This Year in Financial Scams ⇥ npr.org

David Gura, NPR:

A woman better known for setting fashion trends than financial ones, Paris Hilton, appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in January. After talking about her recent marriage and trip to Burning Man, the former reality TV star went deep on the NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, she was hawking.

The audience seemed a bit perplexed when she promised, Oprah-style, to give each of them an NFT — another kind of digital asset that is basically cartoony crypto art. But when Fallon, who is himself an NFT enthusiast, seemed blown away, they applauded.

“Peak hype,” though, crested quickly.

A year for the books. Fallon allegedly has a financial stake in MoonPay through which he bought the NFT he promoted on-air.

I want to point and laugh, but real people are losing real money as the rich pump air into this fiction. Matt Damon is doing just fine even after bitcoin has lost — as of writing — over seventy percent of its value compared to when his Crypto.com television commercial began airing.