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NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

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Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#111

Post by jb775 »

root_axis wrote: post #102
jb775 wrote: post #77

I think the immediate value of NFTs lies in industries where you need to keep the producer honest to protect against artificial scarcity. For example, what stops baseball card printers from re-printing "rare" cards? And how do we know they're not hoarding some of the best cards for a few years, then selling them individually? I could see NFTs being demanded in situations like this to force producers to create digital…

NFTs are not useful for securing anything in the real world because there is no way to verify that the thing in the real world is uniquely connected to the NFT.

I was thinking they would still make the physical baseball card, but also provide the purchaser with a NFT linked to that specific card that includes the card's metadata, etc.

This way you have the physical card to display, and have the NFT as a proof of authenticity and ownership.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#112

Post by andreskytt »

anonymoushn wrote: post #86
chadcmulligan wrote: post #81

Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy: Earth - a small planet in the outer reaches of spiral galaxy M7529, so far the only planet on record that the semi-intelligent biped inhabitants managed to overheat so badly that they became extinct. Overheating has happened before, of course, however the method of overheating is unique - the inhabitants invented a method of identifying uniqueness by making large calculations and atta…

I'm hoping we can do our NFT trading on non-PoW chains within the next couple years. This should reduce the environmental impact to that of baseball cards.

Or, there’s an idea, just generate a random string, bundle it with the artwork and sign the whole damn thing using good old RSA. Achieves the exact same goal, uses a fraction of energy and no fancy tech.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#113

Post by arcticbull »

fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #107
anonymoushn wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm hoping we can do our NFT trading on non-PoW chains within the next couple years. This should reduce the environmental impact to that of baseball cards.

One random idea I had was to use cryptomining to “soak up” excess power: so, for example, you could build nuclear out to meet peak load and then set up mining rigs to use the difference between peak and the current load, subsidizing the cost of power production. It’s probably a bad idea for other reasons, but it’s one way to reduce the environmental impact of PoW

Or just stop the proof of work stuff. Just an idea.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#114

Post by worik »

Hammershaft wrote: post #90
ajiang wrote: post #23

Regardless of what you think of NFTs, you have to recognize that the author's only counterargument against NFTs is that they're bad for the "rest of us" due to externalities that everyone else has to pay. The "rest of us" don't pay for the electricity use. The ETH miners are paying for it directly. And creators and buyers are paying for it indirectly through ETH usage. It isn't an externality. That's like saying the…

Until the price of carbon is accounted for in the price of electricity, using ridiculous amounts of electricity for such trivial uses is externalizing the costs of these transactions onto all of us. We are facing a climate crisis that is projected to accelerate a mass extinction crisis and create tens of millions of displaced refugees and yet we are spending 200 KgCO2 of wasted compute on a 'digital ownership token'…

Not sure I care about the price.

How much for the whole world?

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#115

Post by anonymoushn »

andreskytt wrote: post #112
anonymoushn wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm hoping we can do our NFT trading on non-PoW chains within the next couple years. This should reduce the environmental impact to that of baseball cards.

Or, there’s an idea, just generate a random string, bundle it with the artwork and sign the whole damn thing using good old RSA. Achieves the exact same goal, uses a fraction of energy and no fancy tech.

Yeah, you could plausibly just transfer these things by having each owner sign an attestation of the new owner's public key. But since it looks like this junk will happen on a publicly accessible slow computer/database, I'm just hoping it happens on e.g. Solana instead of Ethereum.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#116

Post by root_axis »

fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #107
anonymoushn wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm hoping we can do our NFT trading on non-PoW chains within the next couple years. This should reduce the environmental impact to that of baseball cards.

One random idea I had was to use cryptomining to “soak up” excess power: so, for example, you could build nuclear out to meet peak load and then set up mining rigs to use the difference between peak and the current load, subsidizing the cost of power production. It’s probably a bad idea for other reasons, but it’s one way to reduce the environmental impact of PoW

It's a bad idea because the energy used is worse than wasted since all it does is contribute to an increase in the mining difficulty for the entire network, thus worsening the environmental impact. It's actually better for the environment to leave that energy completely unused rather than use it for mining bitcoins.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#117

Post by 3131s »

ajiang wrote: post #23

Regardless of what you think of NFTs, you have to recognize that the author's only counterargument against NFTs is that they're bad for the "rest of us" due to externalities that everyone else has to pay. The "rest of us" don't pay for the electricity use. The ETH miners are paying for it directly. And creators and buyers are paying for it indirectly through ETH usage. It isn't an externality. That's like saying the…

You should try looking up what an "externality" is again, because this is almost a canonical example of one.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#118

Post by kart23 »

Are NFTs actually decentralized? I heard they run on the ethereum network, but not too sure if thats universal. Also, what happens if someone starts uploading illegal content? Is there a method for deletion once an NFT is 'minted'?

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#119

Post by arcticbull »

jamesgreenleaf wrote: post #37

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…

> NFTs make perfect sense for representing a claim on things that can be used, like event tickets or in-game virtual goods.

There’s absolutely no reason for that to be decentralized, only one party can honor the tokens anyways. Like most things crypto they don’t actually make sense for anything.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#120

Post by Dylan16807 »

Lazare wrote: post #31
Osmose wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What property of NFTs has suddenly made them make money where previously they weren't? Like how did adding NFTs to the mix suddenly make their art start selling?

The problem I think, is that their art still isn't selling. NFTs aren't art, they are effectively trading cards referencing art. These trading cards are, somewhat mysteriously, selling, and that does get money into the hands of artists which is good, but they're not doing it by encouraging people to buy art or tip artists, and it's hard to see how "everyone can just print trading cards referencing things" is a sustai…

Think of it as a certificate of authenticity. If it's not made/endorsed by the artist it's not worth anything.
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