tl;dr: NFTs become the entry ticket to exclusive groups.

About a year ago, I wrote a post called “The hidden, but huge, value of social tokens.” The part that I missed then is that the social tokens wouldn’t just be functional, they would have aesthetic value as well.

The unique aesthetic value of a social token is, I believe, part of what is fueling the NFT boom.

Not only do you get to claim ownership of a piece of art, but you also get to claim participation rights into a community of people who share similar values (e.g. Bored Ape or Crypto Punks).

So, you can be part of the tribe AND unique at the same time.

It’s as if you’re wearing your fraternities Greek letters, but the particular color scheme/design of those letters is solely yours and a representation of your personality and outlook.

When we start to think of NFTs not solely as “JPEGs that anyone can copy, but one person owns” and instead think of them as having true utility (i.e. possession of a given NFT is what enables access to certain rooms, communities, or events), particularly if access is really valuable or covered (a World Economic Forum NFT, for example, or a country club NFT), then some of the craze makes sense.

Perhaps they are even undervalued.