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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

#501

Post by ARandumGuy »

cle wrote: post #457
imtringued wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They have value because people agree they have value. Trusted third parties (like courts) help people come to that agreement, by providing transparent, objective processes to settle legitimacy and ownership disputes (in the happy case, in the not-happy case they use physical force to reach agreement). Personally I don't understand the controversy, blockchains are a different kind of trusted third party that also help…

The problem with using NFTs to verify ownership is that they actually make it much harder to resolve any disputes. An NFT can't be transferred or modified without explicit permission from the owner of the NFT, which means that any dispute is impossible to resolve without bypassing the NFTs entirely.

For example, let's say you have an NFT that represents something tangible (and not just some link to an image download). What happens if the owner of the NFT dies without setting up a way to transfer their NTSs? What if multiple, seemingly valid NFTs point to the same object? What if the NFT was never truly valid in the first place? What if an NFT is stolen?

In all of these situations, a third party (like a court) would have no actual power to fix anything within the NFT space. A hard fork is theoretically possible, but that becomes impractical to do every time someone has an NFT dispute. The only option is to just declare an NFT invalid. But if you have some third party that controls the validity of NFTs, then you might as well cut out the NFTs and just rely on the third party.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#502

Post by 3np »

seanhunter wrote: post #473
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #446

NFT always felt ridiculous to me, but I though I understood the mechanism: "it's like baseball cards but in the blockchain". This week I learned it's not. NFT are Non Fungible Tokens, which means tokens that can't be divided, unlike crypto currencies like Bitcoin that can be divided in Satoshis. So you exchange the totality of it, or not. Basically it's a unique number in the blockchain you change ownership by applyi…

Non-fungible doesn't mean something can't be divided, it means a specific one just can't be substituted for another one. An example: If I trade oil, one barrel of oil with a certain spec[1] is fungible with another barrel of oil with the same spec. If I sell you some oil you don't care which specific barrel you get as long as it's the same kind of thing. Likewise if you borrow 10 dollars from me you can pay me back w…

To make a parallel to the social media economy: upvotes are fungible, reshares are not

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#503

Post by jollybean »

highfrequency wrote: post #488
jollybean wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Surely the baseball card’s value does not come from the fact that you can hold a piece of cardboard in your hand" Yes, the value of the Baseball Card is derived from the fact that it actually exists. The fact that someone is arguing that 'The Baseball Card' is not materially different from 'a number' is really an interesting cultural phenom.

It is a small leap. The balance in your bank account is also a number without a physical presence. It has value because you can convert it to physical goods. The same is true of a Bitcoin balance.

Currency is a contract, it's inherently intangible.

Bitcoin is not a currency, and it's not used for anything, so it's a really just a number, that someone may speculatively want to pay money for, due to the fact a small number of other people will pay for it, but unless there's a more broad acceptance of it, the implied value will also fade.

If NFT's implied ownership of the Baseball card itself, I think this would be another thing altogether.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#504

Post by chinathrow »

Tenoke wrote: post #374
chinathrow wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not convinced. Art galleries are easy to launch, even in 500 years time. What you're describing is hard to do.

I can fork a centralized copy of a chain much more easily than I can start a gallery.

Sure you can do that right now. But my point was more: physical objects can be traded easily in the far future.

We can hardly rebuild stuff from source after 20years time, so I'm pretty sure you will not be able to revive long dead blockchains as easy as renting a space to trade physical objects of collectible value.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#505

Post by osigurdson »

chrisco255 wrote: post #399
osigurdson wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, this is helpful. I had a look at this link ( https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-721#simple-summary ) based on your response (specifically the json schema). Is it correct that the actual NFT is three strings: name, description and image? It seems that "image" contains URL that you mention. Is there any limit to the size of the NFT (i.e. could you save the entire jpg base64 encoded in the image field for exampl…

Technically yes you could use base64 as your url in the image field, however, I wouldn't recommend it unless it's an SVG or something small (a few KBs) since the metadata cannot be cached or asynchronously fetched by browsers on page load. So a massive metadata file could cause issues viewing your NFT in most marketplaces or galleries. There are other fields you can add to meet marketplace standards, such as OpenSea'…

Great info. Many thanks.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#507

Post by yawnxyz »

BukhariH wrote: post #455
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #446

NFT always felt ridiculous to me, but I though I understood the mechanism: "it's like baseball cards but in the blockchain". This week I learned it's not. NFT are Non Fungible Tokens, which means tokens that can't be divided, unlike crypto currencies like Bitcoin that can be divided in Satoshis. So you exchange the totality of it, or not. Basically it's a unique number in the blockchain you change ownership by applyi…

Not quite right. The assets aren’t necessarily stored on OpenSea. You can see how OpenSea gets the metadata like asset url via the docs: https://docs.opensea.io/docs/metadata-standards If you scroll down you’ll see that the assets can be hosted on decentralised networks too like IPFS. Also, not all NFT projects are built the same. I suggest you check out Pak’s Poets project - it’s a very exciting piece of performance…

I was surprised you could just store the NFT payload in a Dropbox folder... and also swap out the contents whenever you want.

Buyer beware, I guess

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#508

Post by barrenko »

Doxin wrote: post #249
t_akosuke wrote: post #242

Ok, let's see if I'm following the discussion right. let's say you buy an NFT for using a GIF of the Techno Viking, from the Viking himself, and Reddit verifies it. Now you are the only person on Reddit that can have a Techno Viking GIF signature, yippee! Except I can make a new NFT of the same GIF and nothing in the NFT itself betrays that it wasn't issued by the real Techno Viking, so it's up to him, Reddit and you…

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…

You're married.

You don't own him / her, but people still brag about it and it's a frequent rite.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#509

Post by houseofzeus »

bvaldivielso wrote: post #482
jameshart wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Surely the baseball card’s value does not come from the fact that you can hold a piece of cardboard in your hand. Oh but surely it does. Cardboard is fragile, and degrades if not looked after. Over time, the average condition of cardboard cards will deteriorate. So, if you own a baseball card in good condition, and can look after it better than the average, over time you will end up with one of an increasingly rare…

I think placing the value of baseball cards on the fact that they are made out of cardboard is mostly trying to rationalize a preconceived notion that baseball cards make sense whereas NFTs don't. But even then, similar dynamics to the one you mention also apply in the NFT world: people lose the keys to their wallets. In that sense, the NFT completely degraded. This will probably happen to many NFTs as has happened t…

This is about where I got to when pondering this with regards to NBA Top Shot:

1. Is it irrational to pay large sums of money to collect NFTs? Yes. 2. Is it irrational to pay large sums of money to collect physical cards? Also yes.

Regardless, we humans are weird and will do it anyway.

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