Edition

Money & Markets

Get Quartz in your inbox

Free daily briefing on global business news.

Business News

Airlines Automobiles Food Pharmaceuticals Politics & Government Retail & Ecommerce Space & Aerospace Earnings

Technology

A.I.Computing Consumer Tech Space & Aerospace Earnings

Money & Markets

Economic Indicators Markets Personal Finance Earnings

Lifestyle

Cars & Bikes Collecting Entertainment Food & Fine Dining Health and Fitness Real Estate Travel

Global business news for a smarter world

Topics

Business News
Money & Markets
Tech & Innovation
Generation A.I.
Lifestyle
Leadership

Products

Daily Brief
Weekly Digest
Member Benefits
Quartz Pro

Legal

Sitemap
About
Accessibility
Privacy
Terms of Service
Advertising

© 2026 Quartz Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

Relive the first tech bubble with Monopoly: The .com Edition

Relive the first tech bubble with Monopoly: The .com Edition

In November 2000, Hasbro released Monopoly: The .com Edition. The board game came just in time for Christmas—and the dot-com bubble bursting. By the end of that year, the Nasdaq had lost more than half its peak value.

By Zachary M. Seward·1 min read·Updated July 21, 2022

Add QZ to Google

In November 2000, Hasbro released Monopoly: The .com Edition. The board game came just in time for Christmas—and the dot-com bubble bursting. By the end of that year, the Nasdaq $NDAQ had lost more than half its peak value.

Not to jinx the current boom in Silicon Valley, but now seemed like a good time to revisit this special edition of Monopoly. “Are you ready to log on and hyperlink your way to overnight fame and fortune in the exciting world of e-commerce?” asked the instruction booklet (pdf), which detailed all the ways in which The .Com Edition differed from the original. For example…

Daily Brief

The essential business news, delivered fresh every morning.

Join 500,000+ readers who start their day with Quartz.

By subscribing, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

The money was denominated in millions of dollars, so the smallest bill was seven figures.

Properties on the board were popular websites like Geocities, Ask Jeeves, and iVillage. The equivalent of Boardwalk and Park Place were Yahoo and Excite@Home.

Instead of railroads, there were AT&T, Sprint, MCI Worldcom, and Nokia.

The tokens included a surfboard—you know, for surfing the World Wide Web.

Startups were the surest path to riches.

Banner ads were considered lucrative…

…and so was playing the stock market.

But storage was expensive…

…and connecting to the internet was fraught.

Life on the web could be distracting…

…but web browsers looked pretty much the same as today.

Photos by Gloria Dawson