[dcolkitt]

People will pay millions for an original Monet. Why? Digital image reproduction is perfect and the image is in public domain.

The answer is you’re buying status and provenance. The original Monet holds special value because of arbitrary cultural conventions. Someone can create a perfect replica to look at, but the replica dies not confer social status.

We now have a generation of crypto-native multimillionaires. I know many on this forum are pissed off about the fact. Many think all this crypto wealth shouldn’t exist. And many think the bubble will burst any day now.

All of which could be true. But the facts in the ground today is that there’s huge amounts of crypto native wealth. Just the same as 19th century Robber Barons are going to spend money on things that confer social status among other 19th century Robber Barons, crypto native millionaires are going to buy things that confer social status among crypto native millionaires.

For crypto native people, crypto provenance is as valuable as original copies are to Robber Barons. Again this is all just arbitrary social conventions one way or another. As long as the crypto ecosystem continues to generate massive wealth, expect the highest status goods among that subculture to command lofty prices.