One possible motivation: they see themselves in a position to benefit from NFT trading "becoming a thing". Either because they already own stock, or they expect themselves to become extraordinarily successful in speculation, or they consider themselves future creators, or they own/run a market where they will be traded. No matter which it was, they'd have a very real interest in bootstrapping the market into existence.

Pass around ownership in an effectively zero sum series of transactions with exponentially growing price, get media attention, stop being zero sum as soon as the first outsider steps in.

https://twitter.com/FoldableHuman/status/1387956657171271681