NFT: Not fuckin tacos

NFTs share a similar building model as Taco Bell menu items. Let me explain why.

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It’s a new week, which means I’m still in desperate need social proof. If you haven’t yet, consider following me on Twitter and hitting the heart button if you enjoy my writing.

This past week has felt especially inundated with NFTs. Perhaps it’s my fault that I’ve followed too many crypto people on Twitter. Or maybe I’m overwhelmed with ire generated by my inability to understand NFTs. Or, maybe it’s the massive FOMO I feel as I watch people make unspeakable amounts of money buying and selling artwork that I wouldn’t have dared be associated with, even when my taste was at its worst? For context, in high school, I wore JNCOs and tie dye and had a Final Fantasy poster on my wall. 

There are multitudes of NFT clubs, each with its own mediocre name: Bored Ape Yacht Club, Mutant Ape Yacht Club, Pudgy Penguin, Cool Cats, etc. Many, but certainly not all, seem to be animal related. In any case, of the clubs whose membership is denoted by cartoon NFTs (so not something like Zed Run, which has been discussed before), all seem to operate on the same basic premise for generating the NFT avatar: basic outline of the mascot, with a bunch of different variables which signify the rarity of the NFT. For example, Bored Apes all have the same ape outline, but can have different colors, different hats, sunglasses, mouths, etc. 

The various permutations of a monkey NFT

At first, this made me think of pizza and toppings, where the different hats, shirts, sunglasses, whatever are toppings and the avatar outline is the dough. But, many of the avatars vary due to the expressions created by their eyes and mouths, so the metaphor doesn’t work because pizza dough is more or less uniform despite whatever is on top. Instead, these avatars are more akin to Taco Bell.

Taco Bell is notorious for using the same 7 or so ingredients--tomatoes, lettuce, meats, cheese, sauces, beans, rice-- in various combinations to create its vast menu. For the most part, the foundation for each item is some form of carbohydrate--a taco shell, a tortilla, a gordita, etc. 

Take for instance Cool Cats. The cats may have different facial expressions, but they’re still unmistakably cats, just with different hats or glasses or shirts, or whatever on top. Taco Bell may have different versions of carbohydrates, but whatever permutation you end up getting inside or on top of that carbohydrate, it’s still unmistakably Taco Bell.    

The variance in an NFT isn’t just cosmetic, each article or trait has a certain level of rarity. This rarity is what gives NFTs their value vis-a-vis other NFTs from the same lineage or club. So like, a green shirt, which is more rare, could make your NFT avatar worth more than one with a red shirt. My metaphor begins to break down at this point, as tomato isn’t any more valuable than lettuce, and a chalupa would never be purchased for 1000x the cost of a gordita simply because of the difference in shell type. Nevertheless, certain NFTs achieve these levels of appreciation vis-a-vis their counterparts in the same club.

The metaphor diverges even more considering the multiplicity of NFT uses touted by patrons and creators alike: video games, a “decentralized Disney”, digital art. A Taco Bell menu item, by virtue of being organic, has a singular use case which when compared to NFTs, expires quite rapidly. Anyone claiming to have a use case for Taco Bell besides eating would rightly be considered a lunatic, yet when someone claims their NFT project, which exists amongst hundreds of other nearly identical NFT projects, can become a decentralized Disney--a peerless entertainment company--they’re considered a serious innovator. 

There’s a myriad of NFT communities offering the Taco Bell model of NFT creation. This is in direct opposition with the uniqueness each professes to have. If they’re all using the same creation engine, how special can each be? The model also reveals just how chintzy NFTs actually are. Taco Bell employs this model because it’s easier and more efficient to produce meals this way, it’s fast food. This means it’s also cheaper. Fewer ingredients means better economies of scale especially for the ingredients Taco Bell needs to purchase, as well as less potential for waste since menu items use overlapping ingredients.

This isn’t to say there can’t be long term value for NFTs, but those dabbling in the market would be wise to consider that there’s only one Taco Bell, a chain whose Tex-Mex fast food supremacy remains mostly unchallenged. So although cheap ingredients can create value, in the end, there’s not a lot of said value to go around.