Live data from Hacker News

NFTs Are – Finally – Worthless

rollingstone.com

21–30 of 53 posts

Re: NFTs Are – Finally – Worthless

#21
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the article says that they have no value now. Someone is still buying and selling some of these things, for some reason.

Wash trading is another explanation. When the same person is buying and selling there is no real value being demonstrated.

Yes. Wash trading for the masses is the biggest innovation of NFTs. It is bananas how many breathless articles were typed and published about how today's crazy kids were buying stoner monkey pictures for $$$ without even a mention of this.

With Bitcoin or Eth or Doge or whatever, it's hard to paint the tape. You can't move the ticker by selling BTC to yourself at a high price, because your offer to buy it at that price will be rudely filled by somebody else selling their BTC, leaving you holding the bag. Since all BTC is presumed to be equally good you cannot selectively buy only from yourself. The exception to this is of course when you operate an exchange in which case you can fake whatever trading you like.

But with NFTs you don't need to be an exchange operator. Wash trading for everyone! Only YOU hold Bored Ape #1337, only YOU can sell it, so you can safely trade it back and forth between two, three, or a dozen of your own accounts all day giving it the appearance of value while losing only transaction fees. You'll never have your buy offer matched with another seller of Ape #1337 since you have the only one.

All NFT sales should be assumed wash trades without evidence to the contrary.

Re: NFTs Are – Finally – Worthless

#22
post #20
post #7

hmmm I'm not sure about this claim: I'm as surprised as you are tbh Exhibit A (15 hrs ago) sold for $81,187: https://twitter.com/DegenerateNews/status/170462244577940731... Exhibit B (21 hrs ago) sold for $162,795 USD: https://twitter.com/DegenerateNews/status/170453517598236304... Exhibit C (3 days) sold for $221,590 USD: https://twitter.com/DegenerateNews/status/170391046378291222... Exhibit D (4 days ago) sold for…

How do you know these aren't wash trades?

When nobody sells an NFT, "journalists" write articles like this one claiming their "market cap" is "zero dollars". When somebody does sell an NFT, shrug it off as a wash trade.

Re: NFTs Are – Finally – Worthless

#23
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money laundering is always in demand.

People always parrot "money laundering" when they see (what for them are) large amounts of money moving around. Can you explain how does one launder money w/ NFTs? Because it's absolute nonsense.

A wants to give a bunch of money to B for a reason that they want to remain hidden (e.g. a bribe, illegal purchases, etc.). So B puts an NFT up for sale and A buys it for an inflated price. Now B has a plausible explanation for the source of the money.

You can do this with other assets like fine art or real estate but it is a lot more complicated. NFTs are a simple way to launder money online.

Re: NFTs Are – Finally – Worthless

#24
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the article says that they have no value now. Someone is still buying and selling some of these things, for some reason.

To the above comment, we don’t actually know people are buying and selling these. It is also entirely possible these transactions are fraudulent (i.e. buy your own stuff to give an impression of demand).

I mean, I'm sure I will be dismissed since it's just my word and nothing else. But yes, people are buying and selling these, just not at the insane volumes as peak mania 2 years ago.

It's easy to dismiss these sales as wash trades, and I'm sure at least some of them are, but most of them are not. The NFT space has dwindled down largely to a a group of enthusiasts that like gamifying NFT mechanics, generative artists and generative collectors (no I'm not talking about monkey pics), as well as some people who managed to make a bunch of money during the bull market and not lose it all and they continue to refine their holdings expecting a future crypto bull market.

Institutions like the big auction houses and a few galleries still facilitate NFT sales as a few NFT artists and generative artists have been able to successfully bridge into the art world.

I agree though that on a long enough time line, 99% of NFTs will absolutely become worthless if they aren't already. This is true of many types of collectibles. Ultimately this is a good thing, but I'm certain that there will be a community of dedicated creators and collectors that remain as long as the government doesn't squash crypto completely.

Re: NFTs Are – Finally – Worthless

#25
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money laundering is always in demand.

People always parrot "money laundering" when they see (what for them are) large amounts of money moving around. Can you explain how does one launder money w/ NFTs? Because it's absolute nonsense.

> Can you explain how does one launder money w/ NFTs? Because it's absolute nonsense.

They fact that a person understand something doesn't make it nonsense - and way too high a percentage of internet arguments boil down to essentially this.

Re: NFTs Are – Finally – Worthless

#27
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know these aren't wash trades?

When nobody sells an NFT, "journalists" write articles like this one claiming their "market cap" is "zero dollars". When somebody does sell an NFT, shrug it off as a wash trade.

That's true, but I think you're missing the context that NFT's are in fact intrinsically worthless and merely a vehicle for scammers and the terminally gullible. NFT's have shown for a while now what they're really about, as have the people promoting them. It isn't really journalists' fault for no longer trusting "the system" to be honest or even capable of honesty.

At this point I wouldn't believe a sale is legit without both parties coming forward and submitting themselves to forensic accountancy.

Re: NFTs Are – Finally – Worthless

#28
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know these aren't wash trades?

When nobody sells an NFT, "journalists" write articles like this one claiming their "market cap" is "zero dollars". When somebody does sell an NFT, shrug it off as a wash trade.

You didn’t answer the question.

Re: NFTs Are – Finally – Worthless

#29
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well NFT was completely useless from the beginning on. Cryptocurrencies, on the other hand, are very useful for a whole lot of blackhat use-cases (and it seems like they are mostly useful for that, unfortunately). Same applies for AI. There is a whole lot of lucrative bad stuff that can be done with them, so they won't become worthless. Not clear yet if they will bring any good to the world, or if the balance will be…

Don't have to be a blackhat to enjoy having control of your own funds. Plenty of people don't trust their banks. I know someone who got his account shut down simply for moving his salary to his home country, where he was building a house. And that causes all kinds of problems, now he's not able to take a legit work, and even identify himself on government websites since that service is also controlled by and connecte…

I would expect him to be scrutinized to a larger degree had the money come from cryptocurrencies. Both sending and receiving banks have money laundry protection schemes.

Re: NFTs Are – Finally – Worthless

#30
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wash trading is another explanation. When the same person is buying and selling there is no real value being demonstrated.

Yes. Wash trading for the masses is the biggest innovation of NFTs. It is bananas how many breathless articles were typed and published about how today's crazy kids were buying stoner monkey pictures for $$$ without even a mention of this. With Bitcoin or Eth or Doge or whatever, it's hard to paint the tape. You can't move the ticker by selling BTC to yourself at a high price, because your offer to buy it at that pri…

This argument is valid word for word for art, domain names, houses... So I guess you should be willing to follow your logic to the same conclusion in those cases too.
Post reply on HN