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Token Supremacy: The Art of Finance, the Finance of Art, and the Great Crypto Crash of 2022
A New York Times investigative reporter wades into the murky, pixelated waters of the multibillion-dollar NFT market—the virtual casino that sprang up overnight in 2020 and came crashing down, with all its celebrity hucksters, just two years later. A vibrant and witty exploration of the increasingly blurry line between art and money, artist and con artist, value and worthlessness.
In 2021, when the gavel fell at Christie’s on the sale of Mike Winkelmann’s Everydays series—a compilation of five thousand digital artworks—it made a thunderous Non-fungible tokens had arrived. The ludicrous world of CryptoKitties and Bored Apes had just produced a piece of art worth $69.3 million (at least according to the highest bidder). On that day, the traditional art market—the largest unregulated market in the world—put its stamp of approval on a very new and carnivalesque digital reality. But what did it mean for these two worlds to collide? Was it all just a money laundering scheme? And come on, what was that piece of digital flotsam really worth anyway?
In Token Supremacy, Zachary Small works through these and other fascinating questions, tracing the crypto economy back to its origins in the 2008 financial crisis and the lineage of NFTs back to the first photographic negatives. Small describes jaw-dropping tales of heists, publicity stunts, and rug pulls, before zeroing in on the role of "security tokens" in the FTX scandal. Detours through art history provide insight into the mythmaking tactics that drive stratospheric auction sales and help the wealthy launder their finances (and reputations) through art. And we cast an eye toward the future of NFTs—in mortgages, restaurants, securities, and loans—that could outlive cryptocurrencies, becoming a new and dangerous shadow banking system in its own right.
A wild and spellbinding tour through a world that strains belief.
In 2021, when the gavel fell at Christie’s on the sale of Mike Winkelmann’s Everydays series—a compilation of five thousand digital artworks—it made a thunderous Non-fungible tokens had arrived. The ludicrous world of CryptoKitties and Bored Apes had just produced a piece of art worth $69.3 million (at least according to the highest bidder). On that day, the traditional art market—the largest unregulated market in the world—put its stamp of approval on a very new and carnivalesque digital reality. But what did it mean for these two worlds to collide? Was it all just a money laundering scheme? And come on, what was that piece of digital flotsam really worth anyway?
In Token Supremacy, Zachary Small works through these and other fascinating questions, tracing the crypto economy back to its origins in the 2008 financial crisis and the lineage of NFTs back to the first photographic negatives. Small describes jaw-dropping tales of heists, publicity stunts, and rug pulls, before zeroing in on the role of "security tokens" in the FTX scandal. Detours through art history provide insight into the mythmaking tactics that drive stratospheric auction sales and help the wealthy launder their finances (and reputations) through art. And we cast an eye toward the future of NFTs—in mortgages, restaurants, securities, and loans—that could outlive cryptocurrencies, becoming a new and dangerous shadow banking system in its own right.
A wild and spellbinding tour through a world that strains belief.
368 pages, Hardcover
Published May 21, 2024
8 people are currently reading
220 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
July 15, 2024
Thank you to Knopf for the finished copy to review!
This subject is not an easy one for me to understand, and thankfully this book was able to explain it in a way that it clicked and made a little more sense. It is still fascinating to me how crypto and NFT’s are still a ‘thing’, given their volatility and unstable history, and now how often they are used to con folks. I listened to this one via audio and it was such an incredibly fascinating read that I definitely recommend if you want to learn more about this market and its scandals.
This subject is not an easy one for me to understand, and thankfully this book was able to explain it in a way that it clicked and made a little more sense. It is still fascinating to me how crypto and NFT’s are still a ‘thing’, given their volatility and unstable history, and now how often they are used to con folks. I listened to this one via audio and it was such an incredibly fascinating read that I definitely recommend if you want to learn more about this market and its scandals.
December 31, 2024
But my hawk tuah coin
January 4, 2025
No closer to understanding NFTs but do get why those people with $$$$ like to make them and use them for speculation. Also it’s weird that an artist would destroy his physical art for an electronic facsimile.
March 22, 2024
My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for an advance copy of this book about the rise and fall of the NFT market, the ties to the art world, the world of technology, and both the hucksterism and visionary ideas that were used to promote it.
The road,or Hyperloop, to the future has a breakdown lane that is loaded with ideas and technology that were hyped but soon forgotten. Some were great ideas, that were either passed over, not promoted, or replaced by something inferior, but cheaper for investors. Some of these products and ideas should have never left the dry erase board they were written on during that brainstorming meeting where nobody really could say no to the money man. The idea of disrupting things has driven many a profit making idea, even if these disruptions get co-opted but what they intend to disrupt. Money is the prime motivator, but there is a bit of Steve Jobs attitude, the I know better than you/ do your own research/ I have money you don't therefore I am smarter/ mentality that has in its own way corrupted tech thinking and its vision. Everyone wants wealth, no one wants to point out the Emperor has no clothes, nor currency, and in NFT nothing to even hang on a wall. All promoted by a market that was new, not well understood, not regulated and well kind of shady. Token Supremacy:The Art of Finance, the Finance of Art, and the Great Crypto Crash of 2022 by journalist and editor Zachary Small, is a look at this world of NFTs, from the beginning to what happened, and where it all might end up.
NFTs are non-fungible tokens, basically giving a person the rights to own, via blockchain, a piece of digital art or media. Stoned Ape photos, celebrities, ex-presidents all make appearances, along with they usual grifters, hucksters, true believers and artists who thought they finally found a way to make money in art. The book is unique in that it is not just a business book, nor an baking story or current events but looks at NFT's with the eye of a person who has covered the art market for years, and knows the sort of lose morals and ways art is packaged and sold. The book discusses how the idea of NFT's might have started in a German disco in a discussion among three people, an artist, and two money people. The book looks at the beginnings of digital art, with a young woman in Paris finding a computer lab open and creating something new on a computer. This same woman, aged almost a hundred, returns to the scene when during the peak of NFT's and COVID she began to sell her art again. The book looks at the business, what went wrong, tracing the rise of speculators familiar with the large profits in the regular art trade, and how they turned to digital to make even more money.
This book was much more than I expected, and I learned quite a bit from it. Not just about bitcoin, and NFT's but about the art of auction houses, and what a world that is. There is also a lot more about art, especially the creating of digital works that will appeal to a lot of readers outside of technology. Small is a very good writer, able to discuss technology, art, business, creativity, and even the psychology of many of these people, from creative to frankly sociopathic. The book follows a chronological path, with a few diversions, and even Small seems amazed at how things went and the places that the book took him to.
A book that looks at the big picture of what is going on in the world of technology, and the dark future that many seem to be embracing. Recommended for people interested in technology, art, and the art market. And for those who like to read about how greed seems to be infesting just about everything around us. A book I enjoyed, even if I was confused at how this could possibly work, and why so many bought into it.
The road,or Hyperloop, to the future has a breakdown lane that is loaded with ideas and technology that were hyped but soon forgotten. Some were great ideas, that were either passed over, not promoted, or replaced by something inferior, but cheaper for investors. Some of these products and ideas should have never left the dry erase board they were written on during that brainstorming meeting where nobody really could say no to the money man. The idea of disrupting things has driven many a profit making idea, even if these disruptions get co-opted but what they intend to disrupt. Money is the prime motivator, but there is a bit of Steve Jobs attitude, the I know better than you/ do your own research/ I have money you don't therefore I am smarter/ mentality that has in its own way corrupted tech thinking and its vision. Everyone wants wealth, no one wants to point out the Emperor has no clothes, nor currency, and in NFT nothing to even hang on a wall. All promoted by a market that was new, not well understood, not regulated and well kind of shady. Token Supremacy:The Art of Finance, the Finance of Art, and the Great Crypto Crash of 2022 by journalist and editor Zachary Small, is a look at this world of NFTs, from the beginning to what happened, and where it all might end up.
NFTs are non-fungible tokens, basically giving a person the rights to own, via blockchain, a piece of digital art or media. Stoned Ape photos, celebrities, ex-presidents all make appearances, along with they usual grifters, hucksters, true believers and artists who thought they finally found a way to make money in art. The book is unique in that it is not just a business book, nor an baking story or current events but looks at NFT's with the eye of a person who has covered the art market for years, and knows the sort of lose morals and ways art is packaged and sold. The book discusses how the idea of NFT's might have started in a German disco in a discussion among three people, an artist, and two money people. The book looks at the beginnings of digital art, with a young woman in Paris finding a computer lab open and creating something new on a computer. This same woman, aged almost a hundred, returns to the scene when during the peak of NFT's and COVID she began to sell her art again. The book looks at the business, what went wrong, tracing the rise of speculators familiar with the large profits in the regular art trade, and how they turned to digital to make even more money.
This book was much more than I expected, and I learned quite a bit from it. Not just about bitcoin, and NFT's but about the art of auction houses, and what a world that is. There is also a lot more about art, especially the creating of digital works that will appeal to a lot of readers outside of technology. Small is a very good writer, able to discuss technology, art, business, creativity, and even the psychology of many of these people, from creative to frankly sociopathic. The book follows a chronological path, with a few diversions, and even Small seems amazed at how things went and the places that the book took him to.
A book that looks at the big picture of what is going on in the world of technology, and the dark future that many seem to be embracing. Recommended for people interested in technology, art, and the art market. And for those who like to read about how greed seems to be infesting just about everything around us. A book I enjoyed, even if I was confused at how this could possibly work, and why so many bought into it.
June 22, 2024
Lots of fun, and very informative for those looking to get a feel of what was going on with NFTs. If you don't know all the players then it can take some effort to keep track of what was happening, and some of the jargon and slang can require you to look up a few definitions, but it's worth the effort. At times it's hilarious, and at times pretty shocking, almost unbelievable, in regards to the staggering amount of wealth that was lost at various times through scams or market slumps. And it raises some important questions about what art is and what speculation in art is, and the dividing lines between digital art and traditional art forms, and how objects of art and the artists themselves can cross from one to the other, and the impact that the development of NFTs and secondary sales and royalties had on digital artists and galleries. So, it gives the gentle reader lots to chew on and a wonderful context to observe future developments. The writing is very good, flows really well.
June 18, 2024
I enjoyed this book because it reinforced my belief that nfts and crypto are just infrastructure for scam artists but there’s far too much extraneous information to make this an enjoyable read. Small doesn’t write badly but tends to include all the things he’s learned regardless of whether they are propel the overall narrative and the tale gets bogged down in tedious details.
February 8, 2025
Felt like I was reading a drama lmao. Was sometimes messy and hard to understand as there was not much explanations into certain pieces and what not. Good though. I’ve referenced this book quite a bit in a few of my essays.
July 1, 2024
3.5, really only for those who are really really interested in the topic. I have been to Marfa, Texas though.
December 12, 2024
Warholian, dare I say
February 12, 2025
Engaging book written in a very easy to understand way. The audiobook was so engaging, I finished it in one day.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews