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Cryptography experts trash NFTs on first day of RSA Conference

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Re: Cryptography experts trash NFTs on first day of RSA Conference

#61

I don't mean to distract from the main conversation, but I want to talk about how insidiously evil it is that NFTs can be coded to send the original creator a percentage $ cut off of every subsequent transaction for all time. If that's not hard coding wealth inequality and a new class of asset owners, I don't know what is. This is disturbing, along with the whole thing itself anyway. Imagine if cryptocurrency started…

Moreover, how is this not just a form of DRM?

Re: Cryptography experts trash NFTs on first day of RSA Conference

#62
post #14

The NFT thing seems to be settling out. It's for collectables, like Magic, the Gathering cards. I've been following this because I'm interested in virtual worlds. There are at least four virtual worlds that use some kind of NFT thing to register land ownership. Nobody does much in those worlds, and the graphics aren't all that good. It's all about trading land and speculating in some minor cryptocurrency. The newest…

I see NFTs as more like a gimmick which reminds me of the million dollar homepage, but pretending to be more than what they are by associating themselves with "ownership".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Million_Dollar_Homepage

Re: Cryptography experts trash NFTs on first day of RSA Conference

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The people receiving royalties are the artists in these cases... This is just factually incorrect. I don't know why there's so much confusion here... it's the creator of the NFT that controls where the money goes, not the creator of the artwork. I don't know why people think that it's the artist that gets the money--that doesn't make any logical sense--how would a system like that even work?

The creator is almost always the artist. Provenance is what gives NFTs their value. The value of a Beeple NFT minted by a random user is $0.

The value of a Beeple NFT minted by Beeple is $0. The market just hasn't discovered that yet.

An NFT has no more value than a JPG.

I'll longbets anyone that says otherwise.

Re: Cryptography experts trash NFTs on first day of RSA Conference

#65
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The creator is almost always the artist. Provenance is what gives NFTs their value. The value of a Beeple NFT minted by a random user is $0.

The value of a Beeple NFT minted by Beeple is $0. The market just hasn't discovered that yet. An NFT has no more value than a JPG. I'll longbets anyone that says otherwise.

I would take a broader bet that is not tied to Beeple (i.e. that NFTs of significant artists will have long-term value in a similar manner as a painting).

Re: Cryptography experts trash NFTs on first day of RSA Conference

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people receiving royalties are the artists in these cases – instead of the record companies, instagrams, and etsys of the world. I fail to see how this won't be a net positive for wealth equality when we're shifting the advantage to those who have historically been taken advantage of.

This is not a property of NFTs, but rather of new, unproven technologies. If NFTs "make it big", there will be plenty of middlemen that spring up to "help" artists sell NFTs while owning the IP rights and collecting royalties.

Sure there will be middlemen trying to profit due to asymmetry of information / technical knowledge. But as technology marches along the barriers to entry of launching new things trends to zero. Smart creators are increasingly harnessing new technologies to cut out existing middlemen. Podcasts are a great example of this, anyone with a microphone can start an entertainment business now and collect money from direct relationships with advertisers.

Re: Cryptography experts trash NFTs on first day of RSA Conference

#67
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought this comment was a joke at first. What's wrong with creators getting royalties? Is there proof that artists are too wealthy (in general)?

Two things. First, in the real world, creators stop getting royalties after the item expires and goes into the public domain, and there's a pretty strong view that the time for that is already too long and the beneficiaries of that long period tend to be companies instead of creators. I would say that there is in fact a widespread belief that the heirs of Walt Disney are too wealthy, despite the fact that Walt himsel…

There's another thing you're missing: First Sale Doctrine. In the world of physical goods, once you've sold a copy of something, you have no rights whatsoever to constrain what people can do with that copy. Authors don't see a dime for used book sales, for example.

Re: Cryptography experts trash NFTs on first day of RSA Conference

#68
I was really hoping they were going to dunk on the technology itself, like how the media of the NFT is lost if the platform hosting it is ever compromised - only the meta data is stored on the blockchain.

Instead, they just attacked the contents of the NFTs, akin to my mom telling me my pokemon cards are a waste of money all those years ago. Value is only whatever someone is willing to pay.

Re: Cryptography experts trash NFTs on first day of RSA Conference

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is about as easy to enforce on the blockchain as it is in meatspace... All you have to do is "wrap" the NFT in a smart contract, then move the smart contract around. The NFT itself is not moving (its owner is the smart contract) so it won't trigger the fee.

Can you embed a smart contract in an NFT so that if you wrap or otherwise sell outside of the initial chain, it’s null and void and the rights revert back to the creator to auction again?

Good question, I'm not sure if you can programmatically check if an address belongs to a smart contract but it wouldn't be surprising if you could, and prevent transferring ownerships to those addresses.

Re: Cryptography experts trash NFTs on first day of RSA Conference

#70

I don't mean to distract from the main conversation, but I want to talk about how insidiously evil it is that NFTs can be coded to send the original creator a percentage $ cut off of every subsequent transaction for all time. If that's not hard coding wealth inequality and a new class of asset owners, I don't know what is. This is disturbing, along with the whole thing itself anyway. Imagine if cryptocurrency started…

Artist sells painting for $1k. Buyer then sells painting for $1M. Next buyer sells for $10M. Original artist only made $1k on a $10M painting. Shouldn't the original artist be able to participate in the upside of their creation? I'm not seeing the "evil" here. Just a way for creators to cut out the middle men. Or, just a different way of structuring a contract. There's a lot of moralistic FUD against crypto on HN rig…

Do you feel the same way with collectible cars? Every time a 69 Thunderbird is sold, Ford should get a cut in the upside? How do you feel about the inverse? If a painting goes down in value, is the artist on the hook for the downside of their creation? The answer is no, the creator handed over the creation on sale. Anything else would need to be hashed out in a contract which would drastically reduce sale price.
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