Why I Bought An NFT

The rest of this article is my original 2021 account, lightly edited. The update is at the end.

What Got Me Curious

Earlier in 2021, I got extremely curious about NFTs. NFT stands for non-fungible token, and these assets were showing up in every community I followed.

At the time, the NFT marketplace OpenSea had just passed $10 billion in total volume, and NFT NYC had just wrapped up, adding more FOMO for anyone who hadn't jumped in yet.

With all this activity, I needed to explore the NFT space myself. So I bought an NFT. Then I bought quite a few more, and I sold a couple too.

Save This Article

Email this article to yourself

We'll send you a link to "Why I Bought An NFT" so you can read it later, plus The Weekly Ritual, our free newsletter. Unsubscribe anytime.

Email address

Email It To Me

Email me this article and sign me up for The Weekly Ritual. See our privacy policy.

Quick NFT Overview

NFTs provide real digital ownership. Your ownership is recorded on the blockchain and controlled by your private keys, which you hold in your wallet, ideally a hardware wallet like a Ledger.

Most people think of NFTs as digital art, such as pictures of apes or CryptoPunks. But they can be much more, such as access to events and communities (like VeeFriends), proof of ownership, royalty payments and more.

You can buy an NFT on a marketplace, connect your wallet and buy. You can also bid in auctions and sell on the same platforms. Our NFT marketplaces ranking compares them today.

1. Join A Community

The biggest reason, at least in 2021, was to join a community. The best NFT projects are centered on a community. Take VeeFriends, Gary Vaynerchuk's project. Owning a Series 1 NFT got you into his VeeCon event for three years, plus other perks.

Many NFT communities are online, and most use Discord. If you're like me, you may never have used Discord before. I think of it as message boards and chat rooms combined with social media.

One NFT project I was excited about was Royal Society of Players, a poker-based community where card NFTs gave you access to poker tournaments and more. Holders also had a reason to build the best hand, a royal flush.

2. You Like The Art Or Artist

Just like with regular art, you can buy an NFT because you like the art or the artist. Maybe the art means something to you, or maybe you've followed the artist for years.

In my case, I have long enjoyed Carl Richards' sketches about money. Carl runs Behavior Gap, has drawn sketches for The New York Times, and talks a lot about the link between money and psychology. I own a physical print he gave away at a conference years ago, and it hangs in my office.

So when I saw he was launching an NFT collection, I had to buy one. Here it is:

Note: that's solid advice as well.

3. Join The Game

Play-to-earn gaming was the hot new idea in 2021. In these games, your inventory is made of NFTs, and you can earn crypto tokens for playing.

The appeal is that you own your items outside of one company's system. In theory, a sword NFT you earn in one game could be used in another game that supports the same NFTs.

In practice, games like Axie Infinity were already letting players own and earn. You buy your Axies, level them up, breed them and sell them, and there's a full economy both inside and outside the game.

Here's what my Axies looked like:

4. Stake Your Claim In The Metaverse

By late 2021, Facebook had renamed itself Meta, a nod to the metaverse idea. The metaverse is a virtual world where you can own land and property, transact and interact, and what happens there can affect the real world.

One of the biggest projects was The Sandbox, an NFT-based world backed by major crypto and gaming investors and celebrities like Snoop Dogg. Companies like Atari were buying large plots, and smaller buyers were doing the same.

There were also companies like LandVault building out spaces in the metaverse.

At the time, some of the best plots in The Sandbox sold for more than 13 ETH, about $60,000 back then.

Here's a small picture of what the Sandbox map looked like. All the little squares are plots of land.

5. Flip It

We can't talk about NFTs without talking about flipping them, because, let's be honest, that's (sadly) why most people were buying in 2021. Flipping means buying or minting an NFT at a low price, holding it for a while, then selling it for more.

There were amazing stories of people minting NFTs for a fraction of an ETH and reselling them for hundreds, but those were rare.

It can be really hard to find a good project that won't rug pull you. That's NFT slang for a scam where the creators hype the community and roadmap, then disappear with the money after the mint.

Sadly, most NFT projects end up with little value, either because of scams or because the team can't build the community and roadmap.

I was able to sell 4 NFTs at a profit, with gains (sale price minus fees like ETH gas) ranging from $60 to $230.

I also minted some projects that were clearly rug pulls, so I do have some worthless NFTs.

Update: What Has Happened Since I Wrote This

A lot has changed since late 2021, and most of it confirmed how risky that market was.

• The NFT market shrank. NFT trading volume fell sharply after 2022. DappRadar put 2024 volume at $13.7 billion, down from $57.2 billion in 2022 and one of the weakest years since 2020.
• VeeCon ended. VeeCon ran in 2022, 2023 and 2024, and VeeFriends' recap of 2025 lists no VeeCon that year.
• Royal Society of Players went dark. The project's old web address now shows an unrelated betting site.
• Play-to-earn faded. Axie Infinity's rewards collapsed in value in 2022, and its Ronin bridge was hacked for about $624 million that March. A 2026 study cited by CoinDesk found that more than 90% of crypto games launched during the boom had failed. Our play-to-earn games page covers what is left.
• The metaverse cooled. Sandbox land and token prices fell far below 2021 levels, and The Sandbox laid off staff and changed its leadership in August 2025.
• NFT avatars lost their badge. X stopped supporting verified NFT profile pictures in January 2024. More on that in our NFT profile picture article.
• Regulators settled one question. In March 2026 the SEC said digital collectibles, including most NFTs, generally are not securities. Our are NFTs securities page explains the details.

The reasons above still describe why people buy NFTs. What changed is how few projects kept their value, so anyone buying today should spend only money they can afford to lose.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why Do People Buy NFTs?

People buy NFTs to join a community, support an artist, use items in a game, or hope to sell for more later. In 2021, flipping was the biggest driver, but most of those projects lost value.

Where Do You Buy An NFT?

You buy NFTs on marketplaces such as OpenSea, Magic Eden on Solana, or a project's own site. You need a crypto wallet funded with the right coin, usually ETH or SOL.

Are NFTs A Good Investment?

Most NFTs have lost value since 2022, and many are worth nothing. Treat an NFT like a collectible you enjoy, not an investment you count on.

What Is A Rug Pull?

A rug pull is a scam where an NFT or token team hypes a project, collects money from the mint, then abandons it. Our crypto and NFT scams page lists warning signs.

Do You Pay Taxes On NFTs?

In the US, selling an NFT for a gain is taxable, and buying one with crypto can trigger tax on the crypto you spend. See our NFT taxes page.