Cryptography experts trash NFTs on first day of RSA Conference

Because "the IRS" (not sure which jurisdiction you're in, but here in the US, it's actually the local and state government) is an entity controlled by elections that is obligated to spend its budget in ways decided on by elections, and therefore can reasonably exist forever. The royalties are not for the benefit of the IRS. A state or local government is sort of like an offline DAO, if you're familiar with DAOs. A producer does not live forever, and the producer's heirs get to spend things as they see fit.

Also, in many cases, the local government does not get a royalty on every sale - certain sales, such as to non-profits, do not get taxed.

First we had gold, and the Spanish looted the New World to acquire it and found themselves no richer. Then we had real estate mortgages and used deeds to estates instead of gold, and the speculators wrote up intangible asset prices as high as possible to get more money from central banks. Then we had digital gold, and no one used it because money is credit and no one wanted to pay excessive interest to internet goldbugs.

Ideally we would recognize that issuing money is a collective problem and attempt to fix our public money system, which is based on real estate mortgages.

We can fix it by recognizing that when a home has a fixed capital replacement cost of $150,000 and broker has written the comparable sales price up to $400,000 that it is not necessary to publicly guarantee the mortgages at the comparable sales price of $400,000 only the $150,000. Or to at least cap the public mortgage guarantees at double the replacement cost ($300,000) whenever the comparable sales price ($400,000) is greater.

It perhaps goes against libertarian sensibilities to claim that if the labor and material cost of the replacing all of the structures, fixtures, equipment, appliances conveyed with an estate is $150,000 and the comparable sales prices of $400,000 that the estate has 'intrinsic value' of $150,000 rather than just subjective value of $400,000. But with federally backed mortgages the $400,000 is not a long run competitive market value, it is a number which a specific set of brokers and banks have fixed upon which the central bank then commits to backing regardless of how they pick it.

Requiring loans which expand legal tender to be issued on at least half security of the replacement cost of non-obsolete fixed capital would be a reasonable short term reform to stabilize the public money system in case private crypto money doesn't work out.

Explain why -

Is this because you don't have interest in it, or do you have a true justification of this?

I'm willing to take this bet. Just like art, 99% can be bought for $1 at a garage sale, but there will be the 1% that has value to someone.

You are betting against the generation who spends massive amounts on video games costumes, and puts more value into their online image (instagram) than real life image, not finding value in a form of digital scarcity & status. I find that hard to believe.

For others’ benefit, Mt Gox (of Bitcoin fraud fame) was originally “Magic The Gathering Online eXchange”.

I have never heard this take before, you actually think it's evil? Insidiously so? I honestly can't even conceive of what your argument is.

First off, the facts are a bit off, NFTs cannot currently contain hardcoded royalties (or whatever you call it). Right now it is voluntarily paid by the marketplaces that sell NFTs. But I think at some point it will evolve to be guaranteed. Sort of.

But either way, if it's all transparent, then why is it evil? Maybe it acts as a deterrent of sales in the future, but I like that it can be controlled by the creator. It's everyone else's choice on whether to buy it, or whether that constitutes ownership. If you don't like it, don't buy it.

Evil? Really? I don't get it at all. Not one single iota. But, willing to hear your argument for that. "Hardcoding wealth inequality" is hardly an argument. It's not like there are a ton of people creating a new superclass of rich artists. There are a few, but that isn't the way it will shake out long term. At least, any more than traditional art.

Is all wealth inherently evil to you? Maybe that's your argument? I guess that's it?

On your "imagine if cryptocurrency started doing that", I am sure there are cases where this happens. ZCash is one where 10% of mined blocks go back to the original investors and founding team. Not sure how I feel about that, I do think it's high, but I certainly don't think it's evil. If people don't like it, they won't use it, and something will take its place. No biggie.