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NFT Canon

a16z.com

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Re: NFT Canon

#71

Post by whateveracct »

inthewoods wrote: post #54
dvt wrote: 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…

VCs are geared to take big swings and bets. Makes total sense that they would buy into anything that has the potential to be a billion dollar idea, even if the likelihood of success is 1-5%. What's interesting about NFTs to me is that an org like the NBA is one of the most successful - but I guess that makes sense because, as others have posted, they generate all the NFTs and can validate them. So it seems to me that…

> So it seems to me that it can be successful in the case where you have a single, centralized owner.

Postgres also works great when you have a single, centralized owner

Re: NFT Canon

#72

Post by kerng »

dvt wrote: 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…

CryptoKitties are a quite bad reference example to argue against NFTs - because they have been and still are highly successful and valuable, trading for thousands (some tens of tbousands) of dollars. Similar to the CryptoPunks.

Re: NFT Canon

#73

Post by megameter »

aboodman wrote: post #63
aboodman wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once Jack has been shown to be willing to oversell himself just to make a quick buck, it will immediately devalue everything associated with him, including the original NFT. You're buying into the quality/credibility/longevity of the creator here, and once it's shown he's a shill there's not much reason to value any of his original "work" highly. To be clear I don't personally see any value at all in an NFT that do…

Another comparison here to make is like signed copies / limited editions. People buy signed copies of albums, artworks, etc., even though forgeries are rampant. Are NFTs like signed copies? If the value of a signed copy is mostly performative, then NFTs alone maybe should not have value (because nobody can really see that you own one). If the value of a signed copy is personal, then maybe it does. I don't personally…

The analogy I use with NFT art is not with physical items but with banking. The token is just another form of credit issued by the artist. The relationship to the specific work is knowingly tenuous and entails intermediaries - and in this respect, it's still a tech demo - but the financial asset itself has meaning relative to the credit of the artist, given that the wallet that minted will itself have a persistent identity.

Recognition for previous work creates expectations for new work, even if the work itself is lost. Art has always operated that way.

But there are details that need sorting out. A proprietary URL link - or an IPFS link only hosted by one node - is too flimsy for long-term collectables. Use value is sorely needed to really flesh out the function of the tokens. Again, as it is, we have tech demos with some eyewatering valuations.

Re: NFT Canon

#74

Post by dvt »

kerng wrote: post #72
dvt wrote: 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…

CryptoKitties are a quite bad reference example to argue against NFTs - because they have been and still are highly successful and valuable, trading for thousands (some tens of tbousands) of dollars. Similar to the CryptoPunks.

> CryptoKitties are a quite bad reference example to argue against NFTs - because they have been and still are highly successful and valuable

Their volume for the past 24 hours has consisted of 73 trades[1]. In what world is that successful?

> [...] trading for thousands (some tens of tbousands) of dollars.

This is extremely misleading, no one's putting in 10 grand from their paycheck to buy a kitty; it's all in-ecosystem crypto "money" that's being sloshed around.

[1] https://nonfungible.com/market/history/cryptokitties?filter=...

Re: NFT Canon

#75

Post by miracle2k »

deckard1 wrote: post #68
miracle2k wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But in the non-NFT world, artists are selling prints of their work, and have been doing so for decades - hardly a fad! Those can be fairly expensive for the top tier, and they work the same way: You trust the artist will not inflate the supply of the same work with additional prints later on.

yes, but you can't just recreate a print at high quality unless there happens to be a digital image of it floating around. Here's Beeple's $69 million artwork in full resolution (warning: 300 megs!): https://ipfsgateway.makersplace.com/ipfs/QmXkxpwAHCtDXbbZHUw... The metadata for the IPFS: https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmPAg1mjxcEQPPtqsLoEcauVedaeMH81WXDPvPx... Because a token is public we can all see the contents. Now, you c…

I might be able to recreate it well enough. I might be able to pay a cheap poster in a museum shop! I can probably recreate a Wall Drawing by Sol LeWitt (since they being frequently recreated anyway), and I can certainly glue a banana to a wall.

It all leads back to the question of why we value the original in the first place. People have all kinds of answers to this - why it's different for "real" art - but those points usually don't hold up to scrutiny.

There is something about physical things that a digital image is lacking, for sure. But most of the value we ascribe to things, even to the Mona Lisa, is totally arbitrary, a collective illusion.

Re: NFT Canon

#77

Post by chrisco255 »

dvt wrote: 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…

Of course we remember CryptoKitties. The makers of CryptoKitties went on to build NBA Top Shots, which is selling hundreds of millions of dollars worth of merchandise:

https://nbatopshot.com/

And even CryptoKitties is still around. Early generation CryptoKitties are still considered collectibles, but of course there's an infinite supply of Kitties, so the rarity is less than say, CryptoPunks (which pre-date Kitties) of which only 10K were minted:

https://opensea.io/assets/cryptopunks?search[sortAscending]=...

There's actually an entire ecosystem of hundreds of thousands of creators, fans, developers, etc working on everything you dismiss. A16Z is investing in many of those projects. Some are happening organically. NFTs will change more than you know.

Re: NFT Canon

#78

Post by DennisP »

dvt wrote: 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…

Mattereum is doing something interesting. Each NFT references a physical item they keep in a vault, and if you want you can redeem it and take delivery. They have professional curators and legal contracts.

It's not all that different from what rich people do with vaulted art and registries. Just more available to regular people.

Re: NFT Canon

#79

Post by chrisco255 »

dvt wrote: post #74
kerng wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CryptoKitties are a quite bad reference example to argue against NFTs - because they have been and still are highly successful and valuable, trading for thousands (some tens of tbousands) of dollars. Similar to the CryptoPunks.

> CryptoKitties are a quite bad reference example to argue against NFTs - because they have been and still are highly successful and valuable Their volume for the past 24 hours has consisted of 73 trades[1]. In what world is that successful? > [...] trading for thousands (some tens of tbousands) of dollars. This is extremely misleading, no one's putting in 10 grand from their paycheck to buy a kitty; it's all in-ecos…

You're misunderstanding how kitties work. They are bred, they were created as a game, not as a limited run collection, and so there's an infinite supply of Kitties. Although some, like early generation Kitties from December 2017 can go for high amounts, even today, they aren't expected to accrue value.

Some trading cards are extremely rare and valuable. Most are not. Vast majority of kitties fit in this category.

Re: NFT Canon

#80

Post by DennisP »

dvt wrote: post #74
kerng wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CryptoKitties are a quite bad reference example to argue against NFTs - because they have been and still are highly successful and valuable, trading for thousands (some tens of tbousands) of dollars. Similar to the CryptoPunks.

> CryptoKitties are a quite bad reference example to argue against NFTs - because they have been and still are highly successful and valuable Their volume for the past 24 hours has consisted of 73 trades[1]. In what world is that successful? > [...] trading for thousands (some tens of tbousands) of dollars. This is extremely misleading, no one's putting in 10 grand from their paycheck to buy a kitty; it's all in-ecos…

Unlike NFTs, money is fungible. If they weren't "sloshing around" that crypto money they could easily sell it on Coinbase, withdraw the $10K, and buy something else.
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