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NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

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Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#421

Post by PeterisP »

nradov wrote: post #392
lugorrr wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"art blocks" had a trading volume of $100M last week [1]. And that's only one of the more notable nft projects. [1] https://nonfungible.com/market/history

Were those real trades, or just the same few people trading back and forth between themselves as part of a pump-and-dump scam?

To me the more likely use seems not a pump-and-dump scam but rather money laundering - get a plausible and legitimate money trail as "capital gains from digital art investment" from some dirty bitcoins coming in from, for example, a ransomware payout.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#422

Post by MintsJohn »

noiwillnot wrote: post #370
PeterisP wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People have been speculating on collectibles for thousands of years. Have they really? IMHO the whole concept of intentionally creating collectibles as a market started (and IMHO became possible) only after strict IP laws that could prevent anyone from making and distributing large quantities of items that should be rare by design. My favorite example is the fictional collectible card game Gwent in Witcher 3, where…

This is one of my main gripes with MtG. It just feel like a scam, a 90s loot boxes situation. I do not want to contribute to the business model, even if the product is solid. I will probably sell my collection and print some proxies.

Unlike NFTs there is at least a (physical) product.

(And even in the digital version, you have a limited digital item in a verified/trusted (digital) environment, backed/supervised by an entity (company). In crypto you're backed by a concept (an algorithm))

To me this whole crypto stuff seems like a bigger and better incarnation of the tulip mania (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania), very little crypto stuff /coins are backed by anything of intrinsic value. In a way it's the ultimate decadence.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#423

Post by neuralzen »

extr wrote: post #302
neuralzen wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But you can just make a new smart contract that does the same thing, no? Smart contracts themselves can just be copied. And saying that the "community" will take care of the fraud issue - isn't this a step backwards?

Sure, but it has a different address...there is no possibility of confusion. Something from the 1950s is not going to be confused with something from the 1980s, especially with a blockchain timestamp.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#424

Post by neuralzen »

Igelau wrote: post #301
neuralzen wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Funny how community came up in the article as one of the ways NFT is really just MLM...

Community comes up in every facet of life...what's your point here?

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#425

Post by Grustaf »

Can't we just be honest about it and say that NFTs are highly priced for exactly the same reason "tokens" were a few years ago? Or indeed dot com before that.

Mundane things become valuable when you link them to something new and hyped like crypto or the internet. It's as simple as that.

Hopefully there will emerge some meaningful use cases on the other side, in the meantime a lot of people will end up holding the bag.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#426

Post by chollida1 »

highfrequency wrote: post #311

There’s a lot of confusion here about why NFTs are valuable if the buyer doesn’t get to own the image copyright. This should not feel mysterious - NFTs are just like baseball cards. If you buy a Barry Bonds baseball card for $1,000, you don’t own the artistic rights to the image on the card. All you own is the card itself, which has negligible manufacturing cost. It would be trivial for any card company to produce a…

The one thing that gets lots in the card analogy is that 99% of cards will get destroyed and the ones that are left will mostly get damaged.

This increases scarcity in a way that just can't happen for NFT's, what would it mean for an NFT to get damaged corners?

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#427

Post by ThomPete »

imtringued wrote: post #398
eoo wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An NFT is a virtual title of ownership on a blockchain, that's it. You don't own neither a string or an image or a JSON. https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-721

It's actually simpler than that. It's just an entry in a database with your name attached to it. It's like an autograph. Why do database entries have value? Well, usually because there are processes attached to them. Often it is as simple as having a court enforce the process. I don't know why but the whole cryptocurrency space feels like a philosophical parody of the real world. Money without people. Contracts witho…

thats too simple, its more than that given some people attach varying value to it.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#428

Post by ThomPete »

WA wrote: post #340
highfrequency wrote: post #311

There’s a lot of confusion here about why NFTs are valuable if the buyer doesn’t get to own the image copyright. This should not feel mysterious - NFTs are just like baseball cards. If you buy a Barry Bonds baseball card for $1,000, you don’t own the artistic rights to the image on the card. All you own is the card itself, which has negligible manufacturing cost. It would be trivial for any card company to produce a…

NFTs are not like baseball cards. NFTs are a JSON string on a proprietary entity that point to the image of a baseball card. The image can be viewed by everyone. The bragging rights of owning a JSON string depend heavily on whether or not the proprietary entity will become the dominant player in the I own a JSON string -world. This also has zero to do with blockchains. The proprietary entity could've used any databas…

No thats confusing one possible technical implementation with the concept, there are other ways to solve that. Thats like saying a Picasso painting is just a specific canvas with som paint on.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#429

Post by Doxin »

Jyaif wrote: post #335
Doxin wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're both correct and underestimating how broken NFTs are. If you buy an NFT that gives you nothing except bragging rights that you "own" this NFT. What ownership actually means when devoid of the associated rights is anyones guess. Buying an NFT of a GIF doesn't stop anyone from using that GIF on reddit. No one is going around checking if posted GIFs have a matching NFT out there and enforcing property rights base…

I think you underestimate how important bragging rights are. That's the reason people purchase Rolex watches! And because you can't show off your Rolex watch in the online world, instead you'll use an NFT as a profil pic. I think it's hard for people that don't care about bragging rights / status symbols to understand NFTs. Conversely, I think that status symbols are a very important part of the lives of the people t…

I understand bragging rights, but it's pretty hard to brag with something noncorporeal. That profile pic? Anyone can use that, whether or not they own the NFT or not. Makes for some pretty poor bragging material if you ask me.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#430

Post by michaelt »

highfrequency wrote: post #345
WA wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NFTs are not like baseball cards. NFTs are a JSON string on a proprietary entity that point to the image of a baseball card. The image can be viewed by everyone. The bragging rights of owning a JSON string depend heavily on whether or not the proprietary entity will become the dominant player in the I own a JSON string -world. This also has zero to do with blockchains. The proprietary entity could've used any databas…

Surely the baseball card’s value does not come from the fact that you can hold a piece of cardboard in your hand. Whether the data representation is a piece of cardboard or a JSON string replicated on 10,000 Ethereum nodes or a tulip or a Venmo balance is arbitrary; it just matters whether a lot of humans are looking at the same thing. And for the time being, a lot of humans are looking at crypto ledgers!

> Surely the baseball card’s value does not come from the fact that you can hold a piece of cardboard in your hand.

No, but if something physically exists then it's possible for there to be originals and first printings, which can be finite in supply despite the ease of reproduction.

I can understand why some people might prize a 1987 Barry Bonds card over a modern reproduction, even if the reproduction is indistinguishable, because the 1987 version is older or more authentic.

But there is no 'original' of this comment - moving it from my computer to yours (and from your RAM to your screen and so on) inherently makes it a reproduction. There's no authentic-vs-inauthentic distinction to be drawn.

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