You're thinking about this in moralistic terms of deservedness. The shock I encountered at the 40K was that it wasn't enough to incentive future security researchers to find bugs. This just seems like a bad business decision.
Aren’t the contents of NFTs public before the sale? I agree with your general point that there were buyers willing to pay more, but NFT might not be the right vehicle for it.
the NFT is just a dumbass complication and doesnt add anyhting. people have been selling exploits forever. its like saying ill paint the instructions onto a canvas and sell it
The way I see it, they're like a certificate of authenticity. It just proves that the accompanying asset (which can be freely copied) is the original work, by way of the known creator of the original work signing the NFT, and the NFT itself not being forgeable.