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NFT Canon

a16z.com

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Re: NFT Canon

#81

Post by aabhay »

DennisP wrote: post #78
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.

So, how do you know when the NFT is invalid? Can Mattereum just freeze any token at any time? If I transfer my token back to them and they don’t give me my thing, how do we all know? What if the thing is damaged? What if my country holds it up at customs?

Re: NFT Canon

#82

Post by paulgb »

DennisP wrote: post #78
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.

Why not use a database? If I hold an Matterum NFT, I'm trusting Matterum to make good on the deal, so it's not like the trustlessness of the blockchain actually comes into play. It seems like using a blockchain in this case just adds transaction costs.

Re: NFT Canon

#83

Post by DennisP »

aabhay wrote: post #81
DennisP wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So, how do you know when the NFT is invalid? Can Mattereum just freeze any token at any time? If I transfer my token back to them and they don’t give me my thing, how do we all know? What if the thing is damaged? What if my country holds it up at customs?

I don't know but since they spent a lot of time developing real-world legal contracts, I suspect there are decent answers.

Art vaults/registries have similar issues and work fine for much more valuable items, so Mattereum isn't breaking completely new ground here. They just have a more convenient way to transfer ownership.

Re: NFT Canon

#84

Post by DennisP »

paulgb wrote: post #82
DennisP wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why not use a database? If I hold an Matterum NFT, I'm trusting Matterum to make good on the deal, so it's not like the trustlessness of the blockchain actually comes into play. It seems like using a blockchain in this case just adds transaction costs.

I just glanced at their white paper and it refers to multiple registrars, so stuff might not be just at Mattereum.[1]

Besides that, I think an immutable public record of ownership is worthwhile. It's something you can use as evidence in court. If it were just their database and they changed it, what recourse would you have?

[1] https://mattereum.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/mattereum-s...

Re: NFT Canon

#85

Post by hobs »

DennisP wrote: post #84
paulgb wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not use a database? If I hold an Matterum NFT, I'm trusting Matterum to make good on the deal, so it's not like the trustlessness of the blockchain actually comes into play. It seems like using a blockchain in this case just adds transaction costs.

I just glanced at their white paper and it refers to multiple registrars, so stuff might not be just at Mattereum.[1] Besides that, I think an immutable public record of ownership is worthwhile. It's something you can use as evidence in court. If it were just their database and they changed it, what recourse would you have? [1] https://mattereum.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/mattereum-s...

The same one you'd have with any proof of ownership in a society with laws.

Re: NFT Canon

#86

Post by rspeele »

DennisP wrote: post #80
dvt wrote: post #74

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 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.

True, but if I've got a lot of ETH, is there anything stopping me from buying/minting a cheap NFT and then wash trading it between wallets I own for seemingly large sums of money -- all of which is actually staying within my possession, minus gas fees?

Unless there is some strong KYC on opensea that prevents this (I honestly don't know, having never used the platform), it seems almost inevitable. There's not really an objective way to value most of this stuff, so buyers are going to look at the price history to guesstimate what they might be able to resell an NFT for. But how much of that price history is bogus wash trades?

Re: NFT Canon

#87

Post by jsutton »

hobs wrote: post #85
DennisP wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just glanced at their white paper and it refers to multiple registrars, so stuff might not be just at Mattereum.[1] Besides that, I think an immutable public record of ownership is worthwhile. It's something you can use as evidence in court. If it were just their database and they changed it, what recourse would you have? [1] https://mattereum.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/mattereum-s...

The same one you'd have with any proof of ownership in a society with laws.

Meaning on good ole' paper, or in a government database somewhere that you have no visibility or access to. Is this preferable to an ownership record that you, the gov, or anyone else can verify from your phone?

Re: NFT Canon

#88

Post by Rule35 »

Igelau wrote: post #66
PretzelPirate wrote: post #7

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…

That's the other reason I hate NFT. The only plausible use case is as a terrible DRM key.

Or, a better DRM key... at least you could transfer it without permission.

Re: NFT Canon

#89

Post by K0balt »

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…

Actually, we are trying to solve digital ownership, provenance, chain of custody, and verifiability. https://pruf.io

Re: NFT Canon

#90

Post by jtsiskin »

sbhagat wrote: post #70
jakemauer wrote: post #60

The only way that NFTs make sense to me is in some sort of impossible to implement DRM-like system where ONLY the current owners of the media can display it or utilize it. If buying an NFT of a piece of art meant that I could digitally display the file in full resolution, or if it otherwise afforded me some tangible benefit during the period of ownership, I could see it making sense. As of right now NFTs are basicall…

It's not impossible, and we completely agree that this is needed. We're building this over at masterfile.co via our OpenDRM technology.

No, it is impossible. Just take a screenshot
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