I think it's much more than pump and dump, or if it is, on a much longer time frame. There is a absolutely spectacular documentary on Andy Warhol by Ric Burns t

I think it's much more than pump and dump, or if it is, on a much longer time frame. There is a absolutely spectacular documentary on Andy Warhol by Ric Burns that I think sheds some light. Warhol was relatively unknown before the 32 soup cans. An art dealer in California named Irving Bloom showed them and most people hated them or dismissed them, but by some mysterious process they became like a talisman that divided the hip from the unhip. Later in the documentary Bloom brags about how they're now worth millions of dollars. NFT's of JPG's of rocks are kind of like the soup cans. You either get it, or you don't, but people are betting that the one's who get it will pay good money for all kinds of NFT's in a self-sustaining market. It's very futuristic, like the idea that a soup can could be art. It's not based on anything that happened before. You really have to get the context starting at 1:08:15 where a friend tells him "you like money, why don't you paint pictures of money? You should paint something everyone recognizes, like a can of soup" The Life of Andy Warhol - Part 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDIdjvezp2U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDIdjvezp2U