I went to an NFT art gallery. It was completely pointless.

Consensus 2022 in Austin, Texas, was a mega-gathering of cryptodisciples, lawmakers, and senior executives.

It offered many performances for the participants, such as a dogecoin-covered Mclaren, a pull-up “HODL” bar – and a reality art gallery for NFTs.

In the exhibition, I saw images of cars, trippy cartoon portraits, manipulated images of sweeping urban landscapes and dystopian-looking scenes, to describe a few.

But wandering around the room full of TV screens showed me that giving NFTs the traditional art treatment just felt like it amplified the noise and confusion that already exists in the $ 41 billion room.

It was confusing and unstimulating

It is not typical to see the digital assets in a kind of physical view. They are designed to be kept online in a crypto wallet or other storage method, after all.

NFTs give people unique ownership of all kinds of objects, ownership that is secured on the blockchain and paid for with cryptocurrency. The concept has so far been widely used in the art market, which has given birth to the $ 1 billion Bored Ape Yacht Club collection and other shockingly expensive works.

But even crypto-followers have called NFTs as distractions from their true goal: a decentralized financial system. Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, for example, told Fortune in April that people involved in NFT mania “may have lost their minds”.

Aside from the hype, other evangelists have warned the art world’s use of NFTs as a good thing, saying they can empower creators who can now reach their customers more directly and get paid more easily.

Still, the art gallery I went to was confusing.

I expected a QR code to appear next to each screen so I could scan it with my phone and see the title and artist name. But no such label was in sight. (Other photos and reports from the event show QR codes with links to bid on artwork, which may have been added later.)

– # Consensus2023 (@ consensus2023) June 11, 2022

Each screen displayed an NFT for a few seconds before switching to another – you could stand in front of one for a full minute and see different images, illustrations and other visual parts.

But even though there were visible QR codes for me, I felt the same hesitation that I get when I look at NFTs online, hesitation around putting my money on something where the resale value can change drastically overnight without rhyme or reason .

The art gallery felt like noise on top of noise

The installation was probably meant to just show people how NFTs could be displayed as traditional art. Maybe, in theory, artists could rent out space in a venue and show their work to viewers who could buy them online.

The NFT market has boomed in recent years, with giant players such as the NFT marketplace OpenSea reaching $ 13 billion and celebrities from NFL quarterback Tom Brady to actress Lindsay Logan jumping on the bandwagon.

But with the rise came the federal investigations and concerns surrounding money laundering, fraud, theft and a hype-driven bubble doomed to emerge in the end.

As Fast Company wrote in December 2021, there is a reason why traditional art museums have not focused strongly on NFTs: many do not want to be within reach when it cracks.