FTX Founder on NFTs: ‘I Don’t Get The Appeal of Some of These’

“Visual esthetics are not a thing that I understand,” Bankman-Fried told Axios on HBO. “Paintings, in general, aren’t worth. I actually don’t get it. I don’t, personally, understand the appeal of a Rembrandt painting. And when I see NFTs, a part of me is like: I don’t get the appeal of some of these. But a part is like: OK, I also don’t understand the appeal of the Mona Lisa, to be honest.”

The exchange’s founder claims that the NFTs’ value results from their value attributed to the pieces by their respective owners.

“I think they all look dumb to me, but they all look beautiful to other people, and I think that a lot of these NFTs mean a lot to the people buying them,” he said when asked about how a Leonardo Da Vinci painting relates to “somebody writing ‘Test’ as a JPEG.”

By launching its own NFT marketplace, FTX joined a growing pool of exchanges active in the sector. A similar project is underway at Coinbase which earlier this month unveiled that some 1m people registered for its forthcoming NFT platform in just one day.

FTX initially offered NFT minting for free, but decided to add a USD 500 paywall after being flooded with “a massive number of submissions,” most of which were spam representing identical images of a fish. After the move spurred online backlash, the exchange eventually set the fee at USD 10.
____
Learn more: 
– NFTs ‘on Bitcoin’: Yes, That’s a Thing!
– FATF’s New Guidelines Drop Next Week, Will Tackle Stablecoins, NFT & DeFi

– How Wu-Tang Clan’s USD 4M Album Reflects Crypto Ethos
– Rarible Passes NFT Minting Fee From Creators To Buyers

– NBA Top Shot On Fire – Sales Up by 146% in a Week
– Evaluating NFTs: How to Know Whether an NFT Project is Legit