This ties in nicely with this talk moxie gave in 2019 about (de)centralization:
My First Impressions of Web3
461–470 of 1001 posts
Re: My First Impressions of Web3
#462Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Couldn't Rolex issue a PGP signed CSV of all valid Rolex serial numbers once a month on IPFS and you'd get the exact same security and trust profile without having to involve any "web3" feature? A serial number can be copied and engraved onto a forged watch, so not really. A more analogous scenario would be if Rolex embedded an NFC hardware chip with a private key inside the watch, such that anyone could wave their…
Well sure but that's the "analog gap" problem. NFTs don't fix that, do they? In the end there'll have to be something that will tie a given NFT to a given watch, and one way or the other it'll be the same issue as tying my CSV to a given watch.
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Re: My First Impressions of Web3
#463Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, this has a really easy fix. The NFT points to a content hash, and the content is uploaded to the Internet Archive (and they're compensated for the storage) as part of the NFT minting process. Your ownership is now on a distributed ledger, with a cryptographic hash of the content, paired with long term storage of said digital artwork. The Internet Archive's costs are ~$2/GB to store content in perpetuity, which se…
So why hasn't this been deployed yet then? And why are NFT links so common, because they just seem short sighted to me and borderline dumb considering how volatile everything in the crypto space is? Nothing about NFT's seems long term viable as they are now.
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Re: My First Impressions of Web3
#464Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, this has a really easy fix. The NFT points to a content hash, and the content is uploaded to the Internet Archive (and they're compensated for the storage) as part of the NFT minting process. Your ownership is now on a distributed ledger, with a cryptographic hash of the content, paired with long term storage of said digital artwork. The Internet Archive's costs are ~$2/GB to store content in perpetuity, which se…
Is there any market pressure that will demand a change to the cryptographic hash? Is any of the current speculation concerned in any way about the content hosted at the URL, or just the current value of the NFT and what you can sell it for.
There is. Not from the entire space, but there's a bit of street cred you get by being entirely 'on-chain', as they say.
Within the smart contracts themselves is a read function for that content uri that provides all the data needed (from what I've seen, a hashed string) to generate an .svg file. But it obviously taxes the system and costs a lot more in gas fees (not to read it, that doesn't cost gas fees, but to deploy the contracts and mint), especially the more complex those are, which is why you mostly see it with 8-bit or very low-res artwork.
Cryptopunks being the most well-known (and also the most valuable) NFT project is all on-chain, and Anonymice being the most open and forked project that does this. EtherOrcs does it a little differently but is also on-chain and has completely open contracts you can refer to as well.
There's quite a few more besides this, but I don't know what percent it is, probably pretty small. Some people won't buy anything that's not entirely on-chain. But you're right that most people don't really care, they just care about the price or the image.
I've been digging through the Anonymice and EtherOrcs contracts to get a better understanding of the different approaches they took (and I still wouldn't say I completely understand it yet). It's pretty interesting, though.
[1]: https://www.larvalabs.com/blog/2021-8-18-18-0/on-chain-crypt...
EDIT: Sorry, you only said cryptographic hash. Cryptopunks started by providing that, but then moved to entirely on-chain (so above and beyond that), where you could query and get a full SVG file or stream of pixels for any given image directly from the contract.
Re: My First Impressions of Web3
#465Earlier quoted context omitted.
As the article points out, many NFTs are implemented by storing a URL in the blockchain; the digital artwork sits on some server and is reachable by that link. Fine, you can prove that you own the URL. But what that URL points to can change out from under you, so there's no way to make that trustless. If you own the domain and the server that it points to, the registrar can take the domain away from you and give it t…
So, this has a really easy fix. The NFT points to a content hash, and the content is uploaded to the Internet Archive (and they're compensated for the storage) as part of the NFT minting process. Your ownership is now on a distributed ledger, with a cryptographic hash of the content, paired with long term storage of said digital artwork. The Internet Archive's costs are ~$2/GB to store content in perpetuity, which se…
Yup. It works because there's a 1:1 and onto mapping between 64 bit hashes and pixel maps of arbitrary size ;-) /s
Re: My First Impressions of Web3
#466>When you think about it, OpenSea would actually be much “better” in the immediate sense if all the web3 parts were gone. It would be faster, cheaper for everyone, and easier to use. That sums up the situation for me. Having a marketplace for purely digital goods might be a concept with a future. Having standard ways to interoperate between different platforms and query and update these goods might make sense (althou…
> the subset of problems that can only be solved using NFTs is incredibly tiny
What problems can only be solved by using NFTs?
Re: My First Impressions of Web3
#467> I have not found myself particularly drawn to “crypto.”
Says the person that tried (and is trying) to shove a new crypto currency down our throats in Signal? This is incredible.
Re: My First Impressions of Web3
#468Fails to address that users on centralized Web3 platforms have ability to exit platform, which isn’t an option in Web2.
I can transfer out an NFT from OpenSea ecosystem. I can transfer BTC out of Coinbase.
Re: My First Impressions of Web3
#469Nerds seek out constraints in order to unlock their private creativity is a really apropos observation.
Re: My First Impressions of Web3
#470I'm a large doubter of Web3 and crypto in general though there is one problem space I can it can do well in:
Ownership and transfer of digital assets (though I would imagine this is better and more easily solved by web2 technologies as well by cooperation among platforms).
This could take the form of lending a friend a purchased copy of a video game, Ebook, etc.
The transfer would take place on the blockchain and could be performed regardless of platform - xbox vs playstation vs steam - Apple Books vs Kindle vs Android books etc.
Though this would require agreement by these platforms who operate these services.
But again, I don't see this really happening because these platforms have no incentive to enable sharing of digital assets over selling new copies.