The Flattery Economy: What CT’s Reaction to Money Says About the Space

Beatriz asked the question everyone was thinking. The answer is uncomfortable.

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There’s a thread going around that’s worth sitting with.

Beatriz (@mandolinaes) spent a few posts watching how Crypto Twitter reacts to @osseneth — a collector who joined X in September, arrived with capital, and started buying rare Argonauts, sweeping floors, and burning Apes in public.

Her observation wasn’t about him. It was about everyone else.

The guy can post a skull emoji. A GIF. A cryptic one-liner. An opinion that’s been repeated a thousand times. And the replies flood in as if he’d said something extraordinary. Everyone wants his attention. Everyone laughs at everything. Everyone agrees with everything. Artists trip over each other to get noticed, hoping he’ll buy something.

Beatriz called it what it is: embarrassing.

And she’s right.

The Critique Isn’t About One Collector

Let’s be precise about what’s being said here.

Nobody is arguing that a collector shouldn’t spend their money how they want. Nobody is arguing that buying art loudly is a crime. The critique isn’t “he shouldn’t do that.”

The critique is: why does everyone else behave like this?

The uncomfortable part of Beatriz’s thread is that it’s not really about @osseneth at all. It’s about a pattern that repeats every cycle, with a new name at the top each time. Someone arrives with capital. The timeline reorganizes itself around them. Artists who talk about independence start auditioning for attention. People who claim to hate gatekeepers rebuild a hierarchy — just with a wallet instead of a gallery.

And the worst part? Everyone involved knows it’s happening. They just call it “supporting the space.”

The Proximity Economy

Here’s the mechanic underneath it.

In a space where attention is the scarcest asset, proximity to money becomes a strategy. Reply to the big wallet. Agree with the big wallet. Laugh at the big wallet’s jokes. Get noticed. Get bought. Get a shoutout. Get a floor.

It works. That’s why people do it.

But it also means the value being traded isn’t always the art. Sometimes it’s access. Sometimes it’s the appearance of being in the room. Sometimes it’s just the hope that a reply turns into a sale.

Beatriz asked the question directly: do these people even find him interesting, or have they convinced themselves they do because there’s money involved?

That question doesn’t have a comfortable answer.

The Hierarchy They Said They Didn’t Want

The original pitch of this space was simple: remove the gatekeepers, let artists reach collectors directly, let value be decided by the community instead of a gallery or a curator.

That pitch was real. And in some corners, it still is.

But a hierarchy doesn’t disappear just because you remove the institution. If anything, it gets replaced by something faster and less accountable. A gallery at least has a reputation to protect. A timeline has a mood.

So instead of a curator deciding who matters, you get a crowd deciding who matters — and the crowd’s criteria is usually who has the biggest wallet and the most attention.

That’s not decentralization. That’s a court. Just with better graphics.

What Artists Are Actually Competing For

The part of Beatriz’s thread that should sting the most is the line about artists.

“At what point did being an artist become a competition to see who can flatter the richest person in the room?”

That’s not a rhetorical question. It’s a real one, and it deserves a real answer.

The answer is: when attention became the currency and money became the shortcut to it.

Artists aren’t behaving this way because they’re shallow. They’re behaving this way because the economics of the space reward it. The artist who gets noticed by the big wallet gets bought. The artist who gets bought gets a floor. The artist who gets a floor gets more attention. The loop is real, and it’s brutal.

But it also means the artists who don’t play the game — who just make the work and let it speak — are competing on a different field entirely. And that field is harder, slower, and less visible.

What’s Left When the Money Moves

Here’s the test that matters.

When the big wallet moves on to the next thing — and it always does — what’s left?

If the answer is “the art,” then the space is healthy. If the answer is “nothing, because the whole thing was built around one person’s attention,” then the space has a problem.

Beatriz’s thread is valuable because it asks this question without flinching. It’s not a personal attack. It’s a mirror.

And the reflection isn’t flattering.

The Part Nobody Wants to Say

The reason this thread landed is that everyone recognizes the behavior. Everyone has seen it. Some people have done it.

That’s what makes it uncomfortable. It’s not an accusation from the outside. It’s a description from the inside.

The space talks constantly about artistic independence, about community, about not needing gatekeepers. And then a wallet shows up and the whole thing reorganizes around it.

That’s not a failure of one person. That’s a failure of a culture that hasn’t figured out how to hold attention and money at arm’s length.

What Could Change

Nothing changes overnight. But a few things are worth saying out loud:

Collectors can collect without being worshipped. Buying art is good. Being treated like a monarch is not.

Artists can engage without auditioning. Replying is fine. Performing for attention is a different thing.

The timeline can notice without amplifying. A skull emoji doesn’t need 200 quote tweets.

And most importantly: the art should still be the point. If it isn’t, then the whole thing is just a popularity contest with extra steps.

Beatriz didn’t say anything cruel. She said something true.

And the fact that it landed as hard as it did is the proof.

Pedro Jose

Stack of Truths

Edited with DeepSeek

(P.S. No financial advice. The mirror doesn’t care who’s holding it.)