There were a lot of companies relying on incredibly marginal...

There were a lot of companies relying on incredibly marginal deposits.  CLA's was one of the better ones, which is scary considering it's uneconomic at a cobalt price below $50k, but still not enough copper to mitigate the risk.  Likewise the many vein-hosted cobalt-silver explorers in Canada.  That's not to even get to the laterite hopefuls... maybe one of them will get to production.

Not to say there wasn't money to be made, and may still be, but it was pretty bubbly.