Money Talks

Why the NFT Craze Is a Bubble Waiting to Pop

The latest collectible boom is fueled by speculators, not enthusiasts

James Surowiecki

Published in

Marker

7 min readMar 8, 2021

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An illustration mock-up of a phone with an Ethereum “coin” in a Bubble-Bobble style game design. The coin is pointed at a variety of bubbles that contain different art icons or internet memes. — Illustration: Quickhoney for Marker

If every era has its quintessential collectible, something that speaks to the historical moment and becomes a seeming route to riches, ours is clearly the “non-fungible token” (or NFT). Over the past year, NFTs — which include…

James Surowiecki

Written by James Surowiecki

Writer for

Marker

I’m the author of The Wisdom of Crowds. I’ve been a business columnist for Slate and The New Yorker and written for a wide range of other publications.

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