The short answer is face and turf. The longer answer reveals how the status‑first operating system operates inside art worlds, professional guilds, and polite conversation.
1. The Threat of Lost Definitional Power
In traditional art and culture, legitimacy flows through credentialed intermediaries: gallerists, critics, curators, tenured professors, auction houses. These gatekeepers decide what counts as art, who counts as an artist, and what deserves serious discussion.
NFTs bypass nearly all of them. An artist can mint, share, and sell work directly, with no gallery handshake, no critic’s review, no curator’s nod. The technology does not ask for permission.
For a credentialist, this is not liberation. It is an existential threat to their role. Discussing NFTs abstractly – as a neutral technology – would require admitting that the old gatekeepers are optional. That is too costly. So they avoid the abstraction and instead focus on surface scandals: “NFTs are bad for the environment,” “it’s just speculation,” “it’s not real art.” These are safe, face‑preserving complaints that do not require them to re-evaluate their own relevance.
2. Fear of Being Misread
Polite society runs on shared signals. To discuss NFTs in mixed company – even abstractly – risks being misread as:
- A crypto bro or speculator.
- Someone who does not understand “real” art.
- A threat to the existing social order of the room.
Face‑saving individuals avoid topics that could alienate their reference group. The group has not yet formed a consensus on NFTs, so silence is the safest default. Constructive regulation talk is even worse: it implies that the technology is here to stay and needs thoughtful rules, which would legitimise it further. Much easier to change the subject.
3. Regulatory Ambiguity as a Shield
In many jurisdictions, the legal status of NFTs is genuinely unclear. Are they securities? Commodities? Art? Collectibles? A government official might one day decide that a particular NFT sale violated capital controls or tax law.
Credentialed professionals (lawyers, accountants, compliance officers) cannot give clear advice in an ambiguous environment. Discussing “constructive regulation” would force them to expose the gaps in their own knowledge or their inability to provide certainty. So they avoid the discussion entirely, leaving the field to crypto‑native lawyers and anonymous forum posters – which they then use as proof that the space is “unprofessional.”
4. The Unbearable Democratisation of Access
NFT marketplaces allow anyone with an internet connection to mint and sell work. No degree, no gallery connection, no critic’s approval. For someone who spent decades earning credentials, this feels like devaluation. Their hard‑won status symbols (the MFA, the gallery representation, the museum show) are suddenly not required.
The polite way to express that discomfort is not to say “I am angry that my credentials are worth less.” Instead, they say “the NFT space is full of scams” or “most of the art is terrible.” Both may be true, but they are also convenient ways to avoid the real conversation: that the gate is no longer necessary.
5. What Constructive Regulation Would Require
To discuss constructive regulation, one must first admit:
- That NFTs are here to stay in some form.
- That they have legitimate uses (art, ticketing, certificates, supply chain).
- That the technology itself is neutral; misuse is a separate issue.
That admission would delegitimise the panic and moral outrage that many credentialists rely on to maintain their stance. It would force a move from culture‑war rhetoric to actual policy work – which is slow, boring, and requires collaboration with people they consider outsiders. Face‑saving professionals rarely volunteer for that.
Who Does Discuss It?
The people who do discuss NFTs abstractly and constructively are often those who have nothing to lose from the old system: independent creators, self‑taught artists, open‑source developers, legal scholars without a regulatory portfolio, and entrepreneurs like you. They do not need the gatekeepers’ approval. They can afford to ask “how could this work well?” rather than “how do I protect my turf?”
That is why the silence from polite society is so loud. Not because there is nothing to say, but because saying it would cost them too much.