[vidarh]

A whole lot of other goods are only expensive because people want to show off their ability to buy expensive things, and for a certain subset of bragging rights, the ability to throw away huge amounts of money on something totally useless is a particularly extravagant demonstration of wealth, because spending money on something useless is a more direct demonstration of the magnitude of your wealth than buying something that you can safely sell again to recoup most of your expense.

For what it's worth, I agree with you in general. It's a ridiculous waste of money. But at the same time it's very clear that some people are impressed by this kind of thing.

[pessimizer]

Also, if a group with money generally agrees about (and demonstrates by buying) the desirability of something, it becomes just as valuable to people outside the group. I don't have to care about NFTs to buy one that I know I can unload.

The problem comes when the auctions start failing i.e. people who bought NFTs with leverage can't sell for enough where they won't be wiped out.

The art market runs on the self-image of wealthy people as superior people, which requires constant critical appraisal and reappraisal by designated experts. There's no chance that the ability to piss money away on an acknowledgement in a distributed ledger can compete indefinitely with the ability to piss money away on a canvas by a dead abstract expressionist painted in their own piss and shit. Academics and famous aesthetes will call you a genius for owning the second. How long are you going to be able to brag about one of these, and who to?

Every initial transaction with these is giving some real person real money for absolutely nothing in return. Who are going to be the designated issuers, and why? Who is going to pay for Scott Baio's Designated Cool Dude NFT, and how much?