Live data from Hacker News

NFT Canon

a16z.com

31–40 of 114 posts

Re: NFT Canon

#31
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 s…

Here’s the thing - if it relies on a central authority to say “this is the genuine article” why do you even need a blockchain? A PGP certificate or X.509 is arguably “a cryptographic representation of something unique”

EDIT even something like a domain name - which is arguably a better example as only one of such a thing can actually exist in that only one owner can derive the value from it.

Re: NFT Canon

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And just as there's only one original Mona Lisa, there's only one original NFT of the Mona Lisa I apologize if I'm misunderstanding, but can't you create as many NFTs of the Mona Lisa as you want? What's to stop someone from just creating a second one, even the original owner of the Mona Lisa? You can't copy the Mona Lisa (at least not in such a way as to call it the original), but you can make another NFT of the r…

My understanding is that the NFT also contains a hash of the work that it represents, so there really is only one of a given digital work. You can create another NFT of a different digitization, but there's still distinguishing factors between them that would make one "better" than the other (higher resolution, maybe, or more ubiquitous file format). Also over time a particular digitizations' status of being the firs…

An NFT is basically a number in a smart contract. Through the ERC721 (there are others) interface, you can ask the smart contract which address owns that particular number. So, "contract 0xdeadbeef... , who owns 123456 ? It's owned by 0xabcdef..."

This is totally fine, but keep in mind someone could deploy an identical contract to a different address, which also has a 123456 in it, which is also owned by 0xabcdef. You'd have to be careful when you're checking the ownership that you're checking everything. I could imagine an unscrupulous person saying "Look, I sent you 123456, it's in your address, see?" and then absconding.

Re: NFT Canon

#33
NFTs just happen to be the token du jour, and it's a bit sad that a16z is peddling them. There's nothing of value here, and no one will care in 4 years. Remember Crypto Kitties[1]? Don't worry, no one else does either. The idea of "proof of ownership" makes no sense in a digital context, anyway, and the best way forward (if actually trying to solve this problem) isn't with some pump-and-dump token, but rather with DRM-style certificates.

But no one's really trying to solve the problem of digital ownership, provenance, chain of custody, or original verifiability, they're just trying to get rich.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoKitties/

Re: NFT Canon

#35
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…

It's a simulacrum, in the post-modern sense. For those who are unfamiliar with the concept, a simulacrum is a copy of something that has itself become hyper-real and usurped the reality of the original. The canonical example is Disney World, which is a copy of Disneyland, which is itself a copy of many elements of Americana (Louisiana Bayou, the frontier West, Main Street USA, etc.) Disney World has eclipsed Disneyla…

"Sod going to an art gallery to look the actual paint committed to canvas by the legendary artist over 500 years ago, we can queue up to look at this PNG copy and admire the uniqueness of the cryptographic token some anonymous programmer attached to it recently" said literally nobody ever.

Rollercoasters and Mickey Mouse make pastiches of common things more interesting; creating an inferior copy of a famous thing and trying to compensate for its inferiority and inauthenticity with a cryptographic string has the opposite effect.

Re: NFT Canon

#36
“A man who is rich but ignorant he called a sheep with golden fleece.” —Diogenes the Cynic: Sayings and Anecdotes, with Other Popular Moralists by Robin Hard, §326.

Re: NFT Canon

#37
post #33

NFTs just happen to be the token du jour, and it's a bit sad that a16z is peddling them. There's nothing of value here, and no one will care in 4 years. Remember Crypto Kitties[1]? Don't worry, no one else does either. The idea of "proof of ownership" makes no sense in a digital context, anyway, and the best way forward (if actually trying to solve this problem) isn't with some pump-and-dump token, but rather with DR…

Well, they are pushing them because in general traditional VC's completely missed out on the initial crypto boom.

NFT's are their manufactured attempt to build a Crypto V2 market they think they can control. 90% of the stories you read about in the press about NFT's are placed there by these same VC investors. They are desperately trying to viral market fomo response for their useless tokens....sorry their authentic original JPG's....

Its really quite sad.

Re: NFT Canon

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a simulacrum, in the post-modern sense. For those who are unfamiliar with the concept, a simulacrum is a copy of something that has itself become hyper-real and usurped the reality of the original. The canonical example is Disney World, which is a copy of Disneyland, which is itself a copy of many elements of Americana (Louisiana Bayou, the frontier West, Main Street USA, etc.) Disney World has eclipsed Disneyla…

"Sod going to an art gallery to look the actual paint committed to canvas by the legendary artist over 500 years ago, we can queue up to look at this PNG copy and admire the uniqueness of the cryptographic token some anonymous programmer attached to it recently" said literally nobody ever. Rollercoasters and Mickey Mouse make pastiches of common things more interesting; creating an inferior copy of a famous thing and…

What if you had a human model (or robot) who looked liked Mona Lisa, dressed like Mona Lisa and was certified as the only recognized copy of Mona Lisa and by purchasing the NFT you were the only one who could have s.e.x with her?

Re: NFT Canon

#39
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

Here’s the thing - if it relies on a central authority to say “this is the genuine article” why do you even need a blockchain? A PGP certificate or X.509 is arguably “a cryptographic representation of something unique” EDIT even something like a domain name - which is arguably a better example as only one of such a thing can actually exist in that only one owner can derive the value from it.

Because then it’s not on the blockchain. Yes, I could sell you a txt record, saying you own this hash, which represents a jpg, but then it’s not blockchain.

Honestly, I don’t know.

Maybe it’s because the blockchain is immutable? Like, I could change that txt record because I’m evil or something. That makes sense to me, in terms of technology.

Re: NFT Canon

#40
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is no dispute about what the original is Still though, the value of collectible goes up if you have extensive documentation proving it is the original, vs it just merely being the original, or worse, it being the original and someone else having extensive documentation convincingly making the case that their counterfeit is actually the original.

NFTs can't prove originality, only ownership. Since digital things are easily copied exactly, that's all you can do

For a very sui generis definition of ownership.
Post reply on HN