As Madex on Citadel Dispatch railed against NFTs on a recent episode I realized that the public discourse around NFTs has fallen victim to a lot of muddy thinking. Thinking which is helping perpetuate scams on one hand while denying us all the potential of innovation, new markets, and outright fun on the other.

The most popular criticism I see among lay-artists has to do with Bitcoin itself requiring energy, which is absurd because that energy is akin to a security guard managing access to vault with $1T and growing. That's ok though. Artists need not be economists

The most valid point against NFTs that I see is that they often depend on a third party to vouch for the link between some work and its token. There are ways to bake this link into a work (as Madex does with OpenDime) but in many cases this isn't necessary as the "community" can tell what's the real McCoy. Authentication has been an arms race through the history of art and cryptographic verification is the endgame.

Some complain that NFTs aren't real art but what is art? To me art challenges everything. NFTs are innately challenging so I can see them figuring into a lot of artworks, and as usual there will be tons of copycats and weakness for every work of brilliance.

Some of it's just jealousy. It can't feel good watching some icon go for millions when you can't pay your rent after PhD-like training.

Self-dealing is a valid concern but the economy around art is part of "everything" so why can't that be part of the art? I could imagine part of a work's manifestation being that a large number of coins were moved.

Please excuse any typos. If I keep editing this I'll never post. Anyway it's the weekend. Free your mind. Enjoy the possibility and have fun!