Remember when NFTs sold for millions of dollars? 95% of the digital collectibles are now probably worthless.::NFTs had a huge bull run two years ago, with billions of dollars per month in trading volume, but now most have crashed to zero, a study found.
I don’t think your examples complete.
You buy art from some no name but dead artist. You buy all the art. Then you take your dirty money which you can’t put on the open market, and give it to somebody who then uses clean money to buy your artwork on the public market. For a fee of course.
So now you have an argument that this artist is appreciating after their death, you’ve sold a bunch of artwork for a large profit, minus taxes, minus the cleaning fee from the buyer.
That would complete the money laundering cycle.
But that’s annoying, cuz you’re basically using somebody else to clean the money for you, it’s just the transfer back to you that the art facilitates.
I think bribes are where art really shines. Bribes are different than money laundering, because the money is ostensibly clean anyway, it’s just giving it to you for a reason that’s difficult. So the art is the excuse that enables the bribery