Hedge funds and investment managers working for billionaires were all involved. They could read the way the wind was blowing, were able to sell it to their clients who have so much money that they don't care if they lose a few million when they had the chance to make back many times that. The alternative is letting your money sit in a bank which is losing money to the inflation rate, so if they are diversified and this small portion of their money is able to help their average up by one or two percentage it can make a huge difference. There were also a lot of small scale investors who simply got caught up in the hype and end up riding the waves made by the whales beneath the surface. I would say feel sorry for the small scale investor but they are often led by greed and do not have the long term patience that is critical to decent performance over years.