Author: Ben Schiller, CoinDesk; Translated by: Song Xue, Golden Finance

Rollingstone.com got a wave of traffic today with a splashy post calling for the end of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The post, “Your NFT is actually — ultimately — completely worthless,” references a new study from financial expert community dappGambl and runs hard. It hit a nerve. As of this writing, the post is trending on both their site and Google. Type the term “NFT” into your browser and it’ll appear at the top of the search results.

To be sure, there’s a lot going on here, and the title isn’t entirely wrong, at least by the loose standards of the title author. It’s true that most NFTs are worthless. The study found that out of a sample of 73,257 NFT collectibles, 69,795 had a market cap of zero. That’s 95% of the total, or almost “all of them.” The study suggests that 23 million people are now holding worthless NFTs, and life is undoubtedly tough for these investors.

“Studies show that only 21% of collections are owned outright, meaning that about four-fifths remain unsold,” author Miles Klee noted. “As buyers become more discerning, ‘items that lack a clear use case, a compelling narrative, or real artistic merit are increasingly struggling to attract attention and sell.’”

But are NFTs really as dead as the post suggests? Not exactly.

While trading volume has certainly dropped, it’s not non-existent. Data collected by The Block shows that NFT trading reached approximately $63 million last week. This is a far cry from the more than $360 million in weekly volume we saw in February. But it’s not all bad.

Another 5% of the collections are actually valuable. The post claims that this research explains why "you no longer see people peddling ugly cartoon apes on the internet." But Bored Ape NFTs are actually trading pretty well. The average price of a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT is about $42,000.

More important than the precise trading dynamics is what the article shows about how mainstream media operates. Publications look for extreme, absolute highs and lows that make for eye-catching headlines. Just last November, Rollingstone.com published an article titled “The NFT Bubble Has Burst, but Value for Creators Is Just Heating Up.” Last summer, it loudly promoted its partnership with one of the most famous NFT collections, the Bored Ape Yacht Club. “This is a rare opportunity for the public to take home a BAYC artwork bearing the Rolling Stones’ stamp of approval,” the blurb read. Now, Rolling Stone has published the opposite message, with the same hyperbole.

Anyone who has been around crypto for a while has seen this play out many times. Bitcoin has died countless times, but it still keeps producing blocks. It has millions of fans, and at over $26,000, it’s not worth nothing.

There have been ups and downs, of course, but it would be foolish to think that a technology as useful as NFTs would completely disappear. NFTs are digital wrappers around non-physical and physical objects that allow them to be tracked and traded. It’s an idea with broad applicability, whether or not it’s reflected in the art market.

The bigger story here is that media publications are losing credibility by dishonestly seeking out extremes when the real world is full of nuance. As a result, many in the crypto space “have become tuned into the news cycle,” as my colleague Dan Kuhn recently wrote about this phenomenon.   Their reality isn’t framed by what some journalist says it is; it’s what some journalist, somewhere, describes. They pay attention to tech and create useful things from it.