Bitcoin buoyancy is driven by popular mass delusion but the madness will keep making money Josh Williams is managing director of The Draft Bitcoin buoyancy is driven by popular mass delusion but the madness will keep making money, writes Josh Williams. (Photo illustration by Mark Case/Getty Images) In 1841, the journalist Charles Mackay published Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, his masterpiece. In it, he chronicled the economic bubbles and mass delusions that have plagued mankind across the ages. “Men… go mad in herds,” he warned, “while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.” The cryptocurrency Bitcoin is a mania worthy of Mackay. Nearly valueless just a decade ago, its price reached an all-time high of over £47,000 in April this year. While the price has now dropped to little more than half that, don’t be fooled. Much of the herd is still mad, and Bitcoin could remain irrationally valuable for a long while yet.