Ordinary people were taking out home equity loans to buy tech stock during the dot-com bubble. Online trading was fairly new (at least for ordinary people) and

Ordinary people were taking out home equity loans to buy tech stock during the dot-com bubble. Online trading was fairly new (at least for ordinary people) and was taking off at the same time, which made things worse. When the bubble burst, it caused a national recession, which affected people who didn't invest in tech stocks. That's quite a lot bigger than some merchants in the Netherlands losing their shirts in the tulip crash. It's also a lot bigger than the impact of a bitcoin crash would be if it happened today.