Colorado plans to mark its 150th anniversary and the nation’s 250th birthday with many special events and celebrations. But one of them – a digital art auction – is raising some questions.
Last month, Gov. Jared Polis announced plans to auction 150 unique Colorado NFTs – short for non-fungible tokens, or digital collectible art – at the ETHDenver conference. It’s the world’s largest annual innovation festival focused on the cryptocurrency ethereum and other emerging technologies.
“Here in Colorado,” Polis said in a press release, “innovation is part of our code. I am excited to announce the launch of 150 Colorado NFTs, a unique way to highlight artists and celebrate our great state, creating a collectible digital footprint for generations to come.”
NFTs are digital assets recorded on a public digital ledger that tracks ownership and transactions. Buyers typically store NFTs in digital wallets and can resell them later. The NFT and cryptocurrency marketplace is considered volatile and as recently as 2024, the U.S. Treasury Department issued findings that NFTs are highly susceptible to use in fraud and scams and regularly used to launder criminal proceeds.
The governor’s office hopes the auction will be embraced as a celebration of Colorado’s unique qualities and modernize the state’s relationship with residents. The NFTs featured in the auction will depict a range of Colorado imagery, like iconic state lands, diverse landscapes and communities of Colorado. Some will feature original art from Colorado artists. A spokesperson said proceeds will benefit other celebrations tied to the state’s 150th anniversary, though it’s unclear exactly how the funds will be spent.
While the governor’s office says the NFTs are an innovative digital collectible for the state’s 150th birthday, critics, including people in the blockchain world, say NFTs peaked in the cultural lexicon years ago and now carry baggage from scams, crashes and failed hype.
Danny Newman, a Denver entrepreneur who works in the crypto and AI space, says NFTs were far more popular during their boom in 2021, and are an out-of-date form of blockchain technology.
“With how other NFTs at the federal level with certain folks went, it feels a little icky at this point, I would say,” said Newman. “I think there was an interesting time for this. Now, I think the ‘NFT as art’ trend is a little behind current times.”
The governor’s office wouldn’t say yet what the auction price ranges for Colorado’s 150 NFTs are, or what the art will look like. They added that the digital image NFTs are not being marketed as an investment and that the state makes no guarantees on their future value, emphasizing that they’re merely a celebration of Colorado.
Still, the timing of Colorado’s project comes amid broader scrutiny of NFTs.
Denver-area Buchalter attorney Doug DePeppe, who specializes in blockchain technology, said the governor’s office may benefit from a rebranding of the auction. “I think the use of the term NFT – they should revisit that from a marketing standpoint. If we think as a state that this is a legitimate initiative, what's the best way to message that? Because I think the connotations of NFTs are not necessarily positive,” he said. “When you use the term NFT, a lot of people, I think, would agree it was or may still be a fad. In other words, it's got a bit of a bad rap because when it's the wild west, there's opportunity, but there's also some unscrupulous characters.”
Last year, DraftKings Inc. agreed to pay $10 million to settle claims that its NFT marketplace sold unregistered securities to consumers, including Coloradans, who may not have understood the risks. In addition, many NFTs that sold for large sums during the boom of 2021 have since lost much of their value as the market cooled.
One high-profile example of a major loss involves YouTuber Logan Paul, who bought a “Bumblebee” 0N1 Force NFT for about $623,000 in 2021. By 2026, the digital asset was reportedly valued at around $155.
“Everyone kind of referred to these as buying JPEGs. That was the meme for a while. And that's fairly accurate,” said Newman. He explained that the moment when NFTs were widely promoted as collectible digital art has largely passed.
“NFTs, I don't think, are inherently bad or scammy,” he said. “It's more that this particular use of the technology had its peak, and I think that probably was the last cycle. But I could be easily proved wrong, and in the next hype cycle – they could be worth a ton.”
Newman told CPR News that despite Colorado being the first state government to launch NFT art, its plan for the upcoming auction feels less like a technological breakthrough and more like a promotional effort.
The governor’s office declined to interview with CPR News for this story but did provide responses to questions by email.
They said the main purpose of the project is to celebrate Colorado’s 150th anniversary, but that these NFTs in particular would be made more valuable by the perks that come with them. The spokesperson did not elaborate on what the perks might be, or how exactly they might be used, but said the experience would allow NFT winners to engage with the state in new and fun ways.
Details on pricing will be decided closer to the auction's launch on June 1.
Newman said blockchain technology itself still holds potential for governments, particularly in areas like record-keeping or permitting systems.
The city of Reno, Nev., for example, uses blockchain technology to store its register of historical places. But he says those kinds of applications are different from selling digital collectibles. “You don't want to get you know, ‘silly things’ confused with functional things,” he said.
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