&gt; and the losers in a unicorn bubble burst are a small set of private investors.<p>i think this is correct but incomplete. in the modern global financial system there can be very long-range correlations between investors in both the short term and the long term. if those private investors&#x27; performance is highly coupled with the health of large financial institutions it could destabilize everything.<p>when all the debt and credit in the world is structured and restructured into more and more complex financial products local risk can easily become systemic.