Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah, so in some cases you’re able to stuff an entire JPEG into the blockchain itself, I’ll grant that. In which case we move on to all the other problems. But For NFTs that are meant to be used in applications, I think my argument still holds. For fully disembodied NFTs where you just stuff a jpeg or it’s hash into a blockchain, my other complaint is that you’re just creating a speculative instrument that doesn’t real…
"my other complaint is that you’re just creating a speculative instrument that doesn’t really do anything except hope someone else will pay more for it." So like bitcoin? - The value is in what someone believes it is worth to be provably in control of a given asset. It also provides a great deal of social currency...certain NFT owners have identity wrapped up in them such that owning it extends social latitudes, as t…
Proof of work is far too expensive and wasteful, and the necessary private key discipline to not lose all your coins puts it out of reach of normies (immutability is a bug not a feature for normies), and it’s deflationary which discourages circulation, and it’s got high transaction costs and slow speed, and just massively inefficient. So it fails as a currency, which it was originally pitched as.
Lightning network papers over this (an admission of failure in many ways) but just trades off with new vulnerabilities and further degradation of the original promises.
Make whatever digital assets you want and attach value however you like but own up to the limitations and costs. And pay for your own negative externalities, don’t force them on others.
In most of these projects I feel like it’s the aura of blockchain that’s being sold and not the substance because the actual promises of blockchain (immutability, trustees, decentralization) are always undermined in some way. I wish people would just be more honest about that.