That Donald Trump is now hawking digital trading cards featuring images of himself as a superhero for $99 each tells you all you need to know about Trump and about NFTs.

The recent implosion of Samuel Bankman-Fried’s FTX crypto market offers another case in point. Months ago, FTX was huge. Now it’s a hole in the pockets of countless people who had put their money into it. (Until a few week ago, Bankman-Fried was one of the world’s richest people.)

Crypto as a whole is proving to be little more than a giant zero-sum game. Like NFTs, crypto’s current value depends on whether buyers believe future buyers will be even bigger suckers.

A large and growing sector of the U.S. economy produces nothing of value. Nada. Zilch. Every winner comes at the expense of a current or future loser. The only things this “zero-sum” sector produces are many of the nation’s ultra-wealthy. Money moves from one set of pockets into another — mostly upward, into the pockets of the ultra-wealthy.

Much of Wall Street is expanding this zero-sum economy. Derivatives, private equity, hedge funds, and funds of […]