> I think that the vast majority of the value of very expensive paintings by famous painters has very little to do with the "inherent" beauty of the work, and a

> I think that the vast majority of the value of very expensive paintings by famous painters has very little to do with the "inherent" beauty of the work, and almost everything to do with facts about the actual origin of the object. I agree! In fact, let's take as an example a perfectly executed counterfeit, in fact one executed so well that it matches the original on the atomic level. The equivalent of a perfect digital copy in the analog world. I'm fully willing to admit that it is intelligible that this copy does not have the same value as the original work of art. The question, though, is why it doesn't have this value. The reason, I claim, is that the significant thing we humans value when we value art is the expression of an original act of creation, comprised by individual acts of conception, production, and realization accomplished by some ingenious mind. The reason we do not value counterfeits, even perfect ones, is that they are mere technical marvels. If they have any value at all it is due to their innate artistic merit, and not the fact that they are the expression of an act of creation. For this reason, I claim, NFTs do not possess any of this "originality" value. There is no act of artistic creation as I defined it above. For this reason it becomes very difficult to distinguish between a "real" NFT and a counterfeit one, or say why we should value one more than another. At best, it becomes akin to an autograph or some ephemera that retains value only because of its connection to a celebrity. > It's up to everyone to determine how much they value the thing. What you are pointing out, of course, is that NFTs demonstrably do have exchange value. This is something that indeed demands an explanation, if I'm going to reject the view that they have value in the same way that an original work of art has value (and I do). My view is simple: the vast majority of the exchange value of NFTs comes from a combination of their value as (a) novelty, (b) supposed investment vehicles, and (c) currency. I believe (b) deserves the most credit; most of the value in the NFT market comes from people convinced that the NFTs they buy will increase in value in the future. Any of these is very different than valuing the physical expression of the creativity of an artistic genius, however.