With both paper certificates and NFTs, their worth depends on the issuer. The NFT craze is stupid, but as you point out, coupling real art with a NFT certificat

With both paper certificates and NFTs, their worth depends on the issuer. The NFT craze is stupid, but as you point out, coupling real art with a NFT certificate is a really neat use case for NFTs. A NFT minted by an author and/or a reputable source such as an auction house can act as a unique, impossible-to-duplicate certificate that helps claim ownership of some real-world possession. It's a given that at some point this will be tested in a court, with favorable results.