NFTS as the interface of cryptocurrencies : utility values and the act of wasteful spending

Abstract

Cryptocurrencies are still rarely used as a means of payment. They work all the better as objects of speculation and tax-saving loss models. How new and how credible are the promises of incorruptibility and independence with which NFTs lure us as visual figureheads and supposedly infallible signing procedures for cryptocurrencies? The banking crisis is assumed to be the political trigger for the emergence of cryptocurrencies in 2008. The success of so-called ‘non-fungible tokens’ (NFTs) is interpreted as a media-philosophical event. This is because it helps highly speculative cryptocurrencies to become not only visible but also recognizable as a kind of visual interface. The special images generated in the process reflect the self-image of the crypto brothers in an ironically fractured way: hanging out with bored new millionaires self-deprecatingly calling themselves ‘monkeys’? The paradox of their new medium has by no means escaped the sworn community: How is it possible that millions are spent on digital images that continue to be used by everyone for free? The essay questions the origin of a counter-intuitive value system that attempts to capitalize every theoretically digitizable grain of sand by the sea with a digital certificate, i.e. to charge it with monetary value. I am interested in dealing with this obvious absurdity. Is absurdity being proactively turned into the pictorial program of NFTs? This seems sorely needed: the technical solution of capitalizing a good that remains non-scarce takes its unobtainability to the philosophical extreme. The ubiquitous and happily unregulated use of digital entities belies the idea of exclusive digital ownership. How to continue selling NFTs as visual figureheads of cryptocurrencies? The way out of the dilemma seems to be the argumentative flight forwards: Of all things, highly volatile cryptocurrencies are said to make us users independent and impervious to the vagaries of finance. How credible is such a promise? Or is this, in the words of George Bataille, precisely what turns every potlatch from crap into a publicly staged self-indulgence, and transform it into new social capital? Does it leave any trace other than that shame is overrated?