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NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

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Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> low effort art will trend back to $0 This is being continuously disproved since decades by contemporary art.

Art is what people say it is. Its appreciation is what probably separates us from the animals and certainly separates us from the AIs. We say "Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder", because it's true. There will be no accounting for a persons own taste or for what society finds fashionable today or over time. If what you personally call Art and its story speaks to you then it is valuable. If others share that feeling…

Animals certainly appreciate beauty among each other[0] probably also in the environment[1].

AI can be trained to recognise and prefer beauty as well.

[0] http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150511-why-are-animals-so-b...

[1] https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/sir-david-attenboro...

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#392
post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It cant be artifial scarcity when there is endless supply.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#393
post #204
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol, you seem to be forgetting every other system related to and directly supporting payment networks, clearinghouses, etc... oh, and all the regulatory frameworks. And the FED :)

virtually all of those services will still have to exist under crypto. Regulatory frameworks will still exist, centralized entities will provide lightning channels to small-fry actors, firms will still host servers to execute trades based on the network, etc.

Yes, but they will be dealing with a currency that has mathematical guarantees - which changes things entirely. Imagine a scenario in which self driving cars are not only the norm, but they've achieved a perfect safety record due to an open source, formally verified, code-base. In that scenario, do you think the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration still needs 600 employees and a 900 million dollar budget? I have no doubt that it would still exist, but it would be addressing an infinitely simpler problem - and the reduction in resource requirements would cut it down to a skeleton crew that would operate much like stubcode in the wake of a refactor.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#394
post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can't resell a game in steam because Valve doesn't let you, not because the game is being made artificially scarce. Which it is, but this is not the reason you can't resell it. The point is that reselling an NFT doesn't require a central ledger. The central ledger is necessary to prevent the same token from being sold multiple times by the same seller. In other words, to create the illusion that the seller doesn't have something (and therefore can't sell it) when in fact they actually have it.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#395
post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, this idea has already been explored, eg. here is an example of environmentally net-positive way of mining: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-06/why-bitco...

I don't see it as a net positive unless you believe high energy cost crypto is of high value to society. You have a large environmental impact in building out and maintaining a mining facility and transport infrastructure thereto, as well as the ongoing waste all the way down to the food put into the pieholes of the humans running the facility.

Net positive means the benefits, ie. eliminating huge amounts of CO2 that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere, outweighs the costs, ie. your list of capex+opex. Turning gas flares into miners is both ingenious and objectively net positive.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#396

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.

The blockchain is only infrastructure. It is an open decentralized cloud for financial services/contracts. Sure vendors could also have their own service and marketplace but why should they. This way they just print and sell some NFTs and that's it.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#397
post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

What does the tokens even mean anyway? It doesn't mean "I'm the owner of this one in five paper canvas art", it just means "I'm the owner of this one number, which someone decided is related to that digital piece of art for which there can exist infinitely many copies that are perfectly identical". What does it even mean? Let's say I buy a NTF $1000 and get a digital copy, what prevents me (barring legalities) to per…

> "I'm the owner of this one number, which someone decided is related to that digital piece of art for which there can exist infinitely many copies that are perfectly identical".

Which the ARTIST has decided is a digital certificate for the price of art.

Just I could make a duplicate of the supreme brick, my duplicate wouldn't have as nearly much value if I tell people it is a duplicate. Supreme could sell bricks again but they probably won't. There's nothing physical that's stops them but there's still an implicit agreement between artist and buyer.

I may not wish to buy own a supreme brick, but I can at least understand why people find it valuable.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#398

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.

When it's owned by an external party, you might not be able to (easily) trade it. When it's decentralized, nobody can stop you from trading it.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#399

NFT: non-fungible token. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-fungible_token Expand your acronyms, peeps.

@admins is it ok to flag that article just for that reason?

No, the HN submission guidelines explicitly ask that the original title be used.
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