[dcolkitt]

> There's no respect to be earned from a public digital trail admitting you've traded real money for a link to a fake clout badge.

Except there clearly is. At the point where many of the world's most famous athletes, musicians and actors have prominently displayed NFTs that they purchased, then there clearly is real social status associated with them.

You can debate about whether that's unfair, or stupid, or just a fad. But it's pretty clearly undeniable that NFTs today are an indisputable social status market to a not insignificant fraction of the population. The fact that you find that you think it shouldn't be that way doesn't change the way things are.