An NFT conference in New York brought out a knock-off Snoop Dogg

For the last few weeks, the wheels have been coming off for the cryptocurrency market. Major coins have imploded and crashed to zero, Bitcoin has dropped to lows it hasn’t seen for years, and billions of dollars of wealth have exited the market or been wiped out entirely. Despite this, NFT.NYC —a massive convention built around the now-floundering asset that is non-fungible tokens — is still chugging along. Billed as the “Super Bowl for NFTs,” this year it’s closer to what it would be like if the “This Is Fine” dog was a multi-day event.

Speaking of dogs: Did you hear Snoop Dogg was at the conference? That’s right, NFTs might be flatlining as activity in online marketplaces has dropped off by 90% from its peak, and digital art that once sold for millions of dollars is now going for a fraction of that, but the medium still has plenty of star power!

Hold on ... what does that name tag say?

Okay, so Snoop Dogg was unavailable and Doop Snogg had to hold down his spot. You’d be forgiven for thinking that Snoop might be in attendance, seeing as he is an NFT connoisseur and creator of his own line of digital bits of artwork (then again, the dude will put his name on just about anything, from socks to a line of car wax, so NFTs aren’t that special here). But it turns out, per NBC News reporter Kevin Collier, that it was just an impersonator who was hired by promoters “to drum up excitement.” Even the real Snoop had a little laugh about it.

There is perhaps no better metaphor for the state of cryptocurrency than a fake Snoop Dogg headlining an NFT event. It’s exciting on the surface until you realize it’s not quite what it seems. There’s also an incredible irony at the heart of this little mix-up: NFTs were supposed to be a tool for ensuring that every piece of art is an original that cannot be copied, but the conference went out and got a cheap knockoff that they tried to pass off as the real deal all the same.