Miami bubble machine

Miami is no stranger to swift injections of wealth. Yes, the city is an international financial hub, but it's also a free-wheeling port with a love for fast money in a state with no income tax — classically great conditions for forming financial bubbles. Miami Beach itself was born during the land rush of the '20s, when Carl Fisher built the town from sand dredged out of Biscayne Bay and average Americans began buying up plots in Florida sight-unseen. The author Christopher Knowlton argues in his book "Bubble in the Sun" that while this speculation didn't directly cause the Great Depression, "the Sunshine State did provide both the dynamite and the detonator."

If the draw in the 1920s was imaginary land, Miami's bubble in the 2020s was driven by imaginary money — crypto. Either way, the idea was the same: Buy into the hot investment and become fabulously wealthy in no time. When I visited Miami in February 2021, the vaccine rollout was just getting started. Californians and New Yorkers were fleeing to Florida in record numbers to escape the pandemic winter, find riches, or both. Miami, on the other hand, was raging as if there were no pandemic at all.

The stock market was on a stimulus-fueled heater, and the whole town knew somebody who was raking in money trading on Robinhood. You couldn't get a seat at Carbone, the extravagant red-sauce joint imported from New York City and known for catering to the stars. Living up to Miami's reputation for big bienvenidos, the city's mayor, Francis Suarez, set himself up as a one-man welcome wagon for the crypto crowd, the startup crowd, and any financial firm that might consider moving into town. As bitcoin surged above $40,000, the city published a "white paper" that declared crypto would "transform the world," minted its own digital currency, and started attracting the biggest names in digital finance. Crypto was injected into basically every Miami function, especially its biggest annual festival, Art Basel. With all the ease of Pitbull putting on a pair of aviator sunglasses, Miami absorbed the frenetic energy of an entire country frustrated by the pandemic and flush with cash.