Abstract:
Through the study of the discourse surrounding NFTs, the infrastructure enabling its
proliferation, as well as the systems of belief it builds around it, this thesis aims to
understand the user experience of NFTs and specifically what drives users to purchase
such tokens outside of the purview of price speculation. This thesis studies increasingly
complex, disintermediated, and the decentralized digital world by exploring different
concepts once linked to the traditional study of the internet and linking them back to
NFTs. From uncovering themes within the discourse pertaining to counter-cultural
manifestation to the use of the infrastructure as a vital enabler of the players within the
environment to the systems of belief as key enticers turning users into evangelists, this
thesis uncovers three reasons why people are lured into NFTs outside of the current price
speculation norm which engulfs the widespread knowledge behind the nascent
technology.