Live data from Hacker News

NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

every.to

281–290 of 687 posts

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize that replicas are a problem in the real world art world as well right? In real world art this is resolved by proving providence, in crypto providence from minting is trivial, but you still need to prove providence that the minting was honest.

None of which in any way responds to what I said. NFTs, by design, have no fraud prevention mechanism and no mechanism for getting your money back if you were scammed. They allow for arbitrarily many tokens to be minted of the same thing, with no obvious mechanism for people to realize that's what's happening.

Smart contracts can and do limit the amount which can be minted. And fraud exists everywhere, regardless of institutional controls - this is where community matters.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#282
post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that I support NFTs much, but conceptually, how is that different than you buying a Marilyn Monroe from Andy Warhol and him printing the exact same Marilyn Monroe and selling it to someone else ? Hopefully in 2021 everyone would agree that the two are distinct artworks, even if the physical object is exactly the same to the human eye ; that's not what matters when buying art.

The Marilyn Monroes are still limited by the number that Warhol prints, and you have ownership of the print that you bought. Maybe it’s not as valuable as it would be if there was only 1 Monroe print, but you are paying for a physical object made by Warhol. If I understand correctly, an NFT is like if someone, not necessarily Warhol himself, sold you a note posted on a wall somewhere that said “You own Andy Warhol’s…

Fun Fact: Rodin was one of the first sculptors to take advantage of reproduction, as he employed craftsmen in his workshop that could build you a custom thinker that was 2 inches tall for a paperweight or another full sized thinker statue for your public park. These statues had his special patina added.

When he died, Rodin destroyed the recipes for his patina but the workshop, run out of an old hotel and eventually becoming the Musee Rodin, continued to make "official" copies. Thus there are 25 full-sized thinkers but only 10 or so have the patina, the rest being made after his death.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#283
imagine there was no dollar, no central bank. all we have is this public ledger with lots of tokens. some are stable and some are variable, some have cool art, some are ugly. That's what crypto is. The deeper you dig, the more you will understand. You can start with questioning yourself, what's money? how much is a gucci bag worth?

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#284
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This would have been more interesting if the author had traced where all the money being plowed into NFTs is coming from. Not possible to trace where the money is coming from. In fact, someone can "sell" an NFT to themself in a wash trade between two wallets they control. The last trade price of the NFT is now recorded as the transaction price, but it's possible that money never actually changed hands. Want to have…

This is what happens whenever you see a large amount associated with an NFT. I bet that the art market started like that.

Wash trading was a pretty common scam in loads of markets until it was regulated.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#285
post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I kinda dislike when people throw around terms like pyramid scheme and MLM. And specifically calling crypto a ponzi. Yes there has been ponzi schemes done with crypto. But speculative bubble itself is not a ponzi scheme. Pyramid and MLM are related concepts, and usually MLM is pyramid. That doesn't mean all pyramids are MLMs though. Same applies for other types of scams or structures.

Yes, but that may be nitpicking. The salient part is if it is a get rich quick scheme based on convincing people to join.

I know I'm a hopelessly naive hippy, but isn't there some option where we make our case by saying things that are true, rather than saying things that are untrue but alarming in the right direction? I feel like I personally would find online discourse much more helpful if we could do that.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#286
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you buy a Babe Ruth baseball card you aren't buying the rights to Babe Ruth. It's the card itself which is valuable, as a product of the context it was issued in. I don't know why that part, as it translates to NFTs, is so difficult for people to understand.

Because I can look at the baseball card. I can display the card as well. If you want to print out an NFT display that, go ahead but it's pretty meaningless.

You don't need to own the card to do that. Just google image search and look at your screen. If you like cardboard cards, print one on cardboard.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter is building exactly that apparently, you would get an ethereum checkmark next to your profile pic if that image is verified. There is definitely discussion happening on exactly your point, but i imagine there are options to combat the fake NFTs given that you can't fake a signature from a known public key. Given that there are so many NFT projects I speculate that the twitter verification will only happen for…

So we’re trusting a centralized service, cool.

I mean everyone can verify the ownership too since it's on the public blockchain?

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You could argue that one particular NFT is the official Picasso NFT because it was sold by the owners of the Picasso painting I’m pretty sure the analogy would be that Picasso himself actually issued the NFT. Anyone can “argue” that Picasso issued an NFT, but that’s just like arguing that your extremely skillful forgery is a Picasso original. What’s important is if it actually is an original.

With an NFT everyone has access to the exact same byte-for-byte copy of the art work, but one person gets to hold a special token saying that they have some special pseudo-ownership relation to it. So, a more apt analogy would be Picasso donating a painting to a museum, but trying to sell you a certificate saying that you own the artwork, but you're unable to move it to your private collection or gain any additional…

Your argument is about digital art, and has little to do with NFTs. No one is claiming that the owner of an NFT has different access to the piece of digital art itself, of course.
Post reply on HN