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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

#261

Post by ses1984 »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #176
ses1984 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not really following you. The appeal of an nft is that it doesn't rely on a saas, it doesn't rely on a trusted third party that needs up time that needs to be available in the future. Jacob Collier tried to sell an nft that granted lifetime access to his concerts. The appeal of such an nft is that it can be traded independently of any third party, on the open market. Of course it depends on Jacob's promise to ho…

Most NFTs depend on trusted third parties to determine what they even are . Collier’s proposal makes a lot more sense; a promise to grant specific rights to the holder of a specific token really does make the token valuable. But in the typical case, an NFT is really just a dangling pointer to some content (encoded in the Ethereum blockchain to varying degrees of completeness). Nothing stops me from minting copies of…

You can't mint a copy of Collier's NFT because if you show up at Collier's concert with SpicyNFT they'll turn you away.

The arguments about SpicyNFTs is just kind of a distraction. It would be like if I argued against banks by saying, I could hang a shingle, accept deposits, and then just run with the money.

Do we really need to enumerate all the possible ways that a new, very limited, technology can be misused? We might be here a while, I'm pretty sure there are infinitely many ways that NFTs can be abused.

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

#262

Post by phroobster »

TomSwirly wrote: post #239
phroobster wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a lot of work. Not sure why you think that is superior to simply using a blockchain.

Because a blockchain is far, far, far more expensive in terms of computing resources.

Only if it’s a Proof of Work blockchain. Ethereum is what is mainly used for NFTs and it’s in the process of migrating to Proof of Stake.

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

#263

Post by koffiezet »

flycaliguy wrote: post #251
koffiezet wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the problems is that by definition, digital assets can be replicated at a virtual zero-cost. There is no "original" copy to be owned, since a digital asset that is uploaded is already a copy of a copy of a copy of some bits. If it happens to be an image or movie, and you open it in your browser, you're already looking at a copy. A baseball card that was produced in the 60's cannot be reproduced atom-for-atom.…

What if in the future we have virtual reality merging more into our lives. In that world it would be different, having the real deal asset would be valuable.

Only of someone artificially limits the "supply" and the use.

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

#264

Post by skyzadev »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #124
skyzadev wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private keys are what's stopping other people from selling unauthentic NFTs for the same thing.

Private keys don't verify that an NFT was authorized by the owners of the painting. You're still relying on real-world trust and claims that the NFT you're buying was the "real" NFT. If the owners of the Banksy came out a few days later and claimed that someone else sold a fake Banksy NFT, but they're now going to sell the real NFT, the private keys won't help.

I am not sure why I got down votes here. If you are buying a NFT for an artwork that is not confirmed to have been created by the author of that artwork then surely you are just stupid?

Only Banksy can mint an NFT for his artwork for it to be of ANY value. The same way that only Banksy can create Banksy art.

Public-private key encryption is how you verify that something was signed by the original author.

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

#265

Post by manojlds »

setpatchaddress wrote: post #218
manojlds wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But NFTs can also be for digital items, which is where I was first introduced to them - like cryptokitties and other games.

In games, you have the thing of value itself. It’s not an NFT just because it’s digital.

But how do you sell it to someone else?

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

#266

Post by skyzadev »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #96
skyzadev wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems plausible if you can cover all traces of where your crypto came from, and considering NFTs stay unregulated by legislation/governments. If NFTs remain a thing after all the hype & fake demand fades then I am sure regulation for NFT purchases will come into effect to combat such practices.

Letting people in law enforcement, and the banks deputized by the AML enforcement agencies, monitor all private financial interactions, in a warrantless dragnet manner, to make a 1% dent in crime [1], is a terrible trade-off. [1] https://www.ledgerinsights.com/anti-money-laundering-has-les...

Today it's really hard to exchange crypto for fiat without proving your identity first.

Seeing as NFTs are in the same space, I can imagine similar regulations will get enforced for NFC market places.

As for the effectiveness of such measures, well, that is another discussion for another time!

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

#267

Post by Rule35 »

twic wrote: post #187
pessimizer wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is that people believe NFTs are something other than that, so they buy them. Imagine there was a news story every morning about somebody different buying a gag bill for millions of dollars whose only important quality was that it would be very difficult to forge another. Literally the same situation. But also literally the art market, so there's that.

Physical art at last has the property that you can look at it and enjoy it, and that only the person who possesses it can decide who gets to do that. How much of art's value stems from that enjoyment? You're right, probably a negligible amount. For investors, the only important property of physical art is that it's extremely hard to forge.

And yet people report less enjoyment from looking at art if they think it's a reproduction or forgery, even if they're told it's so close to identical that it fooled the experts.

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

#268

Post by CryptoPunk »

skyzadev wrote: post #266
CryptoPunk wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Letting people in law enforcement, and the banks deputized by the AML enforcement agencies, monitor all private financial interactions, in a warrantless dragnet manner, to make a 1% dent in crime [1], is a terrible trade-off. [1] https://www.ledgerinsights.com/anti-money-laundering-has-les...

Today it's really hard to exchange crypto for fiat without proving your identity first. Seeing as NFTs are in the same space, I can imagine similar regulations will get enforced for NFC market places. As for the effectiveness of such measures, well, that is another discussion for another time!

NFTs aren't money, by definition (they are literally called non-fungible tokens, and money, by definition, is fungible). From a financial perspective, buying/selling them is no different than buying/selling traditional art work, and thankfully there are no AML/surveillance law requirements to report these types of transactions to the government.

So sorry, there will be no warrantless mass-surveillance/KYC of NFT transactions that unmasks the parties to the transactions.

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