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NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

seths.blog

541–550 of 786 posts

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#541

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.

There's tens of millions of people that disagree with you regarding cosmetics in games. Gamers largely have disposable income and are happy that they can support their favorite game developers and look "cool" (show off their status) while doing it.

Cosmetics in games largely have value due to the game being online and multiplayer, which means NFTs aren't useful for them because there is already a central server to manage ownership.

They don't buy cosmetics just to show off their status, but to actually make their character look different when playing with a group of people who can see it. It's rarely "oh look - expensive" it's more "oh look - freaking Cowboy Ursa lmao"

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#542
post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you blow up the transaction limit you physically centralize the verification process. This is why you'd see miners gamble with sitting on a solved block and secretly beginning the next search, with a few seconds of head start, before announcing to the network, or skipping the inclusion of any transactions: because fractions of a second make a big difference. Bigger blocks propagate more slowly, and magnify the a…

> When you blow up the transaction limit you physically centralize the verification process. What numbers are you basing that on? Bitcoin is 1.5KB/s. A $10 vps is 80,000 times faster than that. > because fractions of a second make a big difference No they don't. The examples you are talking about are rare and have very little impact. If the entire network makes blocks once every 10 minutes on average, each miner find…

> What numbers are you basing that on? Bitcoin is 1.5KB/s.

You know you can't verify an incomplete block, right? If you think you can just plow ahead after getting the first packet... you are going to have a really bad day once the other miners notice that you can be fooled into wasting hash power on bogus headers. You know that blocks get announced by the miners after they solve the hash, in chunks that can be up to the max blocksize, right? For Bitcoin that is 1MB, for bcash it is 32MB. Imagine if NASDAQ offered two levels of service: one that put the FIX protocol behind a 1MB buffer, and the other behind a 32MB buffer - which one would be disadvantaged? Anyone sitting at the 32MB buffer would be getting their lunch eaten. This is about as fundamental as it gets, so you might want to do some reading - because you've clearly got a big blindspot.

> No they don't. The examples you are talking about are rare and have very little impact.

If you are talking about bitcoin, you are very wrong - it is a thoroughly documented occurrence, it even has a name: the selfish miner strategy. If you are talking about bcash, I dunno one way or the other - I don't pay much attention to the joke coins. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICBC48266.2020.9169436

> How long do you think it takes to send around 900KB ?

Again, you need to actually do some reading on how mining works and what the network propagation characteristics are. I really don't want to have this come off as meanspirited, but it needs to be said: you obviously thought you knew how things worked, and you obviously don't - I wonder how many people you've misinformed.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#543
post #138

Pretty bad take on NFTs. There are numerous configurations, networks, and commercial structures that can be created for NFT offerings that can mitigate "problems" described in the OP and accommodate for different tradeoffs. A simple retort would point to the many alternative NFT networks that don't use POW-based consensus algorithms or the NFT offerings that enable value add offerings very differently than purchasing…

> Evaluating the capabilities of NFTs against the value offerings of something like rare art is an apples to oranges comparison. Someone should tell that to all the artists who are selling NFTs with the implication that they're analogous to owning original works. I agree that it's apples-to-oranges, which is why so many people are appalled at the charlatans who are successfully selling these oranges as apples. > It t…

> How so? The assets that are "sold" as NFT are still hosted somewhere.

This is what I don't understand. It's like a baseball used in a World Series game and then signed by members of the team and the Certificate of Authenticity that accompanies it. The value of the CoA is when it ACCOMPANIES the baseball and authenticates it. I don't see how the CoA in and of itself has any value when the baseball is in someone else's possession.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#544
It is all about creating Veblin Goods [1] - where the price paid, and the obviousness of the price paid, is a key part of the asset, and have very different supply-demand-price curves.

Also, not far from Greater Fool theory of investing, which always ends well, ...ha...

[1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/v/veblen-good.asp

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#545
What happens when someone actually starts going after IP rights on these things? I suspect that's when the "popping" starts.

3D-ified pokemon card, no way the creator licensed the trademarked character or the copyrighted text: https://app.rarible.com/token/0xd07dc4262bcdbf85190c01c996b4...

Knock-off CryptoPunk where someone just ran a filter on the original image (that someone else "owns"), and apparently sold it for 0.11 ETH: https://opensea.io/assets/0x495f947276749ce646f68ac8c2484200...

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#546
post #295

NFT's are Bullshit: https://samim.io/p/2021-03-05-non-fungible-tokens-nft-are-bu... In Summary: 1. The NFT doubles down on the worst of copyright, the property metaphor, & tries to impose old ideas of scarcity & exclusion on the digital realm, where both are obsolete. 2.NFTs are an absolute ecological disaster

> tries to impose old ideas of scarcity & exclusion on the digital realm,

NFTs also impose the best aspects of physical goods. Namely that I can re-sell, trade, or borrow digital things as I wish. It’s an improvement on DRM in that sense.

GameStop can become a marketplace for NFT tokens for games. Better than Steam keys.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This same author can be seen here recommending blockchain technologies to the CA government here 404 page not found for me > If you're not willing to consider the hypothesis of value proposed by blockchain So, not even the value proposed by blockchain but the hypothesis of the value? What would those values and hypotheses be?

Search "govops ca kai stinchcombe" and you'll see the doc. > So, not even the value proposed by blockchain but the hypothesis of the value? Of course. This is a nascent and emerging market. To act as if this is anything but a hypothesis on what may be valuable is a lie. This is true of every emergent market ever. > What would those values and hypotheses be? See my other comments in this same thread if you'd genuinely…

> Search "govops ca kai stinchcombe" and you'll see the doc.

Did you read the file you're referencing? Let me quote it for you (emphasis mine):

--- start quote ---

Permissioned blockchains as a datastore

Solutions can be built on either open source datastores (like mysql or postgres), on proprietary datastores (Oracle), or on blockchains.

Our position on this topic is that the proof is in the pudding: let the bidders describe the system they can build and the costs, let them choose the underlying technologies they will employ, and let the state’s procurement officials select the most competitive bid. If blockchain offers an advantage, they will be well positioned to win in the marketplace.

Unpermissioned or semi-permissioned blockchains as a datastore

..., recall that the most complex and burdensome aspect of maintaining a non-Torrens ledger is preventing false data from entering the system. Absent tremendous progress in digital identity, we believe the types of title fraud commonly seen in the lived experience of the several states would be increased by such a system.

--- end quote ---

The only place he "recommends" blockchain is in (paraphrasing): "governments should not be afraid of new technologies, and new technologies like blockchain should also be proposed on equal footing as other technologies. However, all these technologies should be evaluated whether they have the potential to make search, record validation, or detection of error or fraud cheaper, faster, or more accurate"

> See my other comments in this same thread if you'd genuinely like to engage in discussion.

Others have already answered to that.

> The value is derived from the characteristics of the network protocols

Technology on its own has very little merit.

> These values are difficult to achieve without the protocol and that they will come to be highly desired.

Which values? If you're talking about "this is the proof of ownership", the entire value falls apart at the point of data entry (see the articles I linked).

> As a simple example, take the oft common hate for Google accounts being deserviced. A globally accessible, immutable ledger representation of a user account could be a theroetic start in the direction of mitigating the problems of thirs-party owned account data.

Riiiight. And what will stop anyone from not accepting your immutable ledger representation of a user account in a service? Just the fact that it's on a blockchain? In the form of NFT? How will this help you if you still can't access any services?

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#548
post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it sounds catchy to say that NFTs are an ecological disaster, but that statement is sensational and not accurate. NFTs do not cause carbon emissions themselves, just like you don't add carbon emissions by occupying a seat on a public transportation bus. The bus is doing its daily route and has a fixed amount of emissions per day whether it has any occupants or not. This analogy breaks quickly, so I wouldn't lo…

More accurate would be to say that NFTs are additional fuel for the ecological disaster that is ETH. Your analogy makes little sense in this context. Mining hardware will always run at 100% capacity, regardless of the amount of transactions, unless mining becomes unprofitable. The issue is, while the energy used by mining is not directly dependent on the amount of transactions, it is dependent on the amount of people…

This is only a short term issue. ETH is currently transitioning to proof of stake with ETH 2.0

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#549

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…

Looks like artists aren’t quite making money either:

https://twitter.com/isyourguy/status/1366176796996112385

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that’s what you want throw a “transfer” button on your site. There’s already a button to do this on the Ticketmaster app.

> If that’s what you want throw a “transfer” button on your site. Well when you buy a ticket from ticketmaster you can’t exactly dictate what features they offer through their platform...not to mention ticket master is a 3rd party service that they take a massive cut. blockchain is cutting these 3rd parties out in these use cases, allowing the event holders to easily mint the admission tickets and users take advantag…

>Well when you buy a ticket from ticketmaster you can’t exactly dictate what features they offer through their platform...not to mention ticket master is a 3rd party service that they take a massive cut.

Is this an argument? We're talking about ticketmaster moving to a chain, why can't we talk about them moving to a cheaper better service that isn't based on crypto?

And besides, crypto isn't free. The network takes a cut. Doesn't it cost like $20 to perform a transaction right now?

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