Those are (a) very heavily regulated by definition and (b) means to an end, which is to create societal good, ie, foster innovation (I don’t want to argue whether that’s actually the case - I’m just taking the statu quo position)
Yes. a) is very heavily regulated by the chain/protocol used to make the tokens work and b) would be to introduce scarcity to digital items, which possibly creates good and fosters innovation (I similarly don't want to argue whether that will actually be the case) in fields which benefit from scarcity.
b isn’t the case, because a is entirely self-referential. Anyone can any any time create a new private key, so you can only trust things signed with private keys you already trust. That trust can be another private key signing it, but ultimately the foundation of the trust is in the physical world where someone can lock you up for breaking rules.
I’m equivocating if this is the is/ought problem or the Münchhausen trilemma, kinda feels like both.
In the case of artists the foundation of the trust relies on the fact that the token is only valuable if it comes from the artist. This doesn't involve locking anyone up, as tokens created by people who aren't the artists are simply ignored since they inherently have no value.
There's no reason to assume that in other domains what you said should be the case more often than what I said if we both don't know the details of said domains.
Could one say the same about tokens?