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NFT Canon

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Re: NFT Canon

#2
It might be covered in one of the resources, but when people talk about NFTs, they just mean some token on Ethereum that the issuer of said coin say is "the" product. For instance, the NFT for "the first tweet" that sold is just someone created an Ethereum token and said "this one is the first tweet", presumably w/ some text in the token that states the tweet.

In that regard, its kind of centralized. There can be multiple NFTs that claim to be tweets. There's no naturally definitive "twitter" token, unless it's managed by Twitter itself. But you're relying on the issuer of the coin to say "I am the NFT coin" and everyone to agree.

Real world NFTs (e.g. art and collectibles) are unique in that there is no dispute about what the original is. The art was created by the artist or its a forgery. In that regard NFTs rely on some issuing entity that bestows upon itself an arbitrary form of ownership. I can make my own Twitter token and if I get someone to buy a coin for an absurd amount (insider dealing?), and convince reports to write about it, I can be "the twitter nft"

Or am I thinking of this incorrectly?

Re: NFT Canon

#3
post #2

It might be covered in one of the resources, but when people talk about NFTs, they just mean some token on Ethereum that the issuer of said coin say is "the" product. For instance, the NFT for "the first tweet" that sold is just someone created an Ethereum token and said "this one is the first tweet", presumably w/ some text in the token that states the tweet. In that regard, its kind of centralized. There can be mul…

Yep, another way to put it is that any NFT is worthless unless it is tied to some network effect.

This can be merely social convention, e.g. an artist announcing that this is his Ethereum address, or an auction house acting as an intermediary. But it could also be a network effect based on software, e.g., a game, or something in between like the original CryptoKitties.

Re: NFT Canon

#6
post #2

It might be covered in one of the resources, but when people talk about NFTs, they just mean some token on Ethereum that the issuer of said coin say is "the" product. For instance, the NFT for "the first tweet" that sold is just someone created an Ethereum token and said "this one is the first tweet", presumably w/ some text in the token that states the tweet. In that regard, its kind of centralized. There can be mul…

Yep, another way to put it is that any NFT is worthless unless it is tied to some network effect. This can be merely social convention, e.g. an artist announcing that this is his Ethereum address, or an auction house acting as an intermediary. But it could also be a network effect based on software, e.g., a game, or something in between like the original CryptoKitties.

Yeah, that's what I figured. I get the idea of it being tied to a game, but you don't really get the benefit of block chain, except for making the token sellable without having to go through the proper market channels.

Overall I'm very bullish on crypto as digital gold, less so on Ethereum style apps and even less so on NFTs. It's an interesting litmus test. I see a lot of crypto enthusiasts speak highly about NFTs which I find odd. They generally have very well thought out and reasoned arguments for Bitcoin as a digital store of wealth, but then they go into NFTs and talk about scarcity. But the scarcity of Bitcoin is only valuable because it is the defacto digital currency, due to it's survival up to this point. It has dealt with governance issues, was built of strong cryptographic principals and most importantly stood the test of time (lindy effect). Then they speak about NFTs in a vague way as though they're naturally authoritative without pointing out the obvious: you don't actually own the digital asset you're buying. If it actually had some real concept of ownership (e.g. owning a tweet allows me to delete the tweet), then it would be a different story. But as it stands now I don't see the value.

The cheer leading from the crypto community is odd and makes me question their principals. I'd be happy to be proven wrong and have someone steelman the argument for NFTs without relying on "its a scarce asset and people want to own scarce assets". It's also very early days in NFTs, so ten years from now if the Twitter tokens are still selling for millions, I'd be more willing to agree as it would have Lindy effect by that point.

Re: NFT Canon

#7
post #2

It might be covered in one of the resources, but when people talk about NFTs, they just mean some token on Ethereum that the issuer of said coin say is "the" product. For instance, the NFT for "the first tweet" that sold is just someone created an Ethereum token and said "this one is the first tweet", presumably w/ some text in the token that states the tweet. In that regard, its kind of centralized. There can be mul…

The confusion comes from how NFTs that represent images have become so popular right now (I believe it’s because it’s the easiest use case of an NFT and people want to make a quick buck).

NFTs themselves are just a cryptographic representation of something unique. It can be a token that says “you own this image”, but it can also be an in-game virtual item, a software license, a digital trading card, etc...

There is some level of centralization in many cases. For example, a trading card game will likely own the contract that can mint cards and own the art for the cards. Other services can read that contract to see what cards you own and use that data inside their own game logic (though probably not the images due to legal reasons).

This would already be useful for something like Magic the Gathering where unofficial online services exist to play by whatever rules you want. The last time I used one, you just put your deck list in so everyone used the rarest cards. They may have evolved now to check your Magic Online account, but you can’t do that as easily in Magic Arena.

Assuming the creators don’t limit your freedom in their smart contract, you can also buy, sell, or trade the NFT to whoever and for whatever you want unlike a centralized service which wouldn’t enable access to an open market outside of the game’s ecosystem.

Re: NFT Canon

#8
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, another way to put it is that any NFT is worthless unless it is tied to some network effect. This can be merely social convention, e.g. an artist announcing that this is his Ethereum address, or an auction house acting as an intermediary. But it could also be a network effect based on software, e.g., a game, or something in between like the original CryptoKitties.

Yeah, that's what I figured. I get the idea of it being tied to a game, but you don't really get the benefit of block chain, except for making the token sellable without having to go through the proper market channels. Overall I'm very bullish on crypto as digital gold, less so on Ethereum style apps and even less so on NFTs. It's an interesting litmus test. I see a lot of crypto enthusiasts speak highly about NFTs w…

> I see a lot of crypto enthusiasts speak highly about NFTs which I find odd. They generally have very well thought out and reasoned arguments for Bitcoin as a digital store of wealth, but then they go into NFTs and talk about scarcity.

I've seen the opposite - most crypto enthusiasts I have spoken to don't seem to understand NFTs at all / why they are considered valuable by other people. I fit into that camp.

> Overall I'm very bullish on crypto as digital gold, less so on Ethereum style apps and even less so on NFTs.

I'm quite bullish on Ethereum style "defi" apps - once we finally have decent layer 2 options and software deployed on layer 2, I think interest rates on stablecoins will be a large incentive for folks to start onboarding. The big remaining piece then is convincing people to spend their stable coins at stores - I would expect some level of "rewards" paid by the store would be sufficient. Essentially, an app that you can deposit funds into, earn interest that is well above what your bank account pays, and earns rewards that are competitive (or ideally beat) with credit cards.

Re: NFT Canon

#9
post #2

It might be covered in one of the resources, but when people talk about NFTs, they just mean some token on Ethereum that the issuer of said coin say is "the" product. For instance, the NFT for "the first tweet" that sold is just someone created an Ethereum token and said "this one is the first tweet", presumably w/ some text in the token that states the tweet. In that regard, its kind of centralized. There can be mul…

> Real world NFTs (e.g. art and collectibles) are unique in that there is no dispute about what the original is. The art was created by the artist or its a forgery. In that regard NFTs rely on some issuing entity that bestows upon itself an arbitrary form of ownership. I can make my own Twitter token and if I get someone to buy a coin for an absurd amount (insider dealing?), and convince reports to write about it, I can be "the twitter nft"

I think of NFTs as a fancy system of determining provenance: X bought hash Y from seller Z. Whether other people assign meaning/value to that transaction is subject to the usual whims of human nature.

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