Last week, the Centre Pompidou -- which is Europe's largest modern art museum -- announced that it has acquired its very first NFTs (18 pieces by 13 artists) and that it will be exhibiting the collection this spring. This makes them the first museum in France to own NFT art and, I'm guessing, one of the first in the world. (The Los Angeles County Museum of Art recently got some as well.)

This is fun for a few reasons. The obviously fun reason is that it's good for NFT collectors and people who generally support this space. Big institutions bring legitimacy. It's one thing to say that these JPEGs are stupid while sitting at home on your computer, but it's an entirely different thing to travel to Paris, visit the Centre Pompidou, look at its white gallery walls, and then say that these JPEGs are stupid!

The other fun thing about this is that it shows a continued openness to new ideas and new technologies. Here are some words from the Pompidou (that have been translated, by Google, from French):

The idea was not to be the first, but to bring together a relevant collection, which could testify to a creative and critical appropriation of a new technology by artists, and how this disrupts and displaces the art ecosystem. From its creation, the Center Pompidou has relied on the idea that contemporary technological creation and creativity should be at the heart of the institution. From 1974-1975, therefore even before the opening of the Center, the National Museum of Modern Art acquired major works and installations by Dan Graham and Bruce Naumann. Video installations using real time, and it was the very first institution to do so.

This wasn't always the case in France. One of my favorite art history classes from university was one that covered Impressionism. Partly because I thought their work was cool, but mostly because Impressionist painters were, in a way, early modernists. They rejected the academic approaches to painting and instead decided to make up their own rules.

At the time, in the 19th century, this was seen as entirely radical. And it meant harsh criticism from the established art world and an inability to meaningfully exhibit at the Salon (which was everything at the time). But history has a way of showing us that if something is inherently a good idea, you can only remain stubborn for so long.

The Impressionist painters began hosting their own exhibitions starting in 1874 and, by 1881, the government had withdrawn its official sponsorship of the annual Salon. The jurors wanted to cling to only traditional painting styles and the world wanted to move on. And here it is doing that again, today.

The Financial Times recently reported on "the great NFT sell-off" here in this article. Daily trading volumes on OpenSea, which is the largest NFT marketplace, are down 80% ($50M) from their high in February ($248M). Bored Ape Yacht Club, which is the most expensive NFT collection out there, has seen its average daily price come down by about a third (see above). Of course, they still remain extremely valuable NFTs. And a recent CryptoPunks auction was just pulled from Sotheby's so that the owner could "HODL" until things recover.

I don't think any of this should surprise both NFT holders and the naysayers. This is a high-risk space and it is all very speculative. You can't run a discounted cash flow (DCF) model on a Bored Ape and most other NFTs (though some might actually produce cash flow through, for example, secondary sale royalties). The more important point of all of this is that we are living through what many people believe is the creation of a new kind of internet. Cryptocurrencies are what underpin these new digital economies, but we are still figuring out how they will function and what their long-term business models will be.

For me, this is an exciting thing to be a part of. I'm not a venture capitalist, but buying NFTs and doing other crypto things feels a bit like I am an amateur one. Holding ETH or SOL is similar to holding Canadian or US dollars (currencies that underpin economies). So what I am doing is using these currencies to put money into ventures (NFTs) that seem interesting. And to do that, you look at the art, the team behind the project, the roadmap, and how well they appear to be executing against that plan. Indeed, many of the most successful NFT projects are naturally run by teams who are constantly building and shipping.

At the same time, I mentally write off every NFT I buy to $0 as soon as I purchase it. I am also limiting my total crypto allocation to between 5-10% of my non-real estate investments and buying with a scheduled dollar-cost averaging approach. So if this whole web3 thing went to zero tomorrow (which I firmly do not believe will be the case), my life would still go on. None of this is, of course, investment advice. Please do your own research and make your own decisions. But I can tell you that it is a lot of fun following and learning about what smart, creative, and entrepreneurial people are doing in this emerging space.

If you're interested in NFT photography, check out my global citizen collection on Foundation.

Chart: Financial Times

Last week, the Centre Pompidou -- which is Europe's largest modern art museum -- announced that it has acquired its very first NFTs (18 pieces by 13 artists) and that it will be exhibiting the collection this spring. This makes them the first museum in France to own NFT art and, I'm guessing, one of the first in the world. (The Los Angeles County Museum of Art recently got some as well.)

This is fun for a few reasons. The obviously fun reason is that it's good for NFT collectors and people who generally support this space. Big institutions bring legitimacy. It's one thing to say that these JPEGs are stupid while sitting at home on your computer, but it's an entirely different thing to travel to Paris, visit the Centre Pompidou, look at its white gallery walls, and then say that these JPEGs are stupid!

The other fun thing about this is that it shows a continued openness to new ideas and new technologies. Here are some words from the Pompidou (that have been translated, by Google, from French):

The idea was not to be the first, but to bring together a relevant collection, which could testify to a creative and critical appropriation of a new technology by artists, and how this disrupts and displaces the art ecosystem. From its creation, the Center Pompidou has relied on the idea that contemporary technological creation and creativity should be at the heart of the institution. From 1974-1975, therefore even before the opening of the Center, the National Museum of Modern Art acquired major works and installations by Dan Graham and Bruce Naumann. Video installations using real time, and it was the very first institution to do so.

This wasn't always the case in France. One of my favorite art history classes from university was one that covered Impressionism. Partly because I thought their work was cool, but mostly because Impressionist painters were, in a way, early modernists. They rejected the academic approaches to painting and instead decided to make up their own rules.

At the time, in the 19th century, this was seen as entirely radical. And it meant harsh criticism from the established art world and an inability to meaningfully exhibit at the Salon (which was everything at the time). But history has a way of showing us that if something is inherently a good idea, you can only remain stubborn for so long.

The Impressionist painters began hosting their own exhibitions starting in 1874 and, by 1881, the government had withdrawn its official sponsorship of the annual Salon. The jurors wanted to cling to only traditional painting styles and the world wanted to move on. And here it is doing that again, today.

The Financial Times recently reported on "the great NFT sell-off" here in this article. Daily trading volumes on OpenSea, which is the largest NFT marketplace, are down 80% ($50M) from their high in February ($248M). Bored Ape Yacht Club, which is the most expensive NFT collection out there, has seen its average daily price come down by about a third (see above). Of course, they still remain extremely valuable NFTs. And a recent CryptoPunks auction was just pulled from Sotheby's so that the owner could "HODL" until things recover.

I don't think any of this should surprise both NFT holders and the naysayers. This is a high-risk space and it is all very speculative. You can't run a discounted cash flow (DCF) model on a Bored Ape and most other NFTs (though some might actually produce cash flow through, for example, secondary sale royalties). The more important point of all of this is that we are living through what many people believe is the creation of a new kind of internet. Cryptocurrencies are what underpin these new digital economies, but we are still figuring out how they will function and what their long-term business models will be.

For me, this is an exciting thing to be a part of. I'm not a venture capitalist, but buying NFTs and doing other crypto things feels a bit like I am an amateur one. Holding ETH or SOL is similar to holding Canadian or US dollars (currencies that underpin economies). So what I am doing is using these currencies to put money into ventures (NFTs) that seem interesting. And to do that, you look at the art, the team behind the project, the roadmap, and how well they appear to be executing against that plan. Indeed, many of the most successful NFT projects are naturally run by teams who are constantly building and shipping.

At the same time, I mentally write off every NFT I buy to $0 as soon as I purchase it. I am also limiting my total crypto allocation to between 5-10% of my non-real estate investments and buying with a scheduled dollar-cost averaging approach. So if this whole web3 thing went to zero tomorrow (which I firmly do not believe will be the case), my life would still go on. None of this is, of course, investment advice. Please do your own research and make your own decisions. But I can tell you that it is a lot of fun following and learning about what smart, creative, and entrepreneurial people are doing in this emerging space.

If you're interested in NFT photography, check out my global citizen collection on Foundation.

Chart: Financial Times