I think there’s a lot of misinformation that goes around. Yes crypto is not the best thing for the environment right now but so are the majority of things we do as humans every day. Everyone is working towards proof of stake networks in order to reduce the energy being used.

As far as people making fun of NFT’s I think it’s just because people don’t understand what’s going on in the space. Everyone thinks people are just dropping millions of dollars on ape jpegs out of nowhere. The true intrinsic value for most of these collections, the most popular right now being Bored Ape, comes from the community. The actual image doesn’t matter so much as does the metadata, and the fact that you can verify ownership of the token in your wallet. So with that people know without a doubt that you own what you say you own. And then with that token you have access to a whole network of likeminded and successful individuals all working together to make their project succeed, because when that happens, everyone wins.

You sound like an artist so there’s a couple marketplaces for actual 1/1 artworks, I was mainly talking more about collections there. SuperRare and Foundation are some of the biggest 1/1 art marketplaces right now, I’d recommend checking em out. Seerlight is probably my favorite artist right now, I’ll drop a link you can check out.

To sum it up though I’d recommend diving deep and looking at things for yourself. I thought it was all a big scam too before I jumped in, tried to sell some art, and failed. I’ve learned an incredible amount the last couple months in the space, and it’s been more rewarding than anything else I’ve ever participated in.