Live data from Hacker News

NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

seths.blog

371–380 of 786 posts

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#371
post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But with something like CryptoPunks you're essentially paying for digital beanie babies, which are worse than real ones since anyone can display and enjoy the image you paid for. It seems like the obvious counterpoint is that perhaps all of these “collectible” scarce physical things which are bought and sold for huge amounts of money (art, coins, relics, etc.) are in fact being used simply as a way to identify a un…

Also if anything is a digital beanie baby then so is Bitcoin, what’s the difference?

[deleted]

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#372

The huge USD value of this market seems odd. It either points to how rich these cryptocurrency holders are, or how illiquid their market is. It’s all very well having 18.78Ꮆ (gorgcoins; ~$687,441) but if all you can do with them is buy 18.78Ꮆ of Cryptotchotchkees then it doesn’t seem like such a big deal. I guess, if you’re stuck with an exit, what you really need to do is to make some kind of a market for some new p…

> ...stuck without an exit...

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#373
post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the artist signs the NFT to you, then you can't track resales. It will always be signed as belonging to the original person who bought it. So basically this "alternative" to NFTs would be impossible to trade. It blows my mind that people still don't understand stuff this basic.

The only reason for tracking resales is to prevent double-spending, in other words, to create a false illusion of scarcity. The whole thing is a charade.

We already have artificial scarcity. It's called steam. You buy a game in steam, you can't resell it. This allows you to resell the things you buy.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the artist signs the NFT to you, then you can't track resales. It will always be signed as belonging to the original person who bought it. So basically this "alternative" to NFTs would be impossible to trade. It blows my mind that people still don't understand stuff this basic.

And how valuable is that capability?

That's up to you. It could easily replace steam for me. Or digital audio purchases.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#375
post #91

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…

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…

It's also currently reminding me of the second-life land rushes from about that time.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#376

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…

> in-game virtual goods. But as certificates layered on top of collectibles... I'm not so sure. I agree - the problem with most NFTs at the moment is that you can't actually do anything with them, apart from trade them. There are games coming out now (e.g. Goal Revolution[0]) where your NFTs' properties (and, by extension, value) change based on what you do with them (how you use them). If the NFT thing is going to h…

Have you played Aavegotchi? [0]

[0] https://www.aavegotchi.com/

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The example you give - reselling tickets, is actually something that is directly something ticket sellers want to discourage, crypto doesn’t solve that.

If I’m in ticket selling business, if I can maintain a level of control with crypto I can, but back tickets and resell them, but most importantly I can capture any upside I missed by selling the tickets for too low of a price, and the purchaser resells the tickets for a profit given I get a cut of each and every transaction

How do you guarantee the person trying to get into the event is the owner of the ticket?

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#378
post #57
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Certificates still have the problem of who your trusted root is, and don't (by themselves) solve provenance issues - if two people have certificates for the same bicycle then there's no way to choose between them, whereas an NFT inherently has an auditable chain of custody going all the way back to the original issuer (presumably the bike manufacturer in this case) and digitally signed at each stage.

I'd love it if these industries/communities adopted log-structured distributed datastores with digital signing to track provenance of things without wasteful "mining". But the fact is that they've shown no willingness to do so, and it's a lot harder to bootstrap a system like this - if your system relies on a trusted root then you need the trust before you can start to develop the system at all, but users have no reason to trust the system until it's all fully running and proven.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#379

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…

> in-game virtual goods. But as certificates layered on top of collectibles... I'm not so sure. I agree - the problem with most NFTs at the moment is that you can't actually do anything with them, apart from trade them. There are games coming out now (e.g. Goal Revolution[0]) where your NFTs' properties (and, by extension, value) change based on what you do with them (how you use them). If the NFT thing is going to h…

So the best case scenario for them is to be a part of the worst type of video games? The pay-to-win/microtransaction sector?

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are we introducing scarcity to digital goods? That's not a good thing and shouldn't be praised! We rail against companies selling cosmetic additions to games. It doesn't add value. We already have "ownership". The legal framework of copyrights, purchase or goods, and licenses. NFTs are barcodes. People are selling cryptographic barcodes.

Here's my Mr. Brightside view of it, there is a Black Mirror-esque side as well as some humans build towards utopias and some build toward dystopias. I look at the quality of life and good side of things where I can. I agree with most of what you are saying but that is based on the current era. Created scarcity and exclusives are annoying but there are pros and cons. Putting value to something will create markets and…

Few things - I think the whole AR world could end up pretty sad. Imagine I go to a friend's house and all the art on his walls is mine? Like a world I've chosen where I'm not exposed to anyone else's tastes and choices?

That aside - isn't this all still likely to rely on something central? I mean it sounds like you're talking about something pretty close to Ready Player One (which was owned by a central corporation)? Any AR world (in order to be successful) is going to need a whack of capital (Google, FB, Apple) and then vested interest in making it successful/profiting from it - at which point why do you need a Blockchain to own items? If you were the corporation running it, wouldn't you just implement your own "in space" ownership? Not saying it's better or worse - just isn't that more likely?

Post reply on HN