NFTs, or the Beanie Babies of the 21st Century

In the 1990s, Beanie Babies were released as a mass produced, $5 toy that, through its artificial rarity, saw a hysteria arise around it. The price of some of these Chinese made toys skyrocketed to the thousands. At its height, beanie babies accounted for 10% of eBay sales.

The phrase "irrational exuberance" was coined by then Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan in respect of the internet bubble in the 90's. It is described as "unfounded market optimism", diverging from fundamental valuation. Another famous example of this is tulip mania that occurred in 17th century Holland.

Onto NFTs though. What are they? The acronym stands for "non-fungible tokens". Fungibility essentially means interchangeability. A $5 note is interchangeable for any other $5 note of the same currency, and underlies much of the market for cryptocurrencies. NFTs on the other hand, are meant to be unique (and now popularly attached to digital artworks). Uniqueness is really in the eye of the beholder though, since you can simply copy an NFT by screenshotting it even if you don't "own" it.

So what can you do with an NFT artwork?
Look at it, and/or offload it to the next buyer. So, less than a Beanie Baby.