NFT's in particular do feel pretty scammy, and crypocurrencies in general are of questionable long-term value, so in that sense I agree with you. But underneath it all, it seems like there are a couple of interesting ideas that it might be worthwhile to understand more about. Blockchains as a form of "decentralized trust" for example, may have limited utility in most situations, but there probably are cases where that approach makes sense. And "smart contracts" seem like something that, if ever perfected, could have utility as well.

That said, I am not advocating anyone run out and invest their life savings (or any money other than what they would take to Vegas on a gambling trip) in crypto / NFT's, etc. :-)

> Blockchains as a form of "decentralized trust" for example, may have limited utility in most situations, but there probably are cases where that approach makes sense.

We're just waiting for someone to actually find the problem that blockchain solves.

It is unfortunate that NFTs have become synonymous with these (sometimes generative) digital art collection certificates. These are overhyped, useless, speculative rubbish, while NFTs in general are neither a useless concept nor a scam. It simply means that a clearly identified object (could be a real life object, like a bike of a bike rental company) is transacted upon, owned by somebody or otherwise subject to programmatic access by smart contracts. I think NFTs become useful the moment they are connected to the real world. This all applies only if you accept that blockchains have legitimate use cases at all, of course.

Historically people have tried to build decentralized signature systems (say GPG) but they have the problem that you don’t really know who made the key. With a blockchain system I don’t think you have a real answer, but you do have a public database that tracks the history of that key.