Reminds me of stories about salespeople compensation in the book "The difference between God and Larry Ellison (God does not believe he is Larry Ellison)". Oracle salespeople received commissions before customers had paid, and many of them made additional "side" contracts with customers that let them cancel the deal, but were not considered (or known) for the purpose of calculating the commission.

Another analogy that might prove more apt than 17th century tulip mania is Russian railways at end of 19th / start of 20th century. All the private money going into "sovereign companies" that might be snapped at an instant by respective American/Chinese/Korean/Taiwanese government.