NFT: non-fungible token. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-fungible_token Expand your acronyms, peeps.
*ACRONYM: a concise rendition of nomenclature you'd misplace
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NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap
121–130 of 786 posts
Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap
#122It is odd, I've been involved in the cryptocurrency scene from the beginning, and I've seen the whole "Bitcoin kills Mother Gaia" talking point pop up every couple of years - but I've never seen such prolonged parroting as this last cycle. It is a silly complaint, because it never considers the wastefulness of the status quo. But it is an interesting method of attack, trying to conceal the fact that it is a call for…
That’s a dead easy argument to debunk. If each visa payment used 600kWh like a Bitcoin transaction visa alone would consume 3x as much power as the entire world generates and produce 100% of the worlds ewaste. So no, the status quo is orders of magnitude more efficient on a unit basis by definition.
Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap
#123> They use an astonishing amount of electricity to create and trade. Together, they are already using more than is consumed by some states in the US. Imagine building a giant new power plant just to make Christie’s or the Basel Art Fair function. And the amount of power wasted will go up commensurate with their popularity and value. And keep going up. The details are here. The short version is that for the foreseeabl…
Weird that multiple people downvoted this.
Mining wastes power on purpose. Transactions don't waste power on purpose, and there are designs that make them minimally expensive.
Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap
#124Maybe 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…
> How would an NFT be better than the above database in any way?
It wouldn't depend on the benevolence of a third-party absorbing the cost of running the index.
It would be geographically and culturally agnostic. Zoom out here and notice how little of the World's population is involved: https://map.bikewise.org/#0/84/-77
It would be globally unique and would not require the cooperation of manufacturers. Neither of my two bikes has a serial number because they're 'too old'. Other bikes have conflicting serial numbers.
It would eliminate the privacy and security risks of maintaining a central database of PII and associated valuable assets.
Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap
#125Are 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'?
Ethereum is the most common, but not the only blockchain people build NFTs on.
As far as I understand, for space reasons they usually do not put the actual content on the chain, but a pointer to it (e.g. a hash that can be looked up on IPFS).
AFAIK other blockchain things solve the illegal content problem by having lists of content they'll not show and that appears to have been enough for now. (e.g. there's been various blockchain-based social media projects that had the same question long ago)
Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap
#126OK, so what happens if, say, the worlds energy demands jump 100x in 2-3 years due to out-of-control feedback loops like crypto? Energy prices go up. People suffer. There are two possible responses: - Regulation/laws to stop the feedback loop - Investment + deployment of new energy technologies to increase supply Will be interesting to see which of the two scenarios above happen, or if the fears of this crypto wave le…
Sounds like an investment in the energy sector is worthwhile now. Make money selling the shovels (reference to the gold rush where shovel sellers made more than people looking for gold, i.e. valuable NFT's and cryptos being "gold" here)
Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap
#127Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
This isn’t necessarily true: if the subsidies spread clean power generation then the percentage of miners that have bad environmental impacts will decrease over time. Also, since this would make relatively clean power sources cheaper, it would help phase out fossil generation capacity.
Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap
#129Regardless 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…
Isn’t his argument moot due to ethereum’s eventual transition to proof of stake
I’m sure Vitalik will deliver we just have to wait (skeleton meme). That is to say I’ll believe it when I see it.
Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The NFT is proof that you purchased the item, but it's not proof that what is in your possession is the the thing the NFT claims it is.