Op-Ed: NFTs are digital tulip fever: Would you pay thousands for a bar code?

A person looks at a piece during the grand opening of Superchief Gallery NFT, a physical gallery dedicated exclusively to NFT (non-fungible tokens) artwork in New York. — AFP

Late last month, the white-hot world of NFT art was rocked by a contretemps. On Monday, April 26, Daystrom, a New York art collective, announced the auction of an NFT for a drawing by Jean-Michel Basquiat, the first work by the "Radiant Child" to be offered in the space of "crypto art." Bids were due by that Friday. In a few short days, however, the whole thing evaporated, an offer as ephemeral as NFTs themselves.

Champions of NFTs, or nonfungible tokens, claim that this digital way of authenticating work will revolutionise art practice and collecting. Their hope is to overthrow what they see as a traditional gatekeeping tranche of galleries, biennales and journals.