Virtual currency Bitcoin - or "digital gold" to its fans - has enjoyed a gravity-defying rise along with wild price swings, sparking fears it could be the latest financial market "bubble".
虚拟货币比特币（也就是粉丝们所谓的“数字黄金”）伴随着剧烈的波动价格大幅飙升，这不禁令人担心它可能成为最新的金融市场“泡沫”。
Bitcoin was worth just a few US cents when it began life in 2009 and last week changed hands for a staggering $17,000 despite having no central bank backing and no legal exchange rate.
比特币在2009年诞生时的价格只有几美分，虽然没有央行支持，也没有法定汇率，但上周，其转手价格达到了1.7万美元（约合11.2万人民币）的天价。
Here are some of the most wild speculative bubbles in history - ranging from tulips to teddy bears:
以下是历史上最疯狂的几次投机泡沫——包括郁金香和“泰迪熊”：
DUTCH 'TULIPMANIA'
荷兰的“郁金香热”
At the beginning of the 17th century, exotic tulips became the ultimate luxury accessory and status symbol for rich and poor alike.
十七世纪初，外来的郁金香成为富人和穷人的终极奢侈品与地位象征。
People mortgaged houses and sold businesses just to buy a bulb. At one point, a single tulip bulb fetched up to $150,000 at today's prices.
人们用房屋抵押贷款，出售生意，仅仅是为了买一个郁金香球茎。一个郁金香球茎的价格一度相当于今天的15万美元（约合99万人民币）。
With prices rising to more than 100 times the average annual income, bulbs were being traded for land, livestock and houses - a rare bulb was even considered an acceptable dowry for a bride.
由于价格上涨到了年平均收入的100多倍，郁金香球茎被用于土地、牲畜和房屋的交易，一个罕见的球茎甚至被认为是一份可以接受的新娘嫁妆。
During what is commonly viewed as the first speculative bubble, rumours were deliberately spread to influence prices and there were reports of skullduggery such as training animals to dig up tulip fields.
在这个通常被视为是世界上出现的第一个投机泡沫的过程中，人们故意传播谣言，以影响价格走向，甚至还有虚假报道说，有人训练动物去挖掘种植郁金香的田地。
The bubble burst in 1637 after a disappointing turn-out to a tulip auction in Haarlem. Prices plunged, banks failed and people lost their life savings - all for a pretty flower.
1637年，哈勒姆的一次郁金香拍卖失利后，泡沫破裂。价格暴跌，银行倒闭，人们失去了毕生的积蓄：一切只是为了一种漂亮的花朵。
JAPANESE ASSET BUBBLE
日本资产泡沫
In the mid-1980s, the Japanese economy ruled the world. Its high-quality, technologically advanced products dominated export markets and everything seemed to be "made in Japan".
二十世纪八十年代中期，日本经济统治世界。其技术先进的优质产品主导着出口市场，一切似乎都是“日本制造”。
Fuelled by this success - and ultra-loose monetary policy - Japan's Nikkei index tripled between 1985 and 1989 and Japanese firms were worth nearly half of the entire world's corporate sector.
在这种成功和超宽松货币政策的推动下，日本的日经指数在1985年至1989年间翻了3倍，而日本公司的市值在全球公司中所占的份额几乎达到了一半。
With all this money sloshing around and credit cheap and easy to obtain, speculators piled into real estate and prices exploded.
由于大量资金四处流动，信贷利率低而且很容易获批，投机人士大量涌入房地产市场，导致房地产价格急剧上涨。
At the height of the boom, it was said the Imperial Palace in central Tokyo was worth the same as the whole of California.
据说在这一热潮的鼎盛时期，东京市中心皇居的价格相当于整个加利福尼亚州房产的价格。
Government policies aimed at deflating the bubble ended up pricking it violently. The stock market plummeted and house prices went through the floor, ruining millions.
政府旨在为泡沫降温的政策最终猛烈地戳破了泡沫。股市暴跌，房价降至谷底，数百万人破产。
The bust ushered in what economists called a "lost decade" of economic stagnation and deflation, the effects of which are still being felt today.
经济萧条带来了经济学家所说的经济停滞和通货紧缩的“失落的十年”，其影响一直持续到今天。
DOT.COM MADNESS
互联网泡沫
The Internet and tech boom of the late 1990s resulted in some "dot.com" companies being valued at billions of dollars despite not having made a cent in profits.
上世纪九十年代末的互联网和技术繁荣，导致一些互联网公司在没有一分钱赢利的情况下市值达到数十亿美元。
Young Internet tycoons became millionaires overnight as investors piled into any company with a dot.com domain name in the belief the web had upended the rules of business.
认为网络已经重置了商业规则，投资者们盲目涌入任何一家有着.com网络域名的公司，年轻的互联网大亨一夜暴富。
At the height of the boom came the AOL-Time Warner merger, at the time the biggest in corporate history.
在繁荣的巅峰时期，美国在线公司同时代华纳公司合并，成为当时公司历史上规模最大的一次合并。
The boom prompted then Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan to warn about "irrational exuberance" in asset prices, widely seen as a warning about the dot.com bubble.
这一热潮促使当时的美联储主席艾伦?格林斯潘就资产价格“非理性繁荣”发出警告，这也被广泛视作对互联网泡沫的警告。
Funding dried up as it became clear many Internet companies held wildly inflated valuation based on pie-in-the-sky profit forecasts.
当一切越来越明朗，许多互联网公司都在以“画饼”盈利预期为基础、价值被严重高估之时，资金枯竭了。
Thousands of Internet companies bit the dust and investors lost trillions of dollars as the tech-heavy Nasdaq market spiralled downwards.
随着成千上万家互联网公司亏损，以科技公司为主的纳斯达克市场螺旋形下跌，投资者损失了数万亿美元。
SUBPRIME CRISIS
次贷危机
The subprime boom-and-bust in the first decade of this centrury was based on extremely complex financial instruments that "sliced and diced" risky mortgage assets and bundled them together.
本世纪初的次贷繁荣和萧条都是在一些极其复杂的金融工具基础上发生的，这些金融工具对风险抵押资产进行分割，然后将它们捆绑在一起。
Banks and mortgage lenders offered credit to uncreditworthy homeowners in the belief that by packaging these loans together, the risks could be reduced.
银行和抵押贷款机构向毫无信誉的房主提供信贷，因为他们相信，通过将这些贷款打包，风险可能会降低。
The financial wizardry fuelled a housing market boom as speculators snapped up houses they never intended to live in to build up their "collateralised" portfolio.
投机者抢购他们从未打算居住的房子来建立“抵押”投资组合，金融魔法促成了一场房地产市场的繁荣。
The bust came when investors realised that the flip-side of packaging risk together was that they could not tell where the bad loans were lurking.
当投资者意识到打包的风险在于他们无法判断不良贷款的所在时，泡沫破灭了。
The subprime-fuelled housing boom turned to bust and prices plunged, with millions of families losing their homes.
受次级贷款推动的房地产泡沫开始破裂，房价暴跌，数百万家庭失去了他们的住房。
The stock market crashed, unemployment ballooned and the US banking system buckled to the point of implosion, with Lehman Brothers collapsing in 2008.
股市崩盘，失业率膨胀，美国银行体系几近崩溃，2008年雷曼兄弟公司破产。

BEANIE BABY BOOM
豆豆娃热潮
A lesser known tale of boom-and-bust is the Beanie Baby craze that occurred around the same time as the Internet bubble.
一个不那么为人所知的繁荣与破裂的故事是豆豆娃热潮，它与互联网泡沫几乎同时发生。
Small stuffed toys worth around $5 became such a hot craze that people bought them for thousands of dollars, convinced their prices would continue to rise.
这种价值5美元左右（约合33元人民币）的小玩偶成为抢购对象，价格上涨到几千美元，因为人们认为这些玩偶的价格会继续上涨。
The firm that manufactured them, Ty, enjoyed sales of more than $1 billion and at one point, trade in Beanie Baby toys represented as much as one tenth of the trade on eBay.
生产这些玩偶的是一家名叫Ty的公司，该公司的销售额超过了10亿美元（约合66亿人民币），而且豆豆娃玩具的交易一度占到亿贝公司交易的十分之一。
The crash came at the end of the 1990s when Ty announced it was ending the toy.
上世纪九十年代末，Ty宣布将终止这款玩具的生产，崩盘发生了。
Far from creating excitement by reducing supply, the market was spooked, and soon bears that had been fetching thousands were selling three for $10.
市场非但没有由于供应减少而变得紧俏，反而出现了恐慌，很快这些一度售价达几千美元的小熊玩具就被以10美元3个的价格抛售。