Token Supremacy: The Art of Finance, the Finance of Art, and the Great Crypto Crash of 2022

“The contemporary art market has served as an economic laboratory for the rich to develop a shadow banking system of alternative assets and hedged liquidity,” according to this trenchant debut investigation. New York Times reporter Small argues that non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, are “financial tools branded as digital art” and traces the rise and fall of the NFT market through vivid profiles of artists swept up in it. For instance, Small describes how crypto entrepreneur Erick Calderon battled a skeptical art establishment to create an online NFT marketplace where he sold algorithmically generated pieces by himself and others. However, the 2022 crypto crash imperiled his business by provoking traders to illicitly circumvent the royalty system on secondary NFT sales, rendering moot the main incentive for artists to work in the medium. Stories about notable collectors are just as colorful, as when Small describes how Mexican businessman Martin Mobarak burned a Frida Kahlo drawing worth $10 million to drive up the price of an NFT he created from it. Small assembles their finely observed character portraits into a troubling analysis of how the financialization of the art market has reduced culture to commercial tokens whose value depends on their ability to provide a return on investment. This masterful exposé enthralls. Agent: Howard Yoon, WME. (May)