3 ms·
> The naysayers who think this is all for a quick buck are missing the pattern and listening too much to the (admittedly, insanely loud and annoying) shills. I
by dorkwood 6y ago
> The naysayers who think this is all for a quick buck are missing the pattern and listening too much to the (admittedly, insanely loud and annoying) shills.
I'm part of a community that's currently being overtaken by the crypto art craze, and I'm still convinced it's "all for a quick buck".
The crypto art economy seems to be driven by "collectors" who will drop thousands of dollars on anyone who can get them more exposure. People who have no followers and aren't tweeting about NFTs every day generally don't get their art bought. Some of these kids who made $10,000 off a png then feel some social pressure to put some of that money back into the community, so they purchase more crypto art with the proceeds.
Some collectors openly advertise their ongoing bids on social media. They want people to see that they're dropping big money on art. If it was a true art collector, wouldn't they not want to be outbid? Wouldn't they be hoping that there were as few people in the auction as possible? None of it smells right to me.
- nostrademons 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good A lot of people buy art not because they like looking at it, but because they want everyone to know that they have lots of money to drop on worthless art purchases. This motivation is reinforced if a.) everybody knows how much money they're dropping on art purchases and b.) the price keeps going up, yet they still win the bid. They want the price to go up, since a higher price just signifies how baller they are.
- ChainOfFools 6y agoHow does anyone know that they aren't already connected to the seller, and just passing 10,000 dollars from one wallet address they own, to another they also own, to create the appearance of a sale? You get the same veblen bragging rights, the artist (assuming they are not simply your own alter ego) gets a visibility boost and nobody is going to be motivated enough to go digging around the custody trail to prove this was a sham. This sleight of hand (in a slightly modified form) is standard operating procedure for inflating the value of ICO offerings (and by extension, crypto as a whole); I don't see why people wouldn't do it for NFTs, with the same motivations at work.
- dorkwood 6y agoIf that's the case, why hide behind a pseudonym that seems like it was created purely for buying crypto art? I'm looking at one right now -- their Twitter says they're a "rare digital art collector", and links to their pages on SuperRare and MakersPlace, but doesn't have any tweets, and there's otherwise no identifiable information. They've succeeded in demonstrating their wealth, but no one has any idea who they are, which seems to poke a hole in that theory.
- estaseuropano 6y agoProbably still just a big money laundering/tax evasion operation, like much of the real art world...