks forming.

And the truth is, this is exactly how all great bubbles end, with belief at all time highs and the reality just starting to peak through. What history teaches us that everyone ignores. Look, I'm not trying to convince you to sell your Bitcoin. I've owned it myself. I believed in the mission, but I also learned something the hard way.

It's never just about the asset. It's about the story behind it. And the story right now, it's not freedom. It's not decentralization. It's not about opting out of the system. It's greed. It's FOMO. It's institutions cashing in while retail investors hope the hype train is still running.

You can tell yourself this time is different all you want, but history shows us otherwise. Charles Mackay wrote about this in his book 200 Years ago. Peter Grandich sees it now with Bitcoin coin, Professor Jiang sees it with AI. This isn't new. It's always the same. First come the dreamers, then come the speculators, then comes the shorts, and then comes the reality.

That's the part that most people never see coming until it's too late. The truth is, most people won't see the bubble until it pops, just like they didn't see the housing bubble in 2008, just like they didn't see the dot-com bubble, just like they ignored the warning signs during tulip mania.

If you want to protect your future financially and mentally, you need to understand the psychology of manias before it's too late. This message is simply a cautionary warning, and it's up to you what to do with it.

Let me know what your thoughts, do you think Bitcoin and AI are the next chapter in financial delusions, or is this time different? Share your thoughts in the YouTube video comment section.

Thank you for reading, and I'll see you there.