Non-fungible tokens: unique records on a blockchain that tie a specific item, often an artwork's file, to the wallet that owns it. They gave digital art provable editions and a market, from CryptoPunks in 2017 to the boom of 2021.
I don’t think they’re either propping up nor subverting capitalism—that’s kind of silly—but they do allow for new relationships between artists and collectors/patrons on one side, and they allow for artists to show and share their work in different ways.
Trevor Paglen, Trevor Paglen on Technological Points of View
It feels like a lot of the stuff that has happened in the NFT space harks back to a lot of the stuff that we were trying and experimenting with back in the early '90s.
Joshua Davis, 1990s Net Art: Auriea Harvey, Joshua Davis, LIA, Draves