You would be correct. The wash-trade yourself to popularity thing is frankly a flight of fancy that is a symptom of the larger poverty of the sceptic argument.
Sure you can identify some self-trading: to farm some new upstart marketplace airdrop, or maybe its a dev experimenting, or maybe someone is doing say a flashloan for fun and attention. But show us a collection or artist who "made" it using this strategy, I'll be waiting.
Rather than setting up a web of fake wallets, spending lots of money on gas, then getting almost certainly be caught (how much wash trading and realistic-looking wallet activity do you have to generate to sell out a 10k item collection?!), you can instead pay some crypto influencers to shill your project, or mint.
The reality is: reputation in this space is everything.
Sure you can identify some self-trading: to farm some new upstart marketplace airdrop, or maybe its a dev experimenting, or maybe someone is doing say a flashloan for fun and attention. But show us a collection or artist who "made" it using this strategy, I'll be waiting.
Rather than setting up a web of fake wallets, spending lots of money on gas, then getting almost certainly be caught (how much wash trading and realistic-looking wallet activity do you have to generate to sell out a 10k item collection?!), you can instead pay some crypto influencers to shill your project, or mint.
The reality is: reputation in this space is everything.