Are Labubus Gen Z’s Beanie Babies?

Every era of easy money produces its speculative mascots. In the late 1990s, it was Beanie Babies — tiny stuffed animals that cost under a dollar to make, yet sold for hundreds to thousands. The Princess Diana memorial bear that once fetched more than $60,000 now goes for around $3; one variant, Peanut the Royal Blue Elephant, once a $5,000 trophy, now sells for about $6. At the height of the craze, these toys accounted for 10 percent of all eBay listings. Their boom coincided perfectly with the late-1990s dot-com melt-up, a period defined by suppressed interest rates, rapid credit expansion, and rampant speculation. When the tech bubble burst in 2000, the Beanie Baby market had already collapsed — a micro-indicator of distorted price signals and misallocated capital.