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NFT: even more deceiving

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Re: NFT: even more deceiving

#11

Post by galaxyyy »

kreas wrote: post #7
p4bl0 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very rare I wouldn't call it a "trend" yet. Also, I agree that using IPFS links addresses the problem of content integrity, but the link can still rot, and having to pay a centralized service to pin your data (even in a decentralized network like IPFS) does not solve the decentralization and disintermediation problems.

Link rot is definitely a fair point. I'm curious if there is a longterm way of solving this problem. Filecoin looks promising but I feel like that's just adding more complexity.

The surviving NFT projects that will require no active maintenance in the next 10 years will be the ones who fully dedicated to on-chain only (cryptopunks, chainrunners, etc).

Unless there is an active community that maintains its strength during market cycles (like BAYC), current NFT project death will be 95% over the next 10 years, just like a start-up.

Re: NFT: even more deceiving

#12

Post by qnsi »

superdisk wrote: post #2

The point of NFTs is to demonstrate that you have 30k to blow on something trivial. How many more articles do we need breathlessly trying to explain how they're technically stupid? I swear half of my Twitter feed is people that don't understand why they're popular and feel like if they can just use enough logic and condescension, then everyone will snap awake and the NFT craze will stop.

exactly. NFTs are one of the hacks for status. Somehow tech people would feel weird posting a photo on a yacht, but buying a jpg makes you cool.

Re: NFT: even more deceiving

#13

Post by riptheworld »

I agree that the current NFT ecosystem is a house of cards, e.g., the susceptibility of NFTs to link rot. That being said, I think the ecosystem will evolve to a having a more robust way of handling these things as it matures.

For example, rather than only storing a URL that points to the content, perhaps the token could also include a cryptographic hash of the original content? In the case of link rot, the owner could still provide evidence of ownership on the original content by proving that it hashes to the stored value.

There are probably better solutions as well (others have mentioned IPFS).

Re: NFT: even more deceiving

#14

Post by p4bl0 »

user249 wrote: post #9

People are misunderstanding decentralization. Sure we can talk about decentralized technology like IFPS, but we should also talk about moving away from centralized governments, banks and legal systems. Decentralization in this context means we can form our own social group, say a commune in the desert or a virtual group online that skirts the old school central organizations and sets up our own. We could conduct our…

You are kind of proving the point against which you are arguing here.

> If you don't honor what's on chain then you get killed.

This is exactly the kind of necessary third-party that I'm talking about in my blogpost. You ar not building a decentralized system. You just reinvented a worse centralized system and poorly used supposedly decentralized technology to achieve that.

Re: NFT: even more deceiving

#15

Post by Dma54rhs »

p4bl0 wrote: post #5
kreas wrote: post #4

"What is stored on the blockchain is most often a link to a web page[6] that itself points to the associated object. Here again, we have lost all idea of decentralization" No where in the article did the author mention IPFS ( https://ipfs.io/ ). The trend with NFTs is that the digital assets are stored on IPFS, typically through a pinning service like Pinata ( https://www.pinata.cloud/ ). With the asset being content…

It is very rare I wouldn't call it a "trend" yet. Also, I agree that using IPFS links addresses the problem of content integrity, but the link can still rot, and having to pay a centralized service to pin your data (even in a decentralized network like IPFS) does not solve the decentralization and disintermediation problems.

Why these platforms don't use hash of a file inside blockchain as bare minimum. Shouldn't be too expensive to store that data? Hash would represent the "original" no matter where is it hosted on the future.

Re: NFT: even more deceiving

#16

Post by kderbyma »

I agree with everything in this article. I do think is a solution though. It's a framing problem and a control problem, but I think there a way to solve a lot of these criticisms.

I see one such obvious way

Re: NFT: even more deceiving

#17

Post by xg15 »

riptheworld wrote: post #13

I agree that the current NFT ecosystem is a house of cards, e.g., the susceptibility of NFTs to link rot. That being said, I think the ecosystem will evolve to a having a more robust way of handling these things as it matures. For example, rather than only storing a URL that points to the content, perhaps the token could also include a cryptographic hash of the original content? In the case of link rot, the owner cou…

This might have the opposite problem:

Suppose you own an NFT of your favourite monkey JPEG. At some point however, browsers drop support for the JPEG image format because it is outdated and has long since been replaced by better formats. Of course you could easily convert the ape JPEG into an ape PNG, except the hash would still only be valid for the JPEG. Suddenly, it starts getting unclear what kind of "ownership" the token really represents: Ownership of the bytes of the JPEG file? The pixels on the screen? The "concept" of an ape with that particular outfit (whatever that should mean)? or just an URL?

Maybe you could solve this partially by defining some sort of "transform" operation which is documented on-chain? Something like "If I own token X then I can call external service Y to transform the token - after which, X will be destroyed and I'll own a new, different token Z instead" (i.e. one with the hash of the PNG instead of the JPEG)

That still wouldn't solve OP's problem though as that transformation would have to happen off-chain.

Re: NFT: even more deceiving

#18

Post by stnikolauswagne »

Dma54rhs wrote: post #15
p4bl0 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very rare I wouldn't call it a "trend" yet. Also, I agree that using IPFS links addresses the problem of content integrity, but the link can still rot, and having to pay a centralized service to pin your data (even in a decentralized network like IPFS) does not solve the decentralization and disintermediation problems.

Why these platforms don't use hash of a file inside blockchain as bare minimum. Shouldn't be too expensive to store that data? Hash would represent the "original" no matter where is it hosted on the future.

The way I understand it (and I might be totally wrong here) is that ipfs links do contain the hash of the file stored, so by putting an ifps link as the token URI you are both providing the content hash as well as a way to actually locate the content.

Re: NFT: even more deceiving

#19

Post by 8note »

advisedwang wrote: post #6
superdisk wrote: post #2

The point of NFTs is to demonstrate that you have 30k to blow on something trivial. How many more articles do we need breathlessly trying to explain how they're technically stupid? I swear half of my Twitter feed is people that don't understand why they're popular and feel like if they can just use enough logic and condescension, then everyone will snap awake and the NFT craze will stop.

It's not true that NFTs are only a status symbol. Firstly they are often pitched as an investment - something that will grow in value. Some folks are going to lose their shirts "investing" in NFTs, and I think that alone is reason enough to highlight issues with NFTs. Secondly there are other use cases already in use, such as Etherium Name Service, using NFTs as a DNS replacement. (although the criticism of this arti…

ENS sounds like it adds a weird requirement that your IP can only change when gas prices are low. If your IP gets issues and some new crypto dad is going, you've gotta wait to get your DNS working again, or pay through the roof to the folks who run ethereum.

Does needing to change you IP correlate closely with ethereum transactions being cheap that day or something?

Re: NFT: even more deceiving

#20

Post by 8note »

user249 wrote: post #9

People are misunderstanding decentralization. Sure we can talk about decentralized technology like IFPS, but we should also talk about moving away from centralized governments, banks and legal systems. Decentralization in this context means we can form our own social group, say a commune in the desert or a virtual group online that skirts the old school central organizations and sets up our own. We could conduct our…

I don't see why the cartel would stay on the chain if somebody scams them on it. It's easier to kill the scammer and ignore the chain
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