There is a distinction for multilevel marketing schemes, I believe, that basically says if the majority of the incentive structure is about signing up new people, then it's still a pyramid scheme, even if some token product changes hands.

The law isn't there yet, but NFTs are analogous: There is some putative "art" involved, but it's basically variations of ponzi or pump-and-dump where the value comes from convincing people that the value will be higher later. The fact that something (generously) tangible is involved does not alter the nature of the scheme.

So for that reason, they are not art, the same way some phone card pyramid scheme is not a sales business.

When we say pyramid schemes are not sales businesses, or NFTs are not art, I think we sneak value judgements into what should be objective definitions. If we were to have a definition of a sales business in the dictionary, it would not read: 'A business based around sales. Except for pyramid schemes because they are bad.'

The pyramid scheme allegory was bad.

A non value judgement allegory would be receipts. Receipts are not art. You can have art of a receipt, you can make a receipt into art, but receipts are categorically not art.

NFTs are basically digital receipts.

Except the real world is messy and doesn't fall into the perfectly neat definitions like the algorithmic or mathematical world does.

An NFT is a receipt, not the artwork it points to.

A share of Getty Images stock is not art.

A baseball card is not art.

And in crypto world, anonymously "selling" an NFT to yourself is not a sale.

I'm less certain than you.

I think I read somewhere that people collect old stock certificates for the artistic value. Just checked eBay and there appear to be thousands for sale.

And aren't baseball cards art? Wouldn't Andy Warhol say they are?

Manipulating financial instruments can be art!

"[Sarah] Meyohas traded stocks on the New York Stock Exchange then, in real time, drew the changes in the stock’s valuation with oil stick on blank canvases throughout the gallery. The line, value over time, is an index of her movement, physically in the gallery and virtually in her ownership. Each painting is one of many financial records, but unique as an artwork."

She also has sold crypto tokens redeemable for her work:

"Similar to Bitcoin, one Bitchcoin, is worth 25 square inches of any one of Meyohas’ photographic prints. The value of each coin fluctuates with the increasing value of the artist’s works. ‘BitchCoin asserts artistic agency as an economic claim,” Meyohas states, "This is important for artists when art is viewed as a cultural capital"

"...when you purchase one BitchCoin, you receive a certificate with an encrypted number, which can be redeemed at any time for a physical artwork. Purchasing a complete print requires 25 BitchCoins, which comes to $2,500, but any print can be exchanged in the future for another print."

https://news.artnet.com/market/artist-invents-bitchcoin-a-ph...