NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap • Hacker News Board

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#281

Post by gbertasius » Sun, Mar 07, 2021, 9:00 AM UTC

127 wrote: post #175

Why can't NFTs be done without a blockchain? Please explain. Just add multiple hash, public/private-key cryptography, downsample discrete cosine transform, etc. You can just create a file format and a protocol. Why do you need to dump tons of CO2 into the atmosphere just for this purpose?

You'd want some system of verification and notarization by parties involved. Analogous to real world where art is inspected, verified, and notarized. If you own the mona lisa you'd wanna be damn sure you have the real thing. Kinda like a certificate authority.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#282

Post by anonporridge » Sun, Mar 07, 2021, 9:02 AM UTC

quickthrower2 wrote: post #151

anonporridge wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh...no? These can trivially be copied (double spent), which means they're just as scarce as any digital data. Valueless without some significant proof of violence and hyper censorship ability enforcing copyright protection. The primary revolution of bitcoin was the invention of self enforcing digital scarcity.

Some company can run a DB to record spends. Why trust a third party? Well with any crypto linked to real world outcomes you need it trust a third party. Be that tether or some NFT hustler.

Because if I'm a rich person wanting to spend stupid amounts of money on some 'original' work of digital art, I don't want to trust a third party store the ownership records that could easily be corrupted.

The ownership record in a public blockchain can't be corrupted.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#283

Post by ashkankiani » Sun, Mar 07, 2021, 9:02 AM UTC

nerbert wrote: post #11

ashkankiani wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the point of this comment. It's almost schizophrenic in nature. Are you advocating for wasting energy by saying that wasting energy is fine because it's done in other places but not criticized?

It’s probably more like if we had a common point of comparison for all the energy spending points in our society we wouldn’t be focusing on blockchain that much.

Even if something like frozen desserts used the same amount of energy as NFTs, it's still not a good light for NFTs considering those frozen desserts probably support a large number of jobs, infrastructure, and at the very least some kind of nominal amount of calories (even if not very healthy ones).

NFTs might help some artists get money. That's not really as much of an impact.

So if we're comparing things, the full context needs to be included as well, not just some strawman of a magnitude.

And all of that being said, if the world decided that it would stop producing desserts, I'd probably be on board with it anyway, but the impact would be pretty large. If the world decided to stop supporting NFTs, not much would change (I suppose it could in the future, but based on their current trajectory it doesn't seem like that'll be the case).

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#284

Post by G3rn0ti » Sun, Mar 07, 2021, 9:04 AM UTC

The article references a fishy source for its claims of the „astonishingly“ high carbon foot print. That web site „cryptoart.wtf“ does not site any source on how it derives its carbon foot print numbers.

Probably, they are derived from the claim Bitcoin consumed as much energy as Argentina. First of all, NFTs are minted on the Ethereum blockchain where mining is still much cheaper. Second, energy usage does not simply equate carbon foot print which is a function of geolocation and hardware efficiency.

However, I found a nice peer reviewed article on the estimate of Bitcoin‘s carbon foot print: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S254243511...

It’s from 2019 and states that the whole Bitcoin blockchain emits the carbon dioxide equivalent of Kansas City.

I am not aware of similar analysis on Ethereum but I guess one could use the Bitcoin number and scale it down quite a bit.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#285

Post by NiceWayToDoIT » Sun, Mar 07, 2021, 9:06 AM UTC

So, lets think, we have following issues:

- Climate change

- Artificial general intelligence

- Biotechnology risk

- Ecological collapse

- Molecular nanotechnology

- Nuclear holocaust

- Overpopulation

- Global pandemic

- ...

Most of them caused by way we use our energy and time.

Oh, yes we also have excess of computing power ... hm what shell we do?

Solution: Let spend even more energy on large calculations in order to create meaningless random numbers.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#286

Post by raindropm » Sun, Mar 07, 2021, 9:08 AM UTC

>NFTs are going to be more like Kindle books and YouTube videos. The vast majority are going to have ten views, not a billion. It’s an unregulated, non-transparent hustle with ‘bubble’ written all over it.

Some people will called Seth have no clue about technology or don't know what's he talking about, blah blah, but I think this is more about human psychology & behavior(also, greed) than technology, like any speculation game. History will repeat itself regardless of technology.

My opinion about 'current' use of NFTs: what a useless way to use our world's power. But who am I to judge...

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#287

Post by cbovis » Sun, Mar 07, 2021, 9:11 AM UTC

drusepth wrote: post #261

supermatt wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing, but they can only sign the "first" once

If the NFT is just a pointer to a digital good, can't they have multiple "first" NFTs all referring to the same digital good?

Yes and no. If they minted multiple within the same block then yes. If not, then proof of first minted NFT could be verified by block height.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#288

Post by justincormack » Sun, Mar 07, 2021, 9:12 AM UTC

Puts wrote: post #265

JPKab wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was hilarious and well-written. I've become extremely alarmed at the number of completely non-technical people who don't know anything about how cryptocurrency works getting extremely into it via YouTube click holes. It's obvious that these NFTs are capitalizing on it. A guy I ran into at the hardware store today was talking to me and he didn't understand the concept of a cryptocurrency that has a stable value s…

Isn't it interesting though that the people who don't have the technical understanding of why most cryptocurrencies at the core are unsustainable, just as the housing market was in 2006 are still the ones making money on it? When betting in any market understanding people and psychology seems to be more important than understanding the product.

No, the price is going up, everyone on average is making money. In a bubble everyone tends to think they are very well informed and investing rationally and getting the psychology right.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#289

Post by TeMPOraL » Sun, Mar 07, 2021, 9:15 AM UTC

nandhinianand wrote: post #272

root_axis wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you disagree? If I profit X per kWh why wouldn't I burn as many kWhs as I can?

Because not everyone is the "economically rational agent" that just wants to maximize profits as much as they can. May be you disagree, and think most people are and it's strong enough to be a normal distribution. (I am not sure it is, but i sure hope it is not a normal distribution and there are enough people outside).

It doesn't matter that not everyone is a "economically rational agent". What matters is that there are some of them. People who will reinvest their profit into more mining, to profit more and reinvest it further. The people who are currently fabbing their own ASICs and setting up mining farms in places where electricity is cheap. These people left unchecked will, over time, suck up all spare electricity generation capacity and eventually outbid quite a lot of normal electricity use.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#290

Post by quattrofan » Sun, Mar 07, 2021, 9:16 AM UTC

Puts wrote: post #265

JPKab wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was hilarious and well-written. I've become extremely alarmed at the number of completely non-technical people who don't know anything about how cryptocurrency works getting extremely into it via YouTube click holes. It's obvious that these NFTs are capitalizing on it. A guy I ran into at the hardware store today was talking to me and he didn't understand the concept of a cryptocurrency that has a stable value s…

Isn't it interesting though that the people who don't have the technical understanding of why most cryptocurrencies at the core are unsustainable, just as the housing market was in 2006 are still the ones making money on it? When betting in any market understanding people and psychology seems to be more important than understanding the product.

"why most cryptocurrencies at the core are unsustainable" would you care to elaborate on such a sweeping statement?