These raw numbers are meaningless to compare. If anything it should show margin debt as a fraction of total assets (or total market size as a proxy).

From our library - expressed as percentages of gdp or market cap: https://x.com/augurinfinity/status/1958564629040251267?s=46

The other thing is that whenever I see graphs like that spanning decades but not using a logarithmic scale, I can't help but roll my eyes a bit.

We may well be approaching a dotcom moment, but this kind of graph automatically exaggerates what's happening more recently.