The Everything Token

November 13, 2023
Marketer Kaczynski and Harvard Business School professor Kominers debut with an unconvincing sales pitch for NFTs, which they describe as “individually distinct digital record, which can be linked to other assets or product features, and whose owner(s) can be consistently identified” by transaction records publicly encoded on “massive digital ledgers” known as blockchain. Unfortunately, despite the authors’ claims that NFTs have “the power to revolutionize multibillion dollar industries and small businesses alike,” examples of the tokens’ potential amount to high-tech rewards programs. For instance, the authors implausibly suggest that if the frozen pizza company DiGiorno gave frequent customers NFTs depicting pizza toppings, granting owners access to new product samples, the NFT holders would eagerly trade, discuss, and create fictional characters based on their tokens. The authors don’t come close to making the case that NFTs might “augment or replace... pretty much everything” (even healthcare and housing?) and confused analogies inadvertently highlight NFTs’ precarious value; for instance, the authors compare NFTs to the deed to a house, though the deed equivalent would actually be the blockchain record while the NFT is the house itself, except that unlike a house, it has no inherent utility. It’s hard to get through this without catching more than a whiff of snake oil. Agent: Paul Mahon, InkWell Management.