What Motivates Metaverse Consumers to Purchase Virtual Assets? A Study on the Perceived Value of NFT Art

The evolution of information technologies has catalyzed a new virtual economy, characterized by features like secure ownership and a scarcity of assets through blockchain technology. In this evolving landscape, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), especially within the digital art sector, have gained prominence. Despite their growing popularity, there is still a lack of comprehensive exploration of the factors influencing the consumer trading of these virtual assets. This study employs a large-scale online international survey (N = 805) to explore the perceived technological, artistic, and product values that impact consumer attitudes and purchase intentions. Our findings reveal that novelty, return on investment (ROI), enjoyment, subjective norms, cost, and quality positively influence attitude. ROI, self-expressiveness, enjoyment, sense of community, and subjective norm positively impact purchase intention. Authenticity, security, information transparency, uniqueness, aesthetics, and artist/developer attractiveness do not significantly influence either attitudes or purchase intentions. Unexpectedly, technological novelty was negatively associated with purchase intention.