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NFTs Are a Pyramid Scheme and People Are Already Losing Money

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Re: NFTs Are a Pyramid Scheme and People Are Already Losing Money

#31

Post by arcturus17 »

Havoc wrote: post #17
niahmiah wrote: post #3

It's stupid at face value. No pyramid required. You cannot intrinsically link real world items to tokens. The source of truth is the real world, not the token. Add an unlimited supply of unique things, and how could anyone expect to make money from this?

>You cannot intrinsically link real world items to tokens. Patents & trademarks?

Those are (a) very heavily regulated by definition and (b) means to an end, which is to create societal good, ie, foster innovation (I don’t want to argue whether that’s actually the case - I’m just taking the statu quo position)

Could one say the same about tokens?

Re: NFTs Are a Pyramid Scheme and People Are Already Losing Money

#32

Post by ohgodplsno »

antonvs wrote: post #22
ohgodplsno wrote: post #8

NFTs are paying for a signature in a blockchain that links to a random URL. If you're lucky, it's IPFS and it'll go down when people stop hosting it. If you're slightly less lucky, it's whatever platform you went through that's operating an IPFS tunnel because cryptobros can't figure it out, and it will go down whenever your flavor or the month NFT site goes out of business, which is any time between six months and 5…

Is it not possible to put the "owned" data itself on the NFT blockchain? If so, that does seem like a serious flaw.

It _could_ be possible, although prohibitively expensive.

https://twitter.com/jonty/status/1372163423446917122 for more context.

Re: NFTs Are a Pyramid Scheme and People Are Already Losing Money

#33

Post by olouv »

benrbray wrote: post #27
luka-birsa wrote: post #12

So basically: NFTs are a scam since the early adopters are not very good artists. And there is no unique value in them since its just Pepe memes, which are stupid to be NFTed, since it's just Gifs? Oh and let's not forget about the Ethereum fees and how shitty the tech is. This really reminds me on how everybody perceived internet in early noughties, when everybody was telling me it's shit and it will never ammount t…

ELI5: What can NFT achieve that a combination of Twitter + public key cryptography cannot achieve? As far as I can tell the only benefit is "decentralization" and just like BTC, the average user is beholden to bank-like entities for all their transactions anyway, so you get all the cons of existing monetary systems without the insurance.

trading?

Re: NFTs Are a Pyramid Scheme and People Are Already Losing Money

#34

Post by PragmaticPulp »

ddeyar wrote: post #16
niahmiah wrote: post #3

It's stupid at face value. No pyramid required. You cannot intrinsically link real world items to tokens. The source of truth is the real world, not the token. Add an unlimited supply of unique things, and how could anyone expect to make money from this?

So you say that ownership should be kept in physical contracts? There are usecases when you are the owner of something which is not in your physical possession. I don't care about that NFT stuff, collectible can make sense or not. What bothers me is to do it with so much energy consumption. When you are attracted to lose money, then just do it environment friendly. https://medium.com/tqtezos/proof-of-work-vs-proof-of…

NFTs don’t sell ownership. They sell NFTs.

It’s like creating a contract that sells the contract itself. Then maybe you stamp a photo of Michael Jordan on the cover and call it a Michael Jordan contract, even though the contract doesn’t give the buyer any rights to anything Michael Jordan related, except the contract itself.

Then you can go out and make more Michael Jordan contracts, because there’s nothing in the first contract stopping you from making more.

So yes, actual ownership must be done with real physical contracts still if you want to enforce things in the real world. NFTs can only enforce things within the NFT itself, which is useless for real-world ownership.

Re: NFTs Are a Pyramid Scheme and People Are Already Losing Money

#35

Post by Nextgrid »

niahmiah wrote: post #3

It's stupid at face value. No pyramid required. You cannot intrinsically link real world items to tokens. The source of truth is the real world, not the token. Add an unlimited supply of unique things, and how could anyone expect to make money from this?

> You cannot intrinsically link real world items to tokens. The source of truth is the real world, not the token.

This is also why every project do to X but with blockchain (like solving counterfeiting/authenticity, copyright, etc) is either stupid or a con using a buzzword to try and solicit investment or media attention.

The reason blockchains work for cryptocurrencies is because the source of truth is the blockchain itself. This breaks down in the real world where the state of the real world is the source of truth and you'd need a trusted, centralized entity to bridge the two worlds, but at this point why use a blockchain instead of a database if you're going to trust a single entity anyway?

Re: NFTs Are a Pyramid Scheme and People Are Already Losing Money

#36

Post by yrgulation »

Suppose I was someone with money to launder. I'd draw a cat's arse, and buy it with my anonymous BTC wallet "money". No one would ever know where the money come from, especially if I anonymise transactions with one of the many services (e.g.: from what i read, some buy mining services, pay with the dirty money and viola, "clean" coin, while other services just make thousands of transactions to distribute payments and lose one's trace).

If I wanted to be real clever, I'd buy Elon Musk's or Jack's NFT, and sell it for more because hey "it's made by someone popular" so its more credible.

That's one explanation I have for the crazy amount of money moving around NFTs. Sure there are naive people, or some genuine traders, swapping NFT but those are a small percentage, and as the quote goes: "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?". Literally 90% of the coins and NFT's i dug into have no application and look at least dodgy if not outright scammy.

I have no proof other than my observations, just adding my thoughts to the conversation. The "it's rare" and "non fungible" arguments don't really stand in my view. There is a ton of rare stuff out in the real world that's simply useless.

Re: NFTs Are a Pyramid Scheme and People Are Already Losing Money

#37

Post by delaaxe »

niahmiah wrote: post #3

It's stupid at face value. No pyramid required. You cannot intrinsically link real world items to tokens. The source of truth is the real world, not the token. Add an unlimited supply of unique things, and how could anyone expect to make money from this?

NFTs are not meant for physical items, they’re digital certificates.

People literally burnt a Banksy painting before auctioning its NFT.

Re: NFTs Are a Pyramid Scheme and People Are Already Losing Money

#38

Post by PragmaticPulp »

twic wrote: post #25
capableweb wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're thinking that the purpose of NFTs is to link real world items to tokens, you have a very weird view and would do you better to continue reading up on NFTs. In its most basic form, a NFT is simply a cryptocurrency token with the total supply of 1. Nothing more, nothing less. Anyone claiming anything else clearly don't know what they are talking about. The source of truth is the token, as it's only about the…

That belief is incorrect, but extremely common, so it's dubious to describe it as weird. Indeed, the fact that so many people hold that belief is at the root of the whole NFT situation.

Can you explain the correct version from your perspective? It doesn’t clarify anything if you just declare someone else incorrect but won’t say why.

Re: NFTs Are a Pyramid Scheme and People Are Already Losing Money

#39

Post by curation »

mc32 wrote: post #18
niahmiah wrote: post #3

It's stupid at face value. No pyramid required. You cannot intrinsically link real world items to tokens. The source of truth is the real world, not the token. Add an unlimited supply of unique things, and how could anyone expect to make money from this?

Pyramid scheme or Money Laundering instrument? In any event I can’t see authorities keeping a blind eye on this.

They keep a blind eye on superyachts.

Re: NFTs Are a Pyramid Scheme and People Are Already Losing Money

#40

Post by PragmaticPulp »

Zealotux wrote: post #24

An acquaintance of mine made 15k euros in 6 days with auto-generated artworks, he even made it to the local newspaper. I don't even know why I bother learning new frameworks and languages anymore.

Is your friend making that money on a regular basis? Or just once during a market mania?
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