An NFT That Saves Lives • Hacker News Board

Re: An NFT That Saves Lives

#81

Post by CPLX » Tue, May 04, 2021, 4:36 PM UTC

purerandomness wrote: post #44

This is peak absurdism. Why not simply donate the money? How is this better than a Kickstarter? How many lives could pg have saved by donating the billable time it took him to write this post? It gets even better, from the NFT article: > • What about the environmental costs? > We plan to make a significant carbon offset to mitigate the environmental impact of this NFT. Within one week of the closing of this auction w…

> Why not simply donate the money? How is this better than a Kickstarter?

Because if you're PG and you do it this way you can have the money be added to the topline revenue numbers for a company you have invested in:

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/opensea/company_fina...

This is marketing for a YC company.

Re: An NFT That Saves Lives

#82

Post by liuliu » Tue, May 04, 2021, 4:36 PM UTC

yawnxyz wrote: post #64

nrmitchi wrote: post #25

I'm not sure why this is an NFT other than trying to capitalize on the current craze. NFT or not, a charity should still "issue a public report tracking how this specific tranche of money is spent, and estimating the number of lives saved as a result". Having decent reporting on how efficient your charity is feels like it should be basic table-stakes in order to raise more money in the future. Is this really any diff…

I thought they would create 100k tokens at $25 so everyone could donate, but also the value of the tokens could go up in the future. That would've been cool. But... no. It's a single token worth millions of dollars, so no one an actually participate, except PaulG himself

If it is $25 a token with 100k of them, these are not exactly non-fungible, isn't it :)

Re: An NFT That Saves Lives

#83

Post by TedShiller » Tue, May 04, 2021, 4:36 PM UTC

awesome, this is great, a good way to show off NFT's

Re: An NFT That Saves Lives

#84

Post by gowld » Tue, May 04, 2021, 4:37 PM UTC

8note wrote: post #32

advisedwang wrote: post #19

Is the donation still tax-deductible if you do it through a NFT?

Are purchases from charities tax deductible? I thought it was only donations

The amountyou pay in excess of the market value, is deductible as a donation. This is how charity auctions of commodities work. What's the market value of the NFT? Who knows?

Re: An NFT That Saves Lives

#85

Post by jonathankoren » Tue, May 04, 2021, 4:37 PM UTC

babyshake wrote: post #46

nrmitchi wrote: post #25

I'm not sure why this is an NFT other than trying to capitalize on the current craze. NFT or not, a charity should still "issue a public report tracking how this specific tranche of money is spent, and estimating the number of lives saved as a result". Having decent reporting on how efficient your charity is feels like it should be basic table-stakes in order to raise more money in the future. Is this really any diff…

It would make more sense to sell this as an NFT if it were paired with a thematically related artwork. A wealthy buyer would be able to display the NFT in their home and brag about all the lives they saved when they bought it.

How do you display an NFT? Isn’t it literally just a hex code, with actual asset hosted somewhere else, which is publicly accessible by everyone? I’m serious. Isn’t that all it is? A pointer to some other resource, without access control at all?

At least when I bought a beanie baby, I got beanie baby. NFTs always felt like paying money, then printing up the first picture of a beanie baby from a Google image search, and then trying to convince yourself that had the only one.

Re: An NFT That Saves Lives

#86

Post by joelthelion » Tue, May 04, 2021, 4:38 PM UTC

This is no better than uploading a PDF report on the NGO's website. An NFT does not bring any additional guarantees, adds a ton of complexity and most definitely doesn't save lives.

Re: An NFT That Saves Lives

#87

Post by tomhoward » Tue, May 04, 2021, 4:38 PM UTC

dvt wrote: post #60

Seeing pg peddle NFTs after a16z did it just a few weeks ago is kind of depressing. I guess Silicon Valley VCs must be really stinging about missing out on Bitcoin a few years ago. Not to mention that disguising what's essentially a money-making scheme as a benevolent donation is morally murky at best.

Giant assumption that Silicon Valley VCs missed out on Bitcoin. YC invested in Coinbase in 2012. Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures invested in 2013. You don't think their partners bought at least a bit of Bitcoin then as well?

Re: An NFT That Saves Lives

#88

Post by davidgerard » Tue, May 04, 2021, 4:38 PM UTC

y2bd wrote: post #61

purerandomness wrote: post #44

This is peak absurdism. Why not simply donate the money? How is this better than a Kickstarter? How many lives could pg have saved by donating the billable time it took him to write this post? It gets even better, from the NFT article: > • What about the environmental costs? > We plan to make a significant carbon offset to mitigate the environmental impact of this NFT. Within one week of the closing of this auction w…

Aren’t there NFT marketplaces built on top of (minorly esoteric) proof-of-stake block chains now? If they’re even going to humor the environmental cost, why not just use one those? Am I missing anything?

There are NFTs on those, but they suffer the problem that the currencies of the blockchains in question aren't very convertible from actualmoney. ETH is relatively convertible and can run NFTs, so they tend to happen there.

Re: An NFT That Saves Lives

#89

Post by chrisco255 » Tue, May 04, 2021, 4:39 PM UTC

y2bd wrote: post #61

purerandomness wrote: post #44

This is peak absurdism. Why not simply donate the money? How is this better than a Kickstarter? How many lives could pg have saved by donating the billable time it took him to write this post? It gets even better, from the NFT article: > • What about the environmental costs? > We plan to make a significant carbon offset to mitigate the environmental impact of this NFT. Within one week of the closing of this auction w…

Aren’t there NFT marketplaces built on top of (minorly esoteric) proof-of-stake block chains now? If they’re even going to humor the environmental cost, why not just use one those? Am I missing anything?

All the liquidity and capital is on Bitcoin and Ethereum (~$1.5T in capital). Ethereum is in the late stages of migrating to proof-of-stake. It will happen in the next 9 months.

Re: An NFT That Saves Lives

#90

Post by jayd16 » Tue, May 04, 2021, 4:39 PM UTC

bszupnick wrote: post #52

purerandomness wrote: post #44

This is peak absurdism. Why not simply donate the money? How is this better than a Kickstarter? How many lives could pg have saved by donating the billable time it took him to write this post? It gets even better, from the NFT article: > • What about the environmental costs? > We plan to make a significant carbon offset to mitigate the environmental impact of this NFT. Within one week of the closing of this auction w…

> This is peak absurdism. Why not simply donate the money? How is this better than a Kickstarter? This reminds me of the Ice Bucket Challenge for ALS. Does pouring a bucket of ice water over one's head cure ALS? Obviously not. Did creating a trend that went viral help take strides towards curing ALS? Yeah! According to Wikipedia[1] this meme brought $220 million to ALS research. So I'm not sure you can simply say "wh…

I guess you could say there's value in riding any flavor of the month. However, I think there are plenty of fads that responsible organisations should shy away from. The fact that something is gaining popularity is not an excuse, imo.