Hacker News Reader

When you buy an actual piece of art, the provenance is useful because it lets you know the art you have is the real thing.

What does provenance even matter if you don’t actually own the art? If you want to support the artist and you don’t want / can’t afford the actual piece, just donate to them and you’d have the same effect.

View on HN

> When you buy an actual piece of art, the provenance is useful because it lets you know the art you have is the real thing.

When you buy art as an NFT, you do own an actual piece of art. Unless you think a non-physical art like say The Clock inherently cannot be sold outside of a copyright transfer, and that has been untrue long before NFTs.

In the case of an NFT, I can prove that I own it, and I can prove the provenance of it all in one go.

Sure, the artist could do something dishonest like sell the same piece twice, but I'm assuming good faith from the artist, or at least from the ones I buy from.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com