“I get a lot of questions on why people are excited about it. That’s even from some of my programmer friends that know the crypto space,” she says. “They don’t understand why people are buying it.”

“You can’t just make an NFT, release it into the wild, and automatically somebody is going to buy it,” she adds. “You have to promote it. You have to put the legwork into it. You know, a lot of times you have to become more involved with that community. All that takes time. And if that’s not your core audience, it probably doesn’t make sense for you to do.”

Parker worries about the business model of these marketplaces, and the promises they make to artists. Anyone who lists work typically has to pay a fee to do so—easily about $100. “For small artists, that’s a lot to gamble on,” she says. “Artists are being sold this dream of riches and more control, but they’re just being used to boost the speculative value and prestige of cryptocurrency.”