With the help of Derek Robertson

The future of NFT art and metaverse trading, can be determined by a virtual bag.

In November 2021, digital artist Mason Rothschild launched a line of MetaBirkins: fuzzy virtual bags with a small lock that mimic the popular Hermès luxury Birkin bags. MetaBirkins images are inspired by artists such as van Gogh, Rothko and Kusama. They were weird, fancy, and extremely lucrative. The first one sold for $42,000.

But they weren’t made by Hermès, and just a month later, Rothschild revealed on Instagram that he had received a cease-and-desist letter from the Birkin’s real-world maker. In defending him, Rothschild cited the First Amendment,…