NFT’s helped break the glass ceiling for digital art, says investigative journalist Zachary Small. And at the very center of the fast and loose history of NFTs, crypto, and high art, that Small captures in their recent book, Token Supremacy: the Art of Finance, the Finance of Art, and the Great Crypto Crash of 2022,  is an age old question of the value of art–perhaps the very meaning of value itself. 

On today’s show, guest host Nate Carlin talks with Small about the financialization of art and how speculation has always existed in this very decentralized and unregulated world. When crypto and NFTs entered the scene, some of the tools born in the traditional art market were filtered through Silicon Valley’s techno-optimism. And in this brave new mysterious world, some speculated that humans may just become gods.

In their conversation, Carlin and Small touch on the fame of Vera Molnár, algorithmic art, Justin Sun, collectability, the Bored Ape Yacht Club, shams and scams, and the crash of FTX that brought the world to a stumbling halt.

Image courtesy of Penguin Random House.

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