We don't know for sure whether the original sale was real, or whether the price was refunded under the table in order to inflate the perceived value of the asset. I suspect a lot of sham sales are happening in the NFT world.
What does tangible value even mean? Something has value if someone somewhere is willing to pay for it. It's as simple as that.
Say you could buy an NFT for $1 that is currently valued on the market at $1000 (say, other similar NFTs from the same set have traded recently at that price). Would you not buy it because it has "no tangible value"? Or would you buy it and flip it to make $999. I know what I would do.
Good investments aren't about what you like or think have "value", it's about what other people like.
By "tangible value" I mean that it has some kind of function. If you buy property you can live there, rent it, etc. If you buy stock in a company you now own part of that company and technically get voting power.
Not every asset has to have tangible value, they can have purely financial value. I said you technically get voting power when you buy a stock because I don't think that's why most people buy stock. I buy because I believe in the company and I believe the value will increase.
I haven't seen much tangible value from NFTs and, as this article shows, they don't have much financial value either.
There's tons of NFTs that are valued and traded at 5-6 or even 7 figures. Off the top of my head, cryptopunks, BAYC, ether rocks come to mind.
Also by your definition an expensive NFT does have tangible value, I can brag to my friends about it and get social clout (probably the most important kind of value that exists).
I spent awhile trying to write down why I think "Bored Ape Yacht Club" and other NFT projects aren't art, but I don't have the language for it.
A better argument would be that NFT's don't benefit independent artists, regardless of whether the content is actually art or not. I already brought up the rampant art theft on NFT marketplaces, and these NFT projects aren't about artists. Take the bored ape yacht club; go to their website, or opensea profile. You won't see any of the artists credited. The whole thing is owned by a parent company. It's just here to make money.
https://www.fidelity.com/news/article/top-news/202204141032R...