**Crypto’s Dot-Com Moment: Is History Repeating Itself?**

Back in the late 1990s, something wild happened in the stock market. Everyone—from big investors to everyday people—was racing to buy shares of any company that had anything to do with the internet. If a business had “.com” in its name, people thought it was guaranteed to make them rich. There was a lot of excitement, and even more fear of missing out (FOMO).

But here’s what went wrong: people ignored the basics. They didn’t check if these companies were actually making money. Once these internet startups got millions in funding, they had to start delivering results. Companies like Pets.com and Webvan attracted some users and made a bit of cash, but nowhere near enough to justify their sky-high stock prices. Investors realized they had paid 100 or even 200 times what the companies were earning. That’s way above the healthy average, which is typically around 15 to 25 times earnings.

As reality set in, panic took over. People rushed to sell their shares, and the market crashed. It became known as the dot-com bust. Many companies went under. But not all of them disappeared—some, like Amazon and Google, survived and went on to become giants worth trillions of dollars.

Fast forward to today, and something similar is happening—only this time, it’s in crypto.

At the beginning of this year, crypto markets were booming. Bitcoin hit new all-time highs, Ethereum and Solana surged, and smaller altcoins skyrocketed. The hype was real, and FOMO was back.

But that excitement didn’t last. A few months later, Bitcoin started to stall around $126,000. The good mood faded. Prices dropped slowly at first, then much faster. In just two months, Bitcoin lost about a third of its value. Many altcoins crashed even harder—some lost more than half their value.

Experts are still debating why this happened. Some point to worries about the economy or concerns about an AI bubble. Others say the crypto market itself is maturing.

Just like during the dot-com era, it’s getting easier to figure out how much a crypto project is actually worth. Some tokens now have real use cases and generate income—like Ethereum, which offers staking rewards and income from DeFi (decentralized finance) activities. Because of blockchain transparency, we can now estimate earnings and compare them to token prices.

And here’s where the warning signs appear again: many tokens look overpriced when compared to their actual income. Investors may have paid over 100 times what a token earns—a big red flag that feels a lot like the dot-com bubble.

Of course, crypto assets aren’t traditional companies, so calculating an exact price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio is tricky. But when the numbers don’t add up, investors take notice—and many are realizing they’ve overpaid based on promises that may never come true.

So where does crypto go from here?

If history repeats itself, we’ll likely see weaker projects start to fail as the bear market continues. But the strongest ones—those with real purpose and working models—will survive and grow. Just like Amazon and Google after the dot-com crash, today’s top crypto projects could become the building blocks of a new digital world.

We’re possibly entering a period of major change in crypto—a phase of consolidation where only the most valuable and useful tokens will make it through. As we move toward 2026, expect more shakeouts ahead. The hype may fade, but what comes next could be even more powerful: the foundation for Web3, where users control their data, digital tools are decentralized, and new opportunities are everywhere.

In short: crypto may be going through its own dot-com moment—but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It could be the growing pain needed for something bigger and better.