Brian Eno on NFTs: “I mainly see hustlers looking for suckers”

Brian Eno has always been a forward thinking artist, from his use of electronics and tape machines with Roxy Music, to his early ambient records, his Oblique Strategies cards, writing the startup theme for Windows 95, and making music via algorithms. But he has no interest in NFTs.

"I’ve been approached several times to ‘make an NFT.’ So far nothing has convinced me that there is anything worth making in that arena," Brian told The Crypto Syllabus in a new interview. "‘Worth making’ for me implies bringing something into existence that adds value to the world, not just to a bank account. If I had primarily wanted to make money I would have had a different career as a different kind of person. I probably wouldn’t have chosen to be an artist. NFTs seem to me just a way for artists to get a little piece of the action from global capitalism, our own cute little version of financialisation. How sweet - now artists can become little capitalist assholes as well."

When asked if NFTs couldn't help level the playing field in the digital market, Eno replied, "it presents the interesting moral question as to whether clean things can be done with murky money," adding, "In a warming world a new technology that uses vast amounts of energy as ‘proof of work’ - that’s to say, simply to establish a certain badge of exclusivity - really is quite insane. All that energy is making nothing that we need."

"People I like and trust are convinced they’re the best thing since sliced bread," Eno also said, "so I wish I could have a more positive view but right now I mainly see hustlers looking for suckers." You can read the whole interview, which talks lots more about cryptocurrency, here.