Era notes
Every market in the game is dealt from a real one. These pages tell how CEOs worked the real markets, and how they ended, with sources. Below them, older bubbles the game doesn't deal. More are on the way.
The markets the game deals
- How the 1999 dot-com pump worked
Renames, first-day pops, Strong Buy ratings, and money lost on purpose. - How CEOs talked their stocks up in the 2008 credit crisis
Reassurance on live TV, a ban on short sellers, and ratings that pulled the trigger. - How the 2017 token boom was pumped
A new noun in the name, tokens instead of shares, and promoters who forgot to say they were paid. - How the 2021 meme-stock frenzy was pumped
A crowd that bought the short interest, CEOs who sold it stock, and a truck that rolled downhill.
Older bubbles
Real manias the game doesn't deal, told the same way.
- How tulip mania really worked
Contracts for flowers still in the ground, traded in taverns, and a legend bigger than the bubble. - How the South Sea Bubble really worked
A company that swapped its shares for the national debt, and a price that went from £128 to £1,000. - How the Mississippi Bubble really worked
A company that ran France's bank, sold new shares only to people who held the old ones, and bought its own stock at a price it chose. - How a 1929 stock pool really worked
Syndicates that made a stock look busy, writers paid to say so, and a legend bigger than the pools. - How a 1990s boiler room really worked
A room full of phones, a script, a stock the firm controlled, and a rule against selling it back. - How the 2020–21 SPAC boom really worked
A $10 shell with no business, a trust that kept it at $10, and the day the floor went away.
Or play today's daily: the same market for everyone until midnight UTC.