Some evidence has just emerged of Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs) proving to be the Emperor’s New Clothes (ENC), as I suspected them to be.Apparently Sotheby’s, who expected to take $5.5 million at auction for a collection of CryptoPunks (me neither) sold as a single lot had to withdraw it at the last moment.According to the consignor (named as 0x650d) The Punk It! Sale, as it was christened, had fallen victim to a cyber scam, whereby the developers had made off with the digital assets, leaving the investors high and dry. “Nvm, decided to hodl,” he is reported as tweeting, adding even more cryptic content to this crypto crash.
A further comment suggested that this was an ‘event’ to embarrass the auction house for trying to take ‘punks’ mainstream – i.e. the traditional auction world trying to cash in on this cutting edge digital money spinner. Banksy was the first to do this with his automatic shredding of a work at the moment it sold for an eye-watering sum. However, in Banksy’s case, this just made the picture more desirable and it sold for considerably more in it shredded state some time later.
If, as at least one pundit put it, the ‘hodl’ turns out to be fatal to the CryptoPunks craze, I shall be weeping no tears. Expertise is important at auction for good reason and those who dabble in things they are not sufficiently appraised of are likely to get their fingers burnt.
Time for some paintings and fine antiques, I think!
