4 ms·

NFTs are kind of an oxymoron in my opinion. For a digital object to be scarce it needs a central authority. If a digital object is decentralized, it has no sc

NFTs are kind of an oxymoron in my opinion. For a digital object to be scarce it needs a central authority. If a digital object is decentralized, it has no scarcity and is worthless. E.g. a limited edition skin in a game needs the central authority to make it usable in the game. So why do they need blockchain? E.g. a blockchain piece of data is accessible to all, so why pay for it?

ZephyrBlu 6y ago
The "central authority" is the blockchain, which is decentralized because no one controls it. > a limited edition skin in a game needs the central authority to make it usable in the game. So why do they need blockchain? Why do you need a central authority to make it usable? I believe anyone can check the ownership of an NFT on the blockchain. You would just need to cross-check a player's game account against their blockchain address. > a blockchain piece of data is accessible to all, so why pay for it? It is accessible to everyone, but only owned by one person.
- addajones 6y ago
  If it's only owned by one person, can that one person make it not accessible to everyone once they own it? Or is it just the public knowledge that there is one owner and listing who that is?
  - ZephyrBlu 6y ago
    No, because everything on the blockchain is public. I'm not exactly sure how NFTs work, but they will have some data associated with them that will be publicly accessible on the blockchain.
- tkiolp4 6y ago
  Not everyone knows how blockchain works, and so NFT marketplaces are acting as pseudo central authorities (the average Joe buys, sells and checks the ownership of NFTs via marketplaces).
- debbiedowner 6y ago
  What I was getting at was it's hard to think of a situation where "owning" some piece of information like a game skin has utility without a central authority. Ok though maybe in the future call of duty servers will be decentralized and use blockchain to trade game items... But I do see now that utility from owning is not the right concept here
biztos 6y ago
The art world has no central authority, but you can still pay four million bucks for your Gursky. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Gursky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Gursky
- debbiedowner 6y ago
  In the art world every transaction is based on trust. Also if Gursky made the photographs downloadable and the printing process was standard then his photos would have a very different price.

ZephyrBlu 6y ago

The "central authority" is the blockchain, which is decentralized because no one controls it. > a limited edition skin in a game needs the central authority to make it usable in the game. So why do they need blockchain? Why do you need a central authority to make it usable? I believe anyone can check the ownership of an NFT on the blockchain. You would just need to cross-check a player's game account against their blockchain address. > a blockchain piece of data is accessible to all, so why pay for it? It is accessible to everyone, but only owned by one person.

addajones 6y ago
If it's only owned by one person, can that one person make it not accessible to everyone once they own it? Or is it just the public knowledge that there is one owner and listing who that is?
- ZephyrBlu 6y ago
  No, because everything on the blockchain is public. I'm not exactly sure how NFTs work, but they will have some data associated with them that will be publicly accessible on the blockchain.
tkiolp4 6y ago
Not everyone knows how blockchain works, and so NFT marketplaces are acting as pseudo central authorities (the average Joe buys, sells and checks the ownership of NFTs via marketplaces).
debbiedowner 6y ago
What I was getting at was it's hard to think of a situation where "owning" some piece of information like a game skin has utility without a central authority. Ok though maybe in the future call of duty servers will be decentralized and use blockchain to trade game items... But I do see now that utility from owning is not the right concept here

biztos 6y ago

The art world has no central authority, but you can still pay four million bucks for your Gursky. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Gursky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Gursky

debbiedowner 6y ago
In the art world every transaction is based on trust. Also if Gursky made the photographs downloadable and the printing process was standard then his photos would have a very different price.