"I'm not on that wave. I make music and products in the real world," the rapper says, but he leaves the door open to working on NFTs in the future.
NFT mania is everywhere right now.
Paris Hilton and Jimmy Fallon have been comparing their Bored Apes on national television, while Serena Williams and Gwyneth Paltrow are proudly showing off their collectibles on Twitter.
But there's one man who is clearly sick and tired of the talk around non-fungible tokens… Kanye West.
In an, er, blunt post on Instagram, the star wrote:
"My focus is on building real products in the real world. Real food. Real clothes. Real shelter. Do not ask me to do a f****** NFT."
And in the comments, Ye added:
"I'm not on that wave. I make music and products in the real world."
It is worth noting that Ye is keeping the door open to working on NFTs in the future. The photograph he shared on Insta tells crypto bros to "ask me later" — and his post says that he has no interest in launching digital collectibles "for now."
Ye's post has now been liked by a whopping 1.6 million people on the social network — and it comes amid a bundle of mixed messages surrounding NFTs and their potential.
Listen to the CoinMarketRecap podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts
NFTs Open a Can of Worms
First, let's focus on the positives. Bob Iger, Disney's former CEO, is clearly a big fan of NFTs and their potential — comparing them to the baseball cards he had fond memories of collecting as a kid.
Suggesting that some of the backlash towards digital collectibles might be an age thing, he told The New York Times' Sway podcast:
"We forget, in our generation, that things don't have to be physical. They can be digital, and they have meaning to people. And as long as that meaning can be essentially substantiated in a blockchain, I think you’re going to see an explosion of things being created, traded, collected in NFTs."
Iger went on to describe the opportunity for Disney to tap into NFTs as "extraordinary" given the rich archive of TV shows, movies and characters it has amassed over the decades. However, one potential fly in the ointment lies in how many of the non-fungible tokens currently being traded on OpenSea are "pirated" versions of Disney's intellectual property — and it's difficult to see how this can be stopped.
Separately, Brave browser founder Brendan Eich has warned that there is "a scammy side" to the world of NFTs — and he compared the "silliness" in the industry to the excesses seen at the advent of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0.
Companies that decide to take the plunge and embrace NFTs are also continuing to receive a backlash. Team17, the gaming firm behind the popular Worms franchise, has faced a torrent of criticism after announcing it plans to launch digital collectibles inspired by characters in the video game.
Aggro Crab, which has developed video games released under Team17's banner, has publicly condemned the company's decision to "produce and engage with NFTs." In a strongly worded tweet, they added:
"We believe NFTs cannot be environmentally friendly, or useful, and really are just an overall f****** grift … Needless to say, we will not be working with them on further titles, and encourage other indie developers to do the same unless this decision is reversed. I f****** hate it here."
