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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

#521

Post by Traster »

int_19h wrote: post #512
seanhunter wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So you can split NFT tokens and e.g. resell them separately?

Oh do I have a scam for you! So, no, obviously you can't divide an NFT, but what you can do is create a new fungible token (or smart contract not sure about the exact details) that represents partial ownership of the NFT. So you can issue 1000 of these fungible tokens that represent partial ownership of the NFT.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#522

Post by BiteCode_dev »

Alex3917 wrote: post #493
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…

> The platform disappears, or bans you, or changes policy, or is blocked, or whatever, and your NFT is back to being a bare-bone blockchain contract number and a token id. So what? You can obviously right click to save the JPEG, so if the platform goes down it doesn't really matter. What you're buying is ownership of the NFT of the JPEG, not the JPEG. Even if the platform goes down, you'll still be able to see the na…

No because the nothing link the contract to that jpeg anymore.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#523

Post by bart_spoon »

jameshart wrote: post #481
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…

So I do wonder whether the NFT divide (between people who get it and people who don’t) might be a generational split, related to a larger societal shift away from ‘owning things’. We’ve definitely passed ‘peak thing ownership’. For those of us old enough to have grown up with the idea of ‘buying a book’, ‘buying a toy’, ‘buying a CD’ or ‘buying a magazine’ we have a particular mental framework for ‘owning’ stuff. But…

Not really, because there is still no utility in owning the rights to an NFT.

I've only ever seen two kinds of interest expressed in NFTs.

The first is immensely wealthy people who are looking for a trendy way to flaunt their wealth, because they've exhausted all traditional options. This is what leads someone to pay $3M to "own" the first tweet.

The second is people who aren't immensely wealthy but are hoping they will become so by buying/minting an NFT and selling it for an huge profit, presumably to someone from the first group (or a sucker from the second). This makes up the majority of NFTs by volume, and is where the pyramid scheme similarities become hard to dismiss.

Haven't seen anything resembling a third kind of interest that, under scrutiny, doesn't ultimately fall into one of these two groups.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#524

Post by m_ke »

qeternity wrote: post #487

I've read a lot of very well meaning, starry-eyed opinions of NFTs and to be honest, most of what is claimed is true. But it belies the pragmatic reason that NFTs are popular: mass speculation. People have been collecting things for years, often at prices that make outsiders scratch their heads. The difference is that the current mainstream hype around NFTs has nothing to do with the true fandom of collectibles of ye…

It's also market manipulation. Most of the celebrities are just hypemen who get a cut for helping someone sitting on a ton of crypto pump NFTs and then dump them on idiots who bought into the get rich quick hype.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#525

Post by int_19h »

paxys wrote: post #313
jayd16 wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to first know which public key is genuine.

Well blockchains aren't trying to solve the digital identity problem. Artists can share their public key however they like.

It seems like the digital identity problem is fundamental to actually do what NFTs claim to do, though.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#526

Post by Buttons840 »

tnzm wrote: post #456
Buttons840 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I have a NFT concert ticket, how do I get into the concert? What do the people at the gates do to determine that I may enter? Do I print a piece of paper? Do I show them a picture on my phone or something? Can't the previous owners of the NFT show the same picture? Can't anyone show the same picture on their own phone?

Two QR codes: one of the ticket's public key, and one of your public key. Their infrastructure verifies that you're the current owner and you're in. Or just have your phone broadcast the public keys via radio to a turnstile.

I don't think that will work. My public key is public. The ticket's public key is public. Right?

Thus, anyone can make QR codes that show the 2 public keys. It's trivial. This is the "showing a picture" scenerio I mentioned above. Anyone can show the right picture, especially since the picture that needs to be shown is public information.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#527

Post by ninjaranter »

int_19h wrote: post #512
seanhunter wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So you can split NFT tokens and e.g. resell them separately?

Highly recommend this Matt Levine article on how ludicrous that is

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2021-09-09/money-...

> Imagine writing the investment memo for “20% of a picture of a dog” and being like “the most we should pay is probably about $2 million because the whole picture of the dog sold for $4 million three months ago and it can’t realistically have appreciated more than 150% since then; even if the whole picture of the dog is worth, aggressively, $10 million, this share would be worth $2 milllion.”

> One model here is that everyone on earth wants to pay $4 million for a unique picture of a dog, so if you make one unique picture of a dog and sell it for $4 million you’ll get $4 million but if you cut it into 17 billion slices each one will sell for $4 million?

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#528

Post by LudwigNagasena »

jameshart wrote: post #481
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…

So I do wonder whether the NFT divide (between people who get it and people who don’t) might be a generational split, related to a larger societal shift away from ‘owning things’. We’ve definitely passed ‘peak thing ownership’. For those of us old enough to have grown up with the idea of ‘buying a book’, ‘buying a toy’, ‘buying a CD’ or ‘buying a magazine’ we have a particular mental framework for ‘owning’ stuff. But…

It seems to be exactly the opposite. In digital age you can consume stuff without buying anything and people care less about ownership per se, but "people who don't get it" buy stuff like NFT.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#529

Post by dnautics »

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…

I kinda hate NFTs: But, the analogy to a "certificate of authenticity" for "real pieces of art" or "memorabilia" is reasonable. It's not "actually the art".

the "centralized platform" blocking you is kind of immaterial. The point is that other people can see that the token matches. Though one difference from CoAs is that the "centralized platform" could remove the art. I don't know how opensea works, but one could in theory hash the digital content, drop it onto bittorrent (or whatever, use the bittorrent hash id) and lock that up with the token. Is that how opensea works?

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#530

Post by int_19h »

Godel_unicode wrote: post #216
X6S1x6Okd1st wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the community cares they'll try and find out people that do that and blacklist them. hicetnunc does that, it's the only one I could speak to. That's generally referred to as copy-minting. EDIT: here's the hicetnunc community write up for basic steps to minimize the change you buy a copy-mint: https://github.com/hicetnunc2000/hicetnunc/wiki/Beware-copym... !

This is a lot of words to say "there is by design no way to do that". DeFi systems are all designed around the unspoken (although sometimes spoken, honestly) assumption that rules are bad and that the system should make enforcing them difficult-to-impossible. A fun exercise is to consider, if all businesses went to using *coin overnight and one accidentally overcharged your wallet, how would you get your coins back?

I don't think that's an example of something unenforceable, though. So long as you still have courts and bailiffs, they can basically just force someone to make a transfer by threatening or employing violence.
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