But it was just a receipt, a URL or a certificate of ownership. It wasn’t the actual data itself because blockchain is an inefficient storage medium.

It’s not the NFT that is the problem but rather the data it’s attached to in the first place. That digital artwork was largely worthless because all it takes to devalue the original is linkrot or a screen capture. Nothing was decentralised because the creator still hosted it.

Sure you won’t resell that screenshot but you might still print it and hang it in your hallway in the same way you might do with an image of the Mona Lisa you cribbed from Google. All those artists who got rich during the boom were laughing all the way to the bank.

Now the idea of NFTs as a way of providing ownership of personal data is actually utterly genius. There are numerous real world applications for that sort of technology, from proof of ID handshakes to the decentralisation of medical records where the owner never even has to show any data. That could remove all sorts of bureaucracy.