Unit 3 · Level 4 · NFTs beyond jpegs
Mania and bust
In March 2021, Christie's auctioned a digital collage by the artist Beeple for $69 million, and NFT mania went global. Monthly trading volume peaked in early 2022 at billions of euros; profile-picture apes changed hands for hundreds of thousands. Then the tide went out. By 2023, volumes were down over 90%, and one study found the large majority of collections had essentially no buyers left.
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What you get asked
In NFT markets, what is a collection's 'floor price'?
The floor is the market's 'from €X' sticker. It's set by the most motivated seller, which is exactly why it moves so fast in a panic.
What happened to most 2021-22 NFT collections once the mania cooled?
Even 'blue chip' collections lost the vast majority of their value; most others simply stopped trading. Attention left, and price followed.
Creator ___ (a cut paid to artists on each resale) collapsed when marketplaces made them optional.
Royalties were the pitch that NFTs would fund artists forever. When marketplaces raced to zero fees around 2022-23, 'forever' turned out to be optional.
Order the anatomy of the NFT mania
Swap 'NFT' for tulips, dot-coms, or meme stocks and the chart is the same. Manias are a template, not an accident.
What's the honest, durable lesson of the NFT boom and bust?
The bust doesn't prove the tech is useless. What it proves is that prices built on attention need constant new attention. The next mania you meet will feel different. It won't be. 🐜
The rest of this unit
Provenance, mania, market tricks, and the uses that might survive.