If the FTX Crash and NFT Bubble Are All You Know About Web3, You're Missing the True Value of This Revolutionary Asset A lot of people think NFTs are just overpriced JPEGs that speculators spent millions of dollars on during the pandemic's heyday — but they're so much more than that.

When was the last time you looked at a work of art online and thought, even for a second, about what file type it was? Whether the image you see is a JPEG or GIF rarely matters to anyone except for professionals in the media industry, where file types have different properties, qualities and sizes. For the average content consumer, it doesn't matter at all.

Now ask yourself: Why are NFTs any different?

Of course, NFTs are different — but not in the way most people think. The mainstream understanding of NFTs is that they are overpriced JPEGs that speculators spent millions of dollars on during the pandemic's heyday. There's some truth to that. On the surface, the ongoing crypto winter appears to be justifying the alleged scam, as FTX filed for bankruptcy and once-skyrocketing bitcoin and NFT prices began nosediving.