<nettime> what does monetary value indicate?

[Felix Stalder <felix@openflows.com>]

I'm sure many have followed the NFT art saga over the last couple of
months and seen today's headline that somebody just paid $ 69,346,250
for a NFT on a blockchain, meta-data to claim ownership of the
"originalcopy" of a digital art work.

https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/first-open-beeple/beeple-b-1981-1/112924

I don't want to start a discussion on the revolutionary vs reactionary
character of this emerging art market. All of that has already been
said. If you want a close approximation of my perspective, I refer you
to this:

https://everestpipkin.medium.com/but-the-environmental-issues-with-cryptoart-1128ef72e6a3

What I'm more interested in here is to ask two things.

What -- after a decade of quantitative easing and crypto-currencies
rising into the stratosphere -- monetary value is indicating for the
segment that profited the most from these developments and what does
that mean for the rest of us?

And, assuming that this is not a cartoon version of a potlatch where
wasting resources serves to put rivals to shame, how many different
scams -- money laundering would be an obvious contender -- are being
layered on top of one other to create this?

Quite puzzled. Felix









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