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The Dot-Com Crash Wiped Out $5 Trillion
The believers were correct. The internet did change everything. They lost their money anyway. That’s the part worth understanding in 2026.
On 10 March 2000, the Nasdaq closed at 5,048.62. It was the highest it had ever been.
Two and a half years later, on 9 October 2002, it closed at 1,114.11.
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That is a fall of 78%. Around $5 trillion in value gone not moved somewhere else, just gone. Hundreds of companies shut down. Thousands of people lost jobs, savings, and in some cases homes.
Here’s what makes it worth your five minutes, the people who bought those stocks were right.
They believed the internet would change how humans shop, work, talk, date, bank and argue. It did. Every single thing they predicted came true, and more.
And they still lost almost everything.
How the party started
From about 1995, something simple happened. Ordinary people got online, and the companies selling them things online started going public.
In 1995, Netscape went public and the stock more than doubled on its first day. That day…
