NFTs: Manufacturing artificial scarcity

Murley Herrle-Fanning joins us to discuss NFTs, crypto art, and virtual real estate.As per usual, the reporting on this technology driven phenomena is misleading at best, entirely wrong at worst. Although I’m not convinced that this is a technology story per se, but rather an investing, or scam story. In so far as the Art world is a combination of the two.For example the figures cited in NFT stories. Those numbers are incorrect, as they are translations. In most cases these transactions are not in dollars, they are in tokens, or ether, as that’s the whole point. These are blockchain transactions, and the purchases are happening in crypto-currency, linking their value with the value of Bitcoin, or Ether.This is relevant because of who would already have this currency, or who would be in a position to acquire it relatively easily.The appeal of such financing is understandable, if you’re willing to trust in this technology that seeks to automate trust.Unfortunately there are ample reasons for us to distrust it.For starters, while the blockchain is designed to verify that items uploaded to the blockchain are indeed those items, that doesn’t prevent someone from uploading something they do not have the rights to upload.Or what about the environmental impact? Or the cultural logic driving this entire process.We discuss all of this and more.