You're right that you do have to verify it's origin, but the benefit is that you only have to verify it once, then the entire chain of custody can be derived. W

You're right that you do have to verify it's origin, but the benefit is that you only have to verify it once, then the entire chain of custody can be derived. With a piece of physical art, the original creator cannot just give you an identifier that allows you to, with 100% certainty, check authenticity. You need expensive, manual, and fallible inspection of the physical object.