This week’s featured collector is MightyMoe

MightyMoe has a wild collection of pixel art and anime. Check it out at lazy.com/mightymoe

Last week’s poll was surprisingly split: 60% of you felt that books like Robert Alice’s On NFTs help legitimize collecting NFTs, while a substantial 40% weren’t convinced. That tension—between wanting scholarly validation and resisting the need for it at all—pretty much mirrors where the space is right now: half leaning into museums, books, and market reports, half preferring crypto’s more renegade, self-authenticating culture. It’s the same fault line running through Art Basel’s digital conversations this year: are NFTs becoming part of art history’s official record, or are they rewriting the rules from the outside?

Two Art Basel Conversations NFT Collectors Shouldn’t Ignore

Those of us who continue to collect NFTs have probably felt the shift: the conversation is no longer just about floor prices and flipping, but about context—how digital images are made, circulated, and eventually canonized. At Art Basel Miami Beach 2025, two conversations cut through the noise and speak directly to that deeper layer. Both take place next week and will be livestreamed, and together they sketch a useful map of where digital and blockchain-native art might be heading.

The first up is the Beeple conversation on Thursday, December 4, 2025, from 4–5 pm. On stage: Beeple, art advisor and curator Amanda Schmitt, Larva Labs cofounder Matt Hall, and moderator Natalie Stone, founder of StoneWork. The premise is straightforward but timely: from crypto memes to pixel punks, digital imagery has become both an art form and an asset class, and the logic of humor, virality, and speculation is now baked into how attention—and therefore value—is produced.

Beeple’s presence guarantees this won’t be an abstract panel. He’ll be creating a new “Everyday” live on stage, effectively exposing the process that underpins his now-famous daily images and headline-making NFT sales. Beyond the auction numbers, his practice blends satire, tech anxiety, and surreal world-building at a scale few digital artists have matched. For collectors, seeing how an “Everyday” comes into being in real time offers a glimpse into the workflows and instincts behind a body of work that helped push NFTs from niche experiment into mainstream awareness and institutional conversation.

Matt Hall brings a complementary, more infrastructural perspective. As cofounder of Larva Labs, he helped create CryptoPunks, Autoglyphs, and Meebits—projects that have become reference points in the history of blockchain-based art. CryptoPunks in particular evolved from a small experiment into a proto-PFP canon, absorbed into the collections of institutions like the Centre Pompidou, the Whitney, LACMA, ICA Miami, and ZKM Karlsruhe. Hearing Hall talk about how these projects were conceived, maintained, and ultimately embraced by museums is especially relevant if you’re thinking about which early onchain works might be read as “historical” ten years from now.

Schmitt and Stone supply the bridge between artists, collectors, and institutions. Schmitt’s advisory practice spans Modern, contemporary, and digital art, with a focus on access, institutional engagement, and strategic philanthropy, as well as cofounding CHAOS Agency for artists working at the art–tech intersection. Stone has worked on experimental programs in VR, AR, and AI at Google and previously stewarded one of the most influential digital art collections of the 21st century as general manager of CryptoPunks. Together they’re in a position to speak candidly about how memes and blockchain-native artworks are actually collected, evaluated, and integrated into broader collections, public and private. For NFT holders, this panel is essentially a one-hour snapshot of how the online economy of attention interfaces with advisory practices, institutional frameworks, and long-term collection strategy.

Two days later, on Saturday, December 6, 2025, also from 4–5 pm, a second conversation shifts the focus from memes and speculation to the visual grammar of the networked image itself. This panel brings together artists Maya Man, Kiya Tadele of Yatreda, and Jack Butcher, in conversation with Art Basel’s Head of Editorial, Dr. Jeni Fulton. Here the guiding question is how art is made for feeds, from formats, and through platforms—the actual conditions under which so much NFT-native imagery is produced and consumed.

Maya Man’s work operates inside browsers, timelines, and even wardrobes, but consistently returns to the question of how we perform identity under algorithmic scrutiny. Projects like the browser extension Glance Back and her Art Blocks series FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT focus on femininity, authenticity, and self-presentation in systems that reward certain types of behavior and aesthetics. For collectors, her practice offers a conceptual lens on the culture of PFPs, online self-branding, and the “optimized” persona that often sits behind digital collections and communities.

Yatreda, led by Kiya Tadele, approaches digital art from a different but equally relevant angle. Their work is rooted in the Ethiopian concept of tizita—a deep nostalgia and longing for the past—combining folk tales, collective memory, and national history with blockchain-native formats. The result is a body of digital work that uses networked images to preserve and reinterpret heritage rather than to chase the latest meme cycle. If you’re thinking about NFTs not just as financial instruments but as carriers of cultural memory, Yatreda’s practice is an important counterpoint to the more market-driven parts of the space.

Jack Butcher, founder of Visualize Value, completes the picture from a market- and systems-oriented standpoint. His minimalist diagrams of markets, scarcity, and consensus have become instantly recognizable across social platforms, and his projects collectively have generated more than USD 1 billion in sales volume on Ethereum since 2021. Butcher treats visual systems as a way to make the structure of the digital economy visible, distilling complex ideas into simple forms that can move quickly through feeds while still retaining conceptual weight. For collectors, his trajectory is a case study in how visual clarity, narrative, and distribution strategy can crystallize into durable network value.

Under Fulton’s moderation, the panel is set to explore how artists navigate and resist algorithms; how file types, compression, and glitches become aesthetic choices; how distribution channels like Instagram, TikTok, and NFT marketplaces act as mediums rather than mere pipelines; and what it means ethically and creatively to mine, mirror, and remix online culture. These are not purely academic questions. They bear directly on how digital artworks age, how legible they’ll be outside their original platforms, and where the line is drawn between homage, appropriation, and exploitation.

Neither panel will tell you what to buy next week, and none of this should be taken as investment advice. But if you’re serious about collecting digital and blockchain-based art, it’s worth paying attention to the places where artists, technologists, advisors, and institutions are aligning—or disagreeing—about what this field is becoming. In that sense, these two Art Basel conversations offer something the market alone can’t: a chance to watch the narrative of NFTs being written in real time, in public, by many of the people shaping it.

Learn more at Art Basel. Both events will be livestreamed.

Poll: What are you most excited about in the future of NFTs?

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This week’s featured collector is jtzlm

jtzlm is a digital content creator. Take a look at their collection at lazy.com/jtzlm

Last week’s poll revealed something telling about where NFT collectors believe the real power shift in the art world is happening. With “Trad art is chasing crypto clout” and “Institutions have digital FOMO” tied at the top, the community is clearly reading Tad Smith’s pro-blockchain pivot not as an isolated curiosity, but as evidence of a deeper institutional recalibration. In other words: when a former Sotheby’s CEO goes all-in on digital ownership, collectors interpret it less as personal conviction and more as a signal that the old guard is quietly repositioning itself around the future.

In short, the poll signals a community that isn’t waiting for permission from the art world—they’re watching the art world catch up.

The Book That Rebuilds NFT Culture from the Ground Up

For anyone who has lived through the rise, crash, and strange afterlife of NFTs, Robert Alice’s On NFTs feels less like a book launch and more like a reclamation. At nearly 700 pages, this new Taschen tome rewrites the story many collectors know too well: that NFTs were “just cartoons,” a passing speculative fad, or a crypto blip with no cultural weight. Instead, Alice—artist, researcher, early NFT historian, and co-architect of Oxford’s first academic NFT conference—maps out a deeper, older, and far more consequential history. His argument is simple but radical: NFTs aren’t an art style; they’re an infrastructure shift. Digital art was only the opening act.

Alice reminds readers that NFTs have a 50-year technological lineage, and their purpose was never limited to PFPs or meme culture. In his view, NFTs are a modern successor to the printing press—low-cost, decentralized, and capable of transforming how people publish, own, and exchange cultural objects. That could mean artwork, yes, but it could also mean deeds, collectibles, documents, or anything that requires proof of ownership in a digital world. For a space that’s often dismissed as frivolous, Alice reframes NFTs as a foundational tool for the future logic of identity, value, and verification.

But the book isn’t theoretical. It’s filled with an unexpectedly rich visual history of digital creation—from early computer compositions by A. Michael Noll to Rafael Rozendaal’s museum-shown generative work, Anna Ridler’s formative AI-driven NFTs, generative WebGL pieces, and the experimental blockchain-native art of Leander Herzog, Kim Asendorf, Shl0ms, Roope Rainisto, Jack Butcher, and many others. The book’s images make a point that words alone can’t: NFTs contain multitudes. Some pieces mirror fine art traditions, some manipulate the logic of code itself, and some push the boundary between artwork and game mechanic. As Alice notes, many works in the book engage collectors not just as buyers, but as participants—sometimes even co-creators. That shift alone has changed the psychology of collecting.

Alice highlights artists like Sam Spratt, whose Monument Game made collectors part of the artwork’s logic and progression, or Butcher’s Checks, which turned mass participation and game theory into the work’s defining structure. These are pieces where blockchain isn’t merely a certificate; it’s the medium. For seasoned collectors, this may feel familiar—NFTs as experiments in authorship, ownership, and community—but Alice’s curation reveals how broad and serious that experimentation has become.

The book also arrives at a moment when institutions are catching up. MoMA, the Whitney, LACMA, the Centre Pompidou, and the Monnaie de Paris have all begun acquiring blockchain-based art, mirroring the recent “institutionalization” of Bitcoin itself. That parallel isn’t lost on Alice: as crypto becomes accepted as an asset class, blockchain art is moving through the same normalization curve. Yet he notes that UK institutions still haven’t taken the leap—a gap he expects to close as curators recognize how deeply blockchain narratives are shaping 21st-century culture.

One of Alice’s most striking points concerns AI. In a world where synthetic media can mimic anything, the question of authenticity becomes existential. “There is no world with AI without NFTs,” he argues. When images, videos, and even identities can be generated infinitely, collectors—and society at large—need mechanisms for provenance. How do you prove an image is real? How do you prove an artwork came from a particular artist rather than a model? NFTs, he suggests, are the only scalable answer. And if AI becomes the dominant creative force, he asks, what system would an AI rather interface with: a permissioned, human-gatekept gallery ecosystem, or a permissionless blockchain?

For NFT collectors, On NFTs offers something rare: a narrative that restores depth and legitimacy to a space often caricatured by outsiders. It argues that digital collecting is not a deviation from art history but a continuation of it—driven by new tools, new generations, and new definitions of ownership. It’s an invitation to see NFTs not as a market cycle but as part of a technological and cultural lineage that’s still unfolding.

In a bear market, that perspective matters. It reframes collecting not as chasing hype but as participating in a long arc of cultural and technological change. And for many collectors, that’s the real reason they’re here—not for apes or generational wealth, but for the evolution of digital culture itself.

Learn more at ItsNiceThat and Taschen.

Poll: Do books like Robert Alice’s On NFTs help legitimize collecting NFTs?

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This week’s featured collector is Nickcsefar

Nickcsefar is self-taught artist on the journey to raise your level of creativity and mindest. Take a look at their collection at lazy.com/nickcsefar

Last week’s poll revealed something refreshing—and a little unexpected—for a space often described as over-optimized and over-engineered. A full 67% of collectors said they rely on pure instinct when making collecting decisions, while the remaining votes went to a mix of data and emotion, with zero respondents choosing social media influence, technical indicators, or market research.

The takeaway? Even in an era where dashboards, models, and sentiment feeds claim to predict everything, collectors still trust their gut first. Emotion, intuition, and personal taste—those messy, human variables—continue to beat algorithms. In a market that often chases signals, this may be the clearest one: authenticity still drives real collecting behavior.

Why a Former Sotheby’s CEO Is Suddenly Bullish on Blockchain Art

If you ever needed a sign that the walls between the traditional art world and Web3 are thinning, look no further than Tad Smith — the former chief executive of Sotheby’s — publicly backing blockchain-based art. Ahead of a major Sotheby’s sale next week, Smith is not just cheering from the sidelines; he’s buying, collecting, and actively championing the cultural and financial relevance of digital art. And for NFT collectors, his enthusiasm isn’t just validation — it’s signal.

This unlikely storyline starts with artist Robert Alice, long before NFTs went mainstream. Back when he was a porter at Sotheby’s, Alice worked in the same building where Smith was running the entire auction house. Fast-forward to 2024: the two bump into each other at the Bitcoin Conference in Nashville, and Alice immediately senses the shift. “Seeing Tad there was a major signal,” he says. “It showed someone deeply rooted in the traditional art world was taking blockchain seriously.”

Alice, of course, has long been ahead of that curve. He became the first artist to sell an NFT through a major auction house back in 2020, before Beeple, before $69m headlines, before “NFT” was even a household acronym. Now Sotheby’s is offering BLOCK 1, a hybrid painting-NFT from Alice’s iconic Portraits of a Mind series, with a price estimate of $600k–$800k.

For collectors, the work is more than a painting. Each piece in the Portraits of a Mind series encodes a fragment of the original Bitcoin codebase — a literal, hand-painted transcription of Satoshi’s Genesis Block. Forty works. Hundreds of thousands of digits. A decentralized art project that mirrors the ethos of Bitcoin itself.

Institutions have already taken notice: the Centre Pompidou acquired BLOCK 10 last year, MoMA and the Whitney have begun collecting blockchain-based works, and Alice’s pieces now sit in major museum holdings. Even Smith himself recently acquired BLOCK 37.

But what’s most interesting for NFT collectors isn’t the art-historical significance — it’s why someone like Smith cares so much.

A Traditional CEO Turns Web3 Advocate

During Smith’s tenure leading Sotheby’s (2015–2019), he pushed aggressively into digital transformation — acquiring Thread Genius, building recommendation algorithms, and preparing the auction house for the next wave of digital engagement. Today, he’s a partner at a digital-assets investment fund and chair of The Fine Art Group’s supervisory board. In other words: he’s gone full crypto-native.

But what stands out is his reasoning.

Smith isn’t bullish because NFTs are trendy. He’s bullish because digital ownership solves a structural problem in the art world. “In a digital world, there’s no real way to have ownership unless you have some way to register it,” he says. Blockchain fixes that. It turns digital art from infinite-copy JPEGs into collectible objects with provenance, scarcity, and market depth.

He also emphasizes something collectors already know: taste is generational. Baby boomers built the last era of contemporary art. Millennials and Gen Z — digital-first, crypto-native generations — are building the next one. The great wealth transfer is accelerating that shift.

The institutions, slowly but inevitably, are following.

Why Hybrid Works Are Winning

Smith is candid about the friction new collectors face when entering the NFT space: wallets, marketplaces, custody, UX — all friction. Hybrid works like Alice’s give collectors the best of both worlds: the trust and tangibility of a physical object, paired with the authenticity, provenance, and future-proofing of an NFT.

Alice puts it simply: “My work having a foothold in the physical and digital makes it more accessible.” Most of his collectors, notably, are traditional art buyers — not crypto whales. And with more museums adding blockchain art to their permanent collections, these hybrids may become the gateway format for onboarding legacy collectors into Web3.

Institutional Adoption Is Starting to Mirror Bitcoin’s

Alice draws an interesting parallel: as Bitcoin becomes institutionalized through ETFs and mainstream financial products, blockchain art is experiencing a similar arc. When Bitcoin got its ETF, Pompidou was buying NFTs, and MoMA was showing digital works. The timelines aligned not by accident, but because the narratives are now inseparable.

Both represent the cultural story of the 21st century: decentralization, digital identity, networked creativity, and the separation of money and state.

For collectors, that means blockchain art is no longer a niche. It’s a growing category with historical weight.

A Market Signal Worth Watching

Smith insists he has no financial stake in the BLOCK 1 sale — he’s neither consignor nor guarantor. But he openly hopes it performs well. Not for the price performance, but for what it represents.

Because a successful sale would confirm something powerful:

• That blockchain-based art has cultural longevity

• That traditional institutions are ready to embrace it

• That younger collectors want onramps into both NFTs and fine art

• And that the gap between “crypto art” and “contemporary art” is closing fast

For the NFT community, this is more than a headline — it’s another data point in a growing trendline. The market is maturing, institutional validators are showing up, and hybrid works are helping bridge two previously disconnected worlds.

And as the next generation of collectors steps into its prime, these early signals matter.

Blockchain art isn’t waiting for approval anymore. It’s already entering the canon.

Learn more at The Art Newspaper.

Poll: What’s the real takeaway from Tad Smith going pro-blockchain?

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This week’s featured collector is 12xu

12xu is an unconventional artist. Take a look at their collection at lazy.com/12xu

Last week’s poll revealed that readers see mini apps as the new mint meta—a clear signal that innovation in how NFTs are launched now matters as much as the art or community behind them. With 40% choosing this option, it’s evident that collectors and builders alike recognize Farcaster’s growing role as a testing ground for onchain experimentation. Meanwhile, the smaller yet steady votes for “good old-fashioned FOMO” remind us that, even amid technical progress, hype cycles remain part of the NFT DNA. Together, the results show a community that’s both self-aware and forward-looking—ready to evolve beyond speculation while still embracing the playfulness that makes crypto culture thrive.

Can Social Sentiment Predict PFP NFT Prices?

Can social sentiment help predict PFP NFT prices? A new peer-reviewed study in Scientific Reports (Nov 4, 2025) says yes—sometimes—and, more importantly, shows how to combine sentiment with market and technical indicators to improve short-term calls. Researchers Soobin Jang and Daeho Lee built a deep-learning model to forecast daily price moves for two bellwether collections, CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC). Rather than treating NFTs as isolated from broader markets, they pulled in Discord chatter from the projects’ official servers, classic technicals on collection price series, and macro variables like Bitcoin/Ethereum prices, the Nasdaq Composite, and U.S. Treasury yields. Their multi-layer perceptron (MLP) model then learned the relationships—including interaction effects—between these features and next-day prices. The headline result: directional accuracy was high for CryptoPunks (about 88%) and solid for BAYC (about 84%), with overall fit far stronger for Punks than Apes. That tells us two things: modeling helps, and behavior differs by collection.

What stood out was the way macro conditions bled into NFT pricing. Equities up, NFTs up: rising Nasdaq levels correlated positively with PFP prices. Liquidity tightens, NFTs sag: higher interest rates tended to depress prices. And perhaps most counterintuitive for newcomers, stronger Bitcoin and Ethereum often coincided with weaker PFPs—a reminder that capital rotates. When majors rip, risk capital chases them; when majors cool while equities hold, PFPs may catch a bid. If you’re an active collector, that rotation lens matters as much as trait rarity or artist announcements.

The study’s Discord analysis is where things get interesting for social traders. The authors scored millions of server messages by polarity (positive vs. negative) and subjectivity (opinionated vs. objective). Raw discussion volume by itself skewed bearish: more talk often aligned with softer prices, likely reflecting FUD cycles or attention peaking near local tops. But context flipped the signal. High discussion combined with bullish technicals—e.g., a rising 5- or 10-day simple moving average—or with favorable short-rate conditions turned positive, acting like confirmation rather than noise. In other words, chatter plus trend is not the same as chatter alone. The quality of sentiment mattered, too. “Positive and objective” posts—less hype, more grounded updates—supported prices, while highly subjective tone tended to weigh on them. That nuance helps explain why blanket “good vibes” feeds can disappoint traders who don’t check the tape.

Technicals still mattered most, particularly for CryptoPunks. The 10-day moving average was the top single feature for Punks, and several Bollinger- and SMA-based terms ranked highly across scenarios. BAYC, by contrast, behaved more like a macro-sensitive risk asset, with strong interaction effects between Bitcoin moves and longer-term Treasury yields. That divergence likely reflects community structure, turnover, and media cycles as much as price history. The authors also ran cross-correlation tests and found something veterans will recognize: sentiment often lagged price by one to three weeks. That doesn’t make sentiment useless; it reframes it as a confirmation/continuation input rather than a pure leading signal.

There are caveats. The model predicted average daily prices, not trait-specific fills. Micro-liquidity, rarity, and negotiated deals can deviate sharply from the mean. Sentiment scoring used a relatively simple tool (TextBlob). Newer finance-tuned language models could better read sarcasm, multi-lingual communities, and event context. BAYC’s noisier data—more messages, bigger swings—reduced accuracy; busier communities can dilute signal unless you filter aggressively. Finally, relationships change across regimes. The 2022–2024 window captured a particular cycle of rates, risk appetite, and crypto structure. No indicator is permanent alpha.

Even with those limits, the work is useful because it moves beyond “vibes move markets” to “which vibes, in which context, alongside which tapes.” It also underscores that NFTs aren’t in a sealed cultural dome. They’re downstream of global liquidity and investor rotation, just like small-cap equities or early-stage tech.

For serious NFT collectors, the big idea is simple: price is more than hype—it’s structure. When you combine culture (who’s talking and how) with data (market trends and liquidity), you make smarter, steadier decisions. In a fast, noisy market, patience and informed discipline are an advantage.

Learn more at Nature.

Poll: How do you make your collecting decisions?

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This week’s featured collector is Smartboe

Smartboe is sharing beautiful futuristic and naturalistic images. Take a look at their collection at lazy.com/smartboe

Last week we asked: What trend from the 2025 Art Basel x UBS report will shape the future of collecting most? The majority of respondents (40%) chose the rise of Gen Z digital collectors, signaling a clear belief that the next generation’s approach to technology, identity, and ownership will drive the art market’s evolution. The remaining votes were evenly split among women leading art spending, digital art going mainstream, and values-driven collecting — all trends pointing toward a more diverse, inclusive, and purpose-led market.

For NFT and digital art communities, these results reinforce a powerful insight: the future of collecting won’t just be digital — it will be generational, values-based, and shaped by voices that were once at the margins of the traditional art world.

A meme, a mini app, and 36,000 mints later — Farcaster just had its first real NFT moment

Sometimes, all it takes to wake up a blockchain is a good meme.

Over the past week, Farcaster — the decentralized social network built for crypto-native communities — saw an explosion of activity thanks to an unexpected catalyst: The Warplets, a playful NFT mini app that turned profile pictures into onchain collectibles. What began as a lighthearted meme has quickly turned into one of the biggest viral moments Farcaster has seen yet.

The name “Warplet” started as an inside joke — a nickname for Farcaster’s in-app wallet, left over from the Warpcast era. Earlier this year, Farcaster co-founder Dan Romero posted a sketch of a friendly alien mascot he’d created for the wallet. The character, shared alongside an announcement about free signups, went viral across both Farcaster and X.

That moment of nostalgia caught the attention of Angel Say, co-founder of the Resolve VR app and creator of several Farcaster mini apps, including Livecaster and Harmonybot. Say saw an opportunity to merge meme culture, identity, and onchain participation — and from that spark, The Warplets NFT collection was born.

The drop works like this: using Harmonybot, Say’s mini app takes your Farcaster ID (FID) and your profile picture, then blends them with the Warplet mascot into a unique NFT.

The mint isn’t just about art; it’s tied into Farcaster’s token economy. A portion of every mint fee goes toward buying and burning community tokens — originally CHAOS, later redirected to WARP. The mint also includes built-in sharing features, allowing users to post their new Warplet directly to their Farcaster feed.

This simple, social-first mechanic — mint, share, and flex — fueled the frenzy. Within days, over 26,000 Warplets had been minted, and secondary trading took off immediately on OpenSea.

The ripple effects were massive. On October 27, Farcaster hit a new all-time high in daily active users. More than 20,000 people bought Farcaster Pro subscriptions in 24 hours — generating roughly $400,000 in new revenue — just to become eligible to mint.

Meanwhile, The Warplets collection saw over 36,000 sales and more than 566 ETH in trading volume within its first days. For a social protocol still defining its NFT strategy, this was a breakthrough moment — proof that the network’s mini app ecosystem could deliver real cultural and economic traction.

Why It Matters

The Warplet moment feels like a time warp back to 2021’s NFT mania — but with smarter infrastructure and deeper community roots. Unlike the speculative rushes of the past, this boom was built on organic participation: a meme, a mini app, and a sense of shared play.

It also hints at what’s next for onchain culture. As Farcaster continues to blur the lines between social media, identity, and ownership, moments like this suggest how easily participation itself can become collectible.

For NFT collectors, the takeaway is clear: the next wave of digital culture might not be about expensive 1-of-1s or high-end auctions — it’s about social objects that live, breathe, and evolve inside the platforms we already use.

The Future of the Warplets

As of now, The Warplets mint remains open, though technical hiccups have temporarily paused and reopened access for Pro subscribers. Developer Angel Say has hinted that new features — like rerolls or mini-games — could extend the project into new directions.

Whether or not The Warplets becomes a lasting collection or simply a cultural flashpoint, it’s already proven one thing: the Farcaster community can generate viral, value-creating energy out of thin air — or, in this case, out of one small, wide-eyed alien.

Learn more at Bankless and Warplet.

What’s the biggest takeaway from the Warplet NFT boom on Farcaster?

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This week’s featured collector is Nabu

Nabu’s motto is “True wisdom lies within ourselves.” Take a look at their collection at lazy.com/nabu

Last week’s poll asked: How do you feel about OpenSea shifting from NFTs to all-token trading? Half of respondents said the platform is “losing its soul,” while nearly a third took a “wait and see” stance. Only a small minority backed the move or felt indifferent.

The results highlight a real divide in the NFT community — between those who see OpenSea’s pivot as a betrayal of digital art’s cultural foundations and those who view it as a pragmatic evolution in a memecoin crypto environment. Collectors, it seems, still want marketplaces that stand for more than just trading volume. The message to OpenSea and others chasing the next token trend is clear: innovation is welcome, but not at the expense of identity.

What NFT Collectors Can Learn from the 2025 Art Basel and UBS Global Collecting Survey

Each year, the Art Basel and UBS Survey of Global Collecting offers one of the clearest snapshots of how the world’s wealthiest collectors are thinking — what they’re buying, how they’re spending, and what motivates them. This year’s 2025 report, authored by Dr. Clare McAndrew of Arts Economics, is especially relevant for anyone in the digital collecting space, including NFT enthusiasts who see themselves as part of a broader cultural movement around ownership, technology, and value.

And the big takeaway? Despite economic headwinds, collecting is alive and well — just more diversified, younger, and more digital than ever before.

Younger Collectors Are Reshaping Taste

Millennial and Gen Z high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) made up 74% of the survey sample, and they’re clearly changing what counts as “collectible.” While Boomers still lead in total spending on fine art and antiques, younger collectors are outspending older peers in lifestyle-driven categories — from design and jewelry to sneakers and digital art.

In fact, digital art saw the sharpest year-on-year growth, with more than half of surveyed collectors purchasing at least one digital artwork in 2025. It now accounts for nearly as much spending as sculpture — a signal that tokenized creativity and digital ownership are moving from speculative bubbles to mainstream asset classes.

For NFT collectors, this is validation. Even if the NFT market itself has cooled, the cultural impulse behind it — owning unique digital expressions — is now embedded in how a new generation defines art.

The Rise of the Female Collector

One of the most striking findings is the surge in female participation and spending. In 2024, women outspent men by 46% on average, especially among Millennial and Gen Z segments. These women aren’t just collecting more — they’re collecting differently. They’re taking more risks, exploring new mediums, and buying from emerging and unknown artists at higher rates than men.

Interestingly, female collectors also prioritize representation, with nearly half of the works in their collections created by women artists (and over half in the U.S. and Japan).

For the NFT world — which has faced ongoing criticism for gender imbalance among creators and investors — this trend offers both a warning and an opportunity. As wealth and influence shift toward female and younger collectors, platforms and projects that champion inclusivity and cultural depth may capture the next wave of serious attention.

Digital Art as a Bridge Between Traditions

The study also shows that cross-collecting is now the norm. Younger HNW collectors aren’t siloed — they mix fine art, design objects, digital art, and even collectibles like sneakers or sports assets in one portfolio.

For NFT collectors, that mindset feels familiar. It’s the same impulse that sees one wallet holding a Beeple and a memecoin. The line between collecting and investing is blurring, but so too is the line between art object and cultural artifact.

Digital art — NFTs included — may not replace painting or sculpture, but it’s becoming a shared language between the art world and Web3.

Values, Risk, and the Future of Collecting

Despite the macroeconomic uncertainty of the past year, collectors are still allocating more wealth to art — an average of 20% of their portfolios in 2025, up from 15% in 2024. Gen Z collectors lead the way, committing 26% on average, showing both confidence and long-term belief in art as an asset and an identity marker.

What’s more, the survey reveals a subtle but meaningful shift: collecting isn’t just about returns — it’s about values. UBS Chief Economist Paul Donovan notes that many next-gen collectors are motivated by art that “speaks to identity, community, and purpose.”

For NFT collectors, this resonates deeply. The early days of NFTs were fueled by community identity — owning a piece of the culture. What the Art Basel survey makes clear is that this impulse isn’t fading; it’s expanding across the broader art ecosystem.

The Takeaway for NFT Collectors

If the traditional art market is catching up to the digital one, the lesson for NFT collectors may be this: stay patient, stay curious, and stay cross-disciplinary. The trends shaping tomorrow’s art landscape — youth, risk tolerance, digital engagement, and cultural meaning — are all areas where NFT collectors have already led the way.

The art world is evolving, and for once, it’s not leaving digital creators and collectors behind. Instead, it’s starting to look a lot more like them.

Learn more at Art Basel.

What trend from the 2025 Art Basel x UBS report will shape the future of collecting most?

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