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NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

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Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#51
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying an NFT directly from the artist could be seen as this form of tipping. Buying one from anyone else is clearly not.

As far as I understand it, some NFTs are built where the original creator gets some percentage of every sale.

How can the contract know the actual sales price? I.e. sure, it can see a transaction, but it can't see the second transaction with the rest of the sum, or the cash that changed hands at the same time.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#53
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This is bad because of externalities, the externalities are big and will grow" is exactly why we don't have general nuclear power, saying it's the only argument doesn't make it a weak argument.

When the cost is directly paid by the actor, it isn't an externality. It is the literal opposite of what externality means.

carbon emissions aren't currently paid for by the person paying for and using the electricity?

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#54
post #34

The possibilities of NFTs fascinate me, especially for portable, digital identities and assets that transcend any specific virtual realm and can't be arbitrarily erased by any central authority. But I also won't put a single sat in any of them right now.

> portable, digital identities and assets that transcend any specific virtual realm Why not just have a government or trusted company sign things rather than an NFT? If the UN says "we will digitally sign digital passports", that seems strictly better than an NFT for identity. Without a central authority to verify identity, how do you solve the problem of a thousand people creating NFTs saying they're john doe living…

>If a government creates a law saying "anyone that processes NFTs must first put them through this list of NFTs to filter, must filter them out, etc, or go to prison", well, now NFTs are effectively erased.

Just like how the government successfully erased the drug market by making drugs illegal.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#55

Maybe NFTs for collectibles isnt ideal but Im wondering if there are some more - lets say - utilitarian uses of this concept that we havent discussed yet. The other day I tried buying a bike. Id really like to know it wasnt stolen, and somehow being able to tie a real world representation into a virtual single item good would be somewhat useful.

I actually had a similar idea, last time the theft of a famous painting was reported in the news. The museum could offer a deal, where they get the painting back but give the thieves a certificate for it. As part of the deal, they have to hang a sign next to the painting, saying, "This painting is considered to be stolen."

The thieves can do whatever they want with the certificate -- use it to pay illicit debts and so forth. They can visit their painting at the museum, and brag to their friends about it. But the rest of the public still gets to enjoy the painting too.

Now closer to home, I'm a musician and play a modestly valuable instrument. I've thought of taking really high resolution images of it, because the grain pattern of the wood is practically like a fingerprint, and would be difficult to conceal without destroying the instrument. A database with hi-res pictures of valuable instruments would be like a serial number database for bikes.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#56
post #45

Maybe NFTs for collectibles isnt ideal but Im wondering if there are some more - lets say - utilitarian uses of this concept that we havent discussed yet. The other day I tried buying a bike. Id really like to know it wasnt stolen, and somehow being able to tie a real world representation into a virtual single item good would be somewhat useful.

Bikes have unique serial numbers. https://bikeindex.org runs a free website to let you lookup serial numbers and mark them as stolen, and there's also various other regional websites that do a similar sort of thing. If you want to buy a bike, make sure it has a serial number (and if the number was filed off, then yes it was probably stolen), and look it up on the index. How would an NFT be better than the above datab…

It's another example of the title problem. You can think of it in a similar to how VINs work for cars, or ESNs work for phones. In those cases, there's a centralized database that tracks whether things are stolen or not. It's possible that NFTs could be a decent way to handle supply chain auditing of this variety, considering it's just rebirthing a process that already exists but in a more analogue form.

The advantage over something like bikeindex is that you could make the transfer process a lot more seamless. You could build things like escrowing into the protocol, so when someone sells a bike to you on craigslist, you have a nice clean transactional system which adds some nice anti-fraud measures and protections for you without necessarily requiring you to buy it from a store or marketplace to gain those protections.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#57
post #48
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bikes have unique serial numbers. https://bikeindex.org runs a free website to let you lookup serial numbers and mark them as stolen, and there's also various other regional websites that do a similar sort of thing. If you want to buy a bike, make sure it has a serial number (and if the number was filed off, then yes it was probably stolen), and look it up on the index. How would an NFT be better than the above datab…

An NFT is inherently decentralized, maintained by multiple independent parties, and more or less tamper-proof. That database is only as resilient as the organisation running it (or maybe less, plenty of organisations have lost their databases before), and presumably there are corruptible humans with write access to it.

The certificate transparency project has the same attributes you mention to my knowledge.

There is the problem of correct data, but I don't understand how an NFT manages to make data correct. How do I prove to the NFT that I own the bike with SN 123? How do I prove it was stolen?

I'd love if we replaced the bikeindex with a certificate transparency project-esque system and each large bike manufacturer ran an instance.

That also seems like it would be vastly easier to create than having people use the bike-stolen-registry-NFT you're talking about, and as a bonus it would be far less wasteful.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#58

NFTs make perfect sense for representing a claim on things that can be used, like event tickets or in-game virtual goods. But as certificates layered on top of collectibles... I'm not so sure. With something like CryptoKitties, you can do something with the tokens (play a virtual pet game). But with something like CryptoPunks you're essentially paying for digital beanie babies, which are worse than real ones since an…

> it seems like this is going to be 90% bubble (with plenty of hucksters), and 10% real use cases that stand the test of time

All the most interesting developments in computing start like this. This is good. The future is being born now and not without the required creative destruction.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#59
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I understand it, some NFTs are built where the original creator gets some percentage of every sale.

How can the contract know the actual sales price? I.e. sure, it can see a transaction, but it can't see the second transaction with the rest of the sum, or the cash that changed hands at the same time.

My understanding is that the USD value attached to an NFT is just the equivalent of however much ETH is being traded. If some outside monetary platform is being used to exchange the item then the real price wouldn’t be known.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#60
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I understand it, some NFTs are built where the original creator gets some percentage of every sale.

How can the contract know the actual sales price? I.e. sure, it can see a transaction, but it can't see the second transaction with the rest of the sum, or the cash that changed hands at the same time.

The major NFT exchanges like OpenSea and Mintable enforce it in the marketplace. But otherwise it's mostly honor system right now.
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