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“You can have some authority that says "THIS artwork belongs to THIS token". Then, you don't need blockchain, because you have a central authority.” You need b

“You can have some authority that says "THIS artwork belongs to THIS token". Then, you don't need blockchain, because you have a central authority.” You need blockchain because central authorities can shut it down; however, most smart contracts in this space are centrally controlled. I think the reason people struggle to understand how NFTs make sense is because it is new and there is no mental model for it. It’s easy to dismiss, but if you think about it and in particular if you program an ERC721 contract and/or use it, you begin to get it. Younger generations won’t need to do this because it’ll just be the way things are. You won’t trade MtG cards but NFTs. You may be in a VR game and see a work on art on the wall and buy it right there for your collection. It is absolutely legit regardless of the mania or the fact that contracts aren’t decentralized (yet).

vorpalhex 6y ago
But why do I need the NFT if it's just a jpg and I can copy it from the game source?
- Sevii 6y ago
  Why is an original Picasso worth millions when I can download a picture of one and print it out for free?
  - vorpalhex 6y ago
    The picture of the picasso is not identical to the original. A jpeg is bit for bit identical when copied.
    - iamwil 6y ago
      It's not considered original, if you don't own the NFT. Like money, it's a social contract. For the longest time, in order to enjoy something, you had to own it. Because physically, there was no way to enjoy it unless you were in its physical presence. Then we had analog tech like photography, and for a little while, people wrestled with who owned what. But we decided that the original physical painting is proof of ownership, and a photograph of it can still be enjoyed, but is worth less, and not actually owned. This makes sense, because the physical copy is less easy to reproduce. And now, we've figured out how to make digital things scarce. Now, the ownership of something is indicated by ownership of the NFT, not of the physical original work of something. The tie between the NFT and the digital image is largely a social contract, in the same way that money is a social contract.
      - robbiep 6y ago
        You’ve made the same point about scarcity here but i think most people just can’t buy it. It is literally not scarce
        ZephyrBlu 6y ago
        NFTs are artificially scarce. There are limited numbers of each token that can be bought.
        iamwil 6y ago
        The enjoyment of the piece is not scarce. The ownership of it is not. They use to be one in the same. Today, they are not.
        AndrewKemendo 6y ago
        Ownership of what? https://superrare.co/artwork-v2/bloodsculpt-20261 https://superrare.co/artwork-v2/bloodsculpt-20261 https://kemendo.com/Images/bloodsculpt.jpg https://kemendo.com/Images/bloodsculpt.jpg Which one is the real one?
        iamwil 6y ago
        Each link you posted points to two separate digital objects both for the "enjoyment of a piece", not the "ownership of the piece". Think of ownership of a piece as the certificate of authenticity. The first link is on superrare. The superrare image can also be enjoyed by anyone. However, the (very small) link (https://etherscan.io/tx/0xd9e4971bef6d37807605e0eb635eb4b6d9e3487d2c4fc2c30751472312f75270 https://etherscan.io/tx/0xd9e4971bef6d37807605e0eb635eb4b6d9...) to the transaction on the page, tells me the owner of the art piece is 0x053e84e80cfb38d672d53394de3dade1fbbacd25. The second link is on your own homepage. You can claim ownership on the image (since it's on your homepage), which gives you the enjoyment of the piece. But you don't claim ownership of the art piece. Now, who determines which one is the real one? Depends on the counter-party you're transacting with, and what they're willing to honor. If I as the counter-party, am being sold ownership of the art piece from both you and 0x053e84e, I'd take it from 0x053e84e, for the same reason you tried to make: digital images are exact copies. He own the non-duplicable NFT and provably so, and can transfer that NFT to me. If I as the counter-party is the creator of the piece, I can give certificate owners extra VIP features for the art piece, like a chance to meet me, or a one time delivery of a look-book of the making-of of the piece, I can do that, and be sure that it's not fake owners. The pleasure of ownership is different than the pleasure of enjoyment of the piece. So what links the NFT (the certificate) to that particular image? Well, right now, it's conferred by Superrare. If this is turns out to be an issue, I can see ways around it. One option is to use procedurally generated art, where the parameters are stored in the NFT. I think there may be others.
yorwba 6y ago
> You won’t trade MtG cards but NFTs. How about MtG cards that are NFTs? Before a match, both players commit to a deck of cards and produce a zero-knowledge proof that they own all the cards in the deck (i.e. without revealing which cards they have.) All kinds of cryptographic tricks will be necessary to simulate the process of shuffling and drawing cards while ensuring that nobody can cheat. Exciting!
- eru 6y ago
  It's actually not that hard, if you require players to reveal their complete deck after the match, and if you are willing to wait for cheaters to be caught at that time. (If you want to support cryptographic poker, where opponents learn nothing if there's no showdown; then you need lots of shenanigans.)
- jimkleiber 6y ago
  This really helped me see potential in NFTs. Before your comment, I was just seeing NFTs as this new certificate of authenticity/ownership that was going to be lost in a sea of property rights management governance. But after reading what you wrote, I'm starting to see NFTs not as the big deal, but the apps that build on top of NFTs. Because having a MgT digital card by itself may not mean much, but the MgT application layer may only recognize official NFT cards to play (which seems easy to do from an app perspective) and therefore the NFT gets used in this code. So I think NFTs may hit more in other fields outside of art, like digital playing cards, digital event tickets, etc. May still work for art. Could be fascinating to have an app layer on top of the art. Almost like an art museum, or maybe exclusive art events where you have to have specific NFTs to attend. Almost like exclusive membership to a club. (Oh great, now with all these ideas in my head I may not sleep lol)
  - ckozlowski 6y ago
    I think you're both onto something here. For art I'm skeptical (See my reply in this same discussion for why), but for creative works with utility, and NFT might be more useful if the platform they can be used on requires validation of the token. In that sense, it seems to become a sort of public DRM. I'm sure we can spend a long time musing on the implications of that.

vorpalhex 6y ago

But why do I need the NFT if it's just a jpg and I can copy it from the game source?

Sevii 6y ago
Why is an original Picasso worth millions when I can download a picture of one and print it out for free?
- vorpalhex 6y ago
  The picture of the picasso is not identical to the original. A jpeg is bit for bit identical when copied.
  - iamwil 6y ago
    It's not considered original, if you don't own the NFT. Like money, it's a social contract. For the longest time, in order to enjoy something, you had to own it. Because physically, there was no way to enjoy it unless you were in its physical presence. Then we had analog tech like photography, and for a little while, people wrestled with who owned what. But we decided that the original physical painting is proof of ownership, and a photograph of it can still be enjoyed, but is worth less, and not actually owned. This makes sense, because the physical copy is less easy to reproduce. And now, we've figured out how to make digital things scarce. Now, the ownership of something is indicated by ownership of the NFT, not of the physical original work of something. The tie between the NFT and the digital image is largely a social contract, in the same way that money is a social contract.
    - robbiep 6y ago
      You’ve made the same point about scarcity here but i think most people just can’t buy it. It is literally not scarce
      - ZephyrBlu 6y ago
        NFTs are artificially scarce. There are limited numbers of each token that can be bought.
      - iamwil 6y ago
        The enjoyment of the piece is not scarce. The ownership of it is not. They use to be one in the same. Today, they are not.
        AndrewKemendo 6y ago
        Ownership of what? https://superrare.co/artwork-v2/bloodsculpt-20261 https://superrare.co/artwork-v2/bloodsculpt-20261 https://kemendo.com/Images/bloodsculpt.jpg https://kemendo.com/Images/bloodsculpt.jpg Which one is the real one?
        iamwil 6y ago
        Each link you posted points to two separate digital objects both for the "enjoyment of a piece", not the "ownership of the piece". Think of ownership of a piece as the certificate of authenticity. The first link is on superrare. The superrare image can also be enjoyed by anyone. However, the (very small) link (https://etherscan.io/tx/0xd9e4971bef6d37807605e0eb635eb4b6d9e3487d2c4fc2c30751472312f75270 https://etherscan.io/tx/0xd9e4971bef6d37807605e0eb635eb4b6d9...) to the transaction on the page, tells me the owner of the art piece is 0x053e84e80cfb38d672d53394de3dade1fbbacd25. The second link is on your own homepage. You can claim ownership on the image (since it's on your homepage), which gives you the enjoyment of the piece. But you don't claim ownership of the art piece. Now, who determines which one is the real one? Depends on the counter-party you're transacting with, and what they're willing to honor. If I as the counter-party, am being sold ownership of the art piece from both you and 0x053e84e, I'd take it from 0x053e84e, for the same reason you tried to make: digital images are exact copies. He own the non-duplicable NFT and provably so, and can transfer that NFT to me. If I as the counter-party is the creator of the piece, I can give certificate owners extra VIP features for the art piece, like a chance to meet me, or a one time delivery of a look-book of the making-of of the piece, I can do that, and be sure that it's not fake owners. The pleasure of ownership is different than the pleasure of enjoyment of the piece. So what links the NFT (the certificate) to that particular image? Well, right now, it's conferred by Superrare. If this is turns out to be an issue, I can see ways around it. One option is to use procedurally generated art, where the parameters are stored in the NFT. I think there may be others.

yorwba 6y ago

> You won’t trade MtG cards but NFTs. How about MtG cards that are NFTs? Before a match, both players commit to a deck of cards and produce a zero-knowledge proof that they own all the cards in the deck (i.e. without revealing which cards they have.) All kinds of cryptographic tricks will be necessary to simulate the process of shuffling and drawing cards while ensuring that nobody can cheat. Exciting!

eru 6y ago
It's actually not that hard, if you require players to reveal their complete deck after the match, and if you are willing to wait for cheaters to be caught at that time. (If you want to support cryptographic poker, where opponents learn nothing if there's no showdown; then you need lots of shenanigans.)
jimkleiber 6y ago
This really helped me see potential in NFTs. Before your comment, I was just seeing NFTs as this new certificate of authenticity/ownership that was going to be lost in a sea of property rights management governance. But after reading what you wrote, I'm starting to see NFTs not as the big deal, but the apps that build on top of NFTs. Because having a MgT digital card by itself may not mean much, but the MgT application layer may only recognize official NFT cards to play (which seems easy to do from an app perspective) and therefore the NFT gets used in this code. So I think NFTs may hit more in other fields outside of art, like digital playing cards, digital event tickets, etc. May still work for art. Could be fascinating to have an app layer on top of the art. Almost like an art museum, or maybe exclusive art events where you have to have specific NFTs to attend. Almost like exclusive membership to a club. (Oh great, now with all these ideas in my head I may not sleep lol)
- ckozlowski 6y ago
  I think you're both onto something here. For art I'm skeptical (See my reply in this same discussion for why), but for creative works with utility, and NFT might be more useful if the platform they can be used on requires validation of the token. In that sense, it seems to become a sort of public DRM. I'm sure we can spend a long time musing on the implications of that.