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NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

seths.blog

751–760 of 786 posts

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because you aren't adding the human perspective into the equation. Who is doing the scamming and why?

a16z? They "Why" being massive financial return. The most charitable interpretation is that it's a way to reward artists for creating digital art in a new way. The HN article for this comment thread shows the risk here though. If the monetary incentives become pushing these tokens, then the most successful 'creators' will be the people that can maximize getting people to pay for these dumb tokens. The incentives are…

Pokemon cards, collectors card, Fortnite skins, art, watches and I could go on. All these and many many more things are thing people pay money for without any conspiracy behind.

These tokens are already diversified beyond anyones control.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#752

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 also suffer from the same attribution issues as traditional certificates for collectibles. You still have to validate that whichever account 'minted' the NFT was actually controlled by the creator of the collectible at that time.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#753

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a16z? They "Why" being massive financial return. The most charitable interpretation is that it's a way to reward artists for creating digital art in a new way. The HN article for this comment thread shows the risk here though. If the monetary incentives become pushing these tokens, then the most successful 'creators' will be the people that can maximize getting people to pay for these dumb tokens. The incentives are…

Pokemon cards, collectors card, Fortnite skins, art, watches and I could go on. All these and many many more things are thing people pay money for without any conspiracy behind. These tokens are already diversified beyond anyones control.

Arguably in app purchases have already corrupted a lot of the game space into slot machines.

Tokens take that a step further and make it worse.

Incentives create the world. On one side you have Apple Arcade trying to align incentives for a better global outcome/end state. On the other you have in-app purchases, loot boxes, and NFTs - trying to maximize profit for the house.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#754

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a usecase can exist outside of the law So, let me get this straight: you have an NFT that represents the deed for a vehicle, but the law does not recognize the NFT as the deed for the vehicle... if you don't see any problems with that, boy do I have a bridge to sell you.

Let me reprharse this. You have a piece of paper that represents the deed for a vehicle, but the law doesn't recognize the "paper" as the deed for the vehicle...(this during the time of clay tablets) Was that clear? or do you still have that bridge for sale?

You're missing the point. A deed is only as good as the legal framework that enforces it as a representation of ownership rights. The thing that matters is that framework, not the technology use to implement it.

There are people who sell deeds to land on the moon (https://lunarland.com/), but they're worth little more than the paper they're printed on, because they have some of the same deficits in legal recognition that NFTs have. Those people have no more ability to will their certificates into having legal force than NFT advocates have.

In short, an NFT is little more than a trading card (representing only itself) unless a court would side with the possessor of an NFT against competing claims for whatever property it's suppose to represent (e.g. transferring ownership of the property/rights to party A using traditional means AND transferring the NFT to party B). If the court picks party A, the NFT meant nothing.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#755

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me reprharse this. You have a piece of paper that represents the deed for a vehicle, but the law doesn't recognize the "paper" as the deed for the vehicle...(this during the time of clay tablets) Was that clear? or do you still have that bridge for sale?

You're missing the point. A deed is only as good as the legal framework that enforces it as a representation of ownership rights. The thing that matters is that framework, not the technology use to implement it. There are people who sell deeds to land on the moon ( https://lunarland.com/ ), but they're worth little more than the paper they're printed on, because they have some of the same deficits in legal recognitio…

Oh god, why??

I made a point, which you missed and you're telling me that I missed your point? seriously?

I'm just telling you that this technology is suitable for doing the job of a paper-title, but in a digital way. Is it that hard?

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#756
post #609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire point of NFTs is that you can attach a verifiably limited supply to a set of collectables. Just like with their real world counterparts, you can have knock-offs and reproductions that people collect, but the owner of the actual original one knows they have something of a limited set.

When beanie babies have limited supply, it's because the factory has to manufacture other goods for their next contract. When imaginary cryptohashes have limited supply, it's kind of pointless, or at least there is nothing good for the buyer or society.

There are plenty of products where scarcity is intentionally created, though. Disney DVDs are a prime example.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#757
post #408
post #300

Has anyone done an analysis of NFTs being used for money laundering? Seem like they'd have most of the benefits of art plus most of the benefits of crypto. I suspect NFTs will continue gaining in popularity, if only for this alone.

Why? Trading histories for NFTs are usually fully public. There are so many other things like ponzi smart contracts that move millions every day that using NFTs doesnt sound so appealing

1. Buy NFT with clean funds

2. Bid 10-100x price on NFT with dirty funds, buy it

3. Clean fund account gets a big multiplier on funds in a "clean" way

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#759

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pokemon cards, collectors card, Fortnite skins, art, watches and I could go on. All these and many many more things are thing people pay money for without any conspiracy behind. These tokens are already diversified beyond anyones control.

Arguably in app purchases have already corrupted a lot of the game space into slot machines. Tokens take that a step further and make it worse. Incentives create the world. On one side you have Apple Arcade trying to align incentives for a better global outcome/end state. On the other you have in-app purchases, loot boxes, and NFTs - trying to maximize profit for the house.

again you cant take the human minds tendency to attach value to things in their life and to operate in hierarchies. NFTs were inevitable as tokens of value because they function as physical objects. You can say thats a scam but all ypu are saying is that you dont yet attach value to NFTs. Anecdotes are not the way to validate your claim though.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#760
post #743

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure about your definition for long term. TCP/IP looks pretty solid to me. NFT is basically TCP/IP with memory, why shouldn't that be useful for all sorts of things? Bitcoin is more like gold, NFTs are more like network based consensus validation of ownership.

Right, but unlike TCP/IP, which is a stateless protocol, the validation of an NFT requires a specific blockchain. While Bitcoin and Ethereum seem to be “here to stay”, they both seem under constant competitive pressure from other blockchains.

Silver and gold live side by side.
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