Nonfungible tokens are currently a major topic of discussion within the crypto space, with creators and collectors alike jumping on the bandwagon.

Yet, Litecoin (LTC) creator Charlie Lee is of the opinion that the hype is unsustainable. Tweeting on Monday, Lee said that unlike "existent art," NFTs accept "aught cost" of cosmos.

Co-ordinate to Lee, artists in the real world are constrained past fourth dimension and effort, likening this limitation to proof-of-work. For Lee, this brake creates scarcity and, therefore, value for art pieces created past famous artists.

"NFTs, on the other mitt, create artificial scarcity," Lee tweeted, calculation, "Because of the nigh zero toll to create another NFT, the marketplace will somewhen exist flooded with NFTs from artists trying to cash in on this craze. Supply will overwhelm need and the prices will eventually crash."

Lee's comments are a common criticism of NFTs a la right click and save. Nevertheless, there are arguments to exist made for the fine art scene, both real world and digital, existence flooded past reproductions. The value of the piece often depends on the artist, with collectors paying attention to the creator of a work of fine art, thus distinguishing it from other copycat pieces.

Indeed, the ability to cryptographically sign art pieces is another oft-attributed do good of NFTs, allowing artists to include metadata, file links and other necessary copyright elements.

With NFTs, scarcity becomes an expression of consensus, which is why an ultra-rare alien CryptoPunk sold for 605 Ether (ETH) back in January. While information technology would exist possible to recreate this rare item, it would non be office of the collection created past Larva Labs back in 2017.

Hashmasks, another NFT collection, created 16,384 "cards," selling out over $10 million worth in its first four days, as previously reported by Cointelegraph.

Lee'due south critique also seems to limit NFTs to fine art rather than looking at the wider collectibles scene, with elements such every bit in-game assets and digital land. Earlier in Feb, nine digital plots of country on the virtual realm Lunacia sold for well-nigh $1.5 million.