Artists are tapping into NFT marketplaces, which could pay them thousands for their work, but are running into scams, environmental concerns, and crypto hype
having good taste becomes and investment. @comXcap 💪 https://twitter.com/... @tzhongg : From my MIT Technology Review interview on NFTs: NFTs has turned the creator economy into the ownership economy. Fans can prove that they were early supporters of a creator and capture value from betting early too. 🔗 https://www.technologyreview.com/ ... https://twitter.com/... Abby Ohlheiser / @abbyohlheiser : I spent a week speaking to artists about NFTs and came away wondering: as much as some artists are able to really find success and support selling them, isn't this all just serving to make the biggest holders of the cryptocurrency it's tied to richer? https://www.technologyreview.com/ ... Abby Ohlheiser / @abbyohlheiser : yay can't wait to watch journalists have the same anxiety and hype about whether they need to be doing NFTs or nah that I reported about artists dealing with there https://www.technologyreview.com/ ...
Context & Ripple Effects
At the peak of the 2021 cryptoart frenzy, Abby Ohlheiser spent a week with artists cashing real paychecks from NFT marketplaces — thousands per work — while running into scams, blockchain energy costs, and a market driven by crypto hype rather than art collecting. The optimistic framing came from boosters like Tina Zeng, who described NFTs turning the creator economy into an ownership economy where early fans capture value alongside creators.
That promise aged poorly: The Atlantic soon argued NFTs gave artists less control than advertised, and by early 2023 Vanity Fair was cataloguing the art world's 'deal-with-the-devil' entanglement with crypto, including allegations that FTX stood behind Sotheby's $24.4M purchase of 107 Bored Apes.
First-order effects
- Artists selling on marketplaces gain a new revenue line measured in thousands per work, but bear new risks themselves: platform scams and the reputational cost of blockchain energy use fall on them first.
Second-order effects
- As Ohlheiser's reporting hints and later coverage confirmed, gains concentrate among the largest holders of the underlying cryptocurrency, pushing smaller artists to either court crypto-native collectors or exit the market entirely — a split visible in the backlash pieces that followed.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, NFT platforms consolidate into venues where commercial hype outweighs artist control, validating the critique that the technology enriched speculators and big holders more than the creators it was pitched to empower.
The trend: Creator monetization is migrating toward speculative token markets where the biggest cryptocurrency holders, not individual artists, capture most of the value.