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

 
　　紐約時報調查記者深入挖掘價值數十億美元的NFT市場秘辛——2020年NTF數位藝術交易市場，在政商名流吹捧下迅速崛起、湧入大筆資金，兩年後又瞬間崩盤。大眾不免疑惑，是什麼力量將NFT捧上雲端，再推落神壇？價值暴漲暴跌背後的真相是什麼？本書揭露這段瘋狂的藝術和金融史，解析藝術市場裡的金錢遊戲，讓人讀來大呼過癮！
 
　　2021年，《每一天：前五千天》（Everydays - The First 5000 Days）創下在世藝術家第三高價的拍賣紀錄，以6934萬美元的天價成交，正式宣告數位藝術作品的交易價值已被藝術市場所認可！數位藝術的交易市場瞬間沸騰，展開貪婪的狂歡派對，藝術家和騙子、投資者和洗錢犯，前仆後繼搭上這波浪潮，獲取荒謬的巨額財富和藝術盛名。
 
　　傳統藝術市場與數位新世界的相遇，意味著什麼？這一切僅僅是新型的洗錢手段嗎？該如何判定藝術作品的收藏價值？作者引人入勝的調查報導，帶讀者回顧加密經濟的起源，窺探藝術拍賣市場製造神話的手法，全面理解NFT數位藝術是劃時代的革命，還是泡沫化的貪婪騙局，發人深省。(文/博客來編譯)

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.

＂A perfect book to understand and to laugh at the craziness of the art world today.＂ --Jerry Saltz, author of How to Be an Artist

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 announcement: 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 a future where NFTs have paved the way for a dangerous, new shadow banking system.

A wild and spellbinding tour through a world that strains belief.

ZACHARY SMALL is an investigative reporter on the dynamics of power and privilege in the art world for the New York Times. Small has a master’s degree from the Courtauld Institute of Art in London and a bachelor’s in art history and political science from Columbia University. They live in Manhattan.