The invention of NFTs was meant to give artists more control over their work, but that dream didn't come true and only led to commercially exploitable hype
The AtlanticAnil Dash
Context & Ripple Effects
This Atlantic critique lands mid-frenzy: weeks earlier, MIT Technology Review reported that artists tapping NFT marketplaces promising thousands for their work were running into scams, environmental concerns, and crypto hype rather than clean windfalls. The New York Times' history of cryptoart traced how the artists who kickstarted the boom were being joined by celebrities and major brands fueling the frenzy.
The through-line across the coverage is a gap between promise and outcome: the technology pitched as artist empowerment produced commercially exploitable hype instead, a gap The Atlantic now names explicitly and that later coverage extends to other monetization channels.
First-order effects
Artists selling into NFT marketplaces face the immediate costs the MIT Technology Review reporting documented — scam exposure, environmental backlash, and dependence on crypto-hype cycles — even when sales pay out.
Second-order effects
As celebrities and major brands pile into cryptoart per the New York Times' history, attention and pricing power shift toward famous names, leaving the early artist community that built the scene competing against marketing budgets rather than on craft.
Third-order effects
If the pattern holds, creator-monetization tools keep getting absorbed into commerce-first dynamics: the follow-on Atlantic piece frames newsletters, NFTs, and tip jars as channels where money empowers creators but reduces expression to mere commerce.
The trend: Creator-empowerment technologies are repeatedly captured by commercial hype, with platforms and celebrity capital — not the artists they were built for — taking the upside.
When we created the first NFTs back in 2014, @mccoyspace & I were trying to support artists and center their needs as blockchain technologies took off. In my first time writing for @TheAtlantic, I explain how things didn't go exactly as planned since then. https://www.theatlantic…
One of the pioneers of NFT art back in 2014 explains why current NFT craze is a house of cards filled with grifters and scammers and the tech doesn't protect artists at all. https://twitter.com/...
Great read from @anildash for @TheAtlantic “They [NFT marketplaces] still depend on the old-fashioned pre-blockchain internet, where an artwork would suddenly vanish if someone forgot to renew a domain name.” https://www.theatlantic.com/ ...
NFTs Were Supposed to Protect Artists. They Don't. - The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/ ... NFTs Weren't Supposed to End Like This When we invented non-fungible tokens, we were trying to protect artists. But tech-world opportunism has struck again.
When someone buys an NFT, they're not buying the actual digital artwork; they're buying a link to it. &... in many cases it lives on the website of a start-up that will fail. When that happens verifcation will be impossible. https://www.theatlantic.com/ ...
“If NFT prices suddenly plunge, these investors will try buying polo horses or Davos tickets with cryptocurrencies instead. Think of a kid who's spent the day playing Skee-Ball and now has a whole lot of tickets to spend. Every toy looks enticing.” https://www.theatlantic.com/ ..…
This article seems short sighted for someone who helped pioneer such a revolutionary idea. This is still the beginning. BBS boards and AOL chat rooms were a shit show too. NFTs might be about investing now but there will be a crash and what's on the other side is exciting. https:…
“But these changes left creators at the mercy of companies far more powerful, far more ruthless, and far less accountable than the record labels and publishers they'd disrupted. Artists were the original gig economy.” #IRespectMusic https://www.theatlantic.com/ ...
“One major challenge is that the blockchain has, at present, approximately zero uses for the typical consumer.” Inaccurate. +13M Rewards user wallets created to utilize @AttentionToken in @Brave to date, with +1M Creators verified & accepting $BAT. https://twitter.com/...
The pairing of @anildash and @mccoyspace for 7x7 2014 is a key origin story in the rise of NFTs. Seven years later, Anil deeply questions the entire system, while Kevin remains eternally optimistic. 7x7, it's like that sometimes. Here's Anil's look back: https://www.theatlantic.c…
this piece is in and of itself an artistic masterpiece manages to to spaghetti toss every shortcut, ill thought out criticism of cryptocurrencies against the wall while demonstrating zero insight or understanding of the benefits and real usage occurring https://www.theatlantic.co…
“When we invented non-fungible tokens, we were trying to protect artists. But tech-world opportunism has struck again.” https://www.theatlantic.com/ ...
Artists/art is utterly incidental to NFTs, whose primary goals - crypto marketing, speculation and grifting - are adequately served by the hype and bubblegum engineering underneath at the moment. @anildash is just nostalgic. https://www.theatlantic.com/ ...