NFTs Take Hollywood: My Week at NFT LA
Non-fungible tokens (NFT) and their biggest fans headed west this week for NFT LA, the latest gathering of JPEG enthusiasts during the technology’s extended coming-out party, now in its ninth month.
The week began with warm Los Angeles rainfall, dampening the conference’s patrons as they made their way to the inescapable beginning of all great NFT conferences: a badge pickup line winding around a city block.
The NFT show is no longer a stranger to the road. Believers in this newly popular form of digital asset have flocked en masse to various NFT-focused events in the past half-year, beginning with NFT.NYC in November and passing through Miami for NFT Basel. Even this year’s edition of South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, had a major NFT presence. (I was fortunate enough to attend all three.)
From the moment I arrived in downtown LA, NFTs were in the air. Bored Ape Yacht Club holders flew around town in packs, hoodies blowing in the wind, their ape chariots (electric Bird scooters) fast as ever.
Uber drivers shilled projects on rides to and from satellite events, handing out QR codes for collections with names like Bored Punk Weed DAO. Outside the conference center, a woman performed an acoustic rendition of Randi Zuckerberg’s “#WAGMI.”
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