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NFTs make perfect sense for representing a claim on things that can be used, like event tickets or in-game virtual goods. But as certificates layered on top of

NFTs make perfect sense for representing a claim on things that can be used, like event tickets or in-game virtual goods. But as certificates layered on top of collectibles... I'm not so sure. With something like CryptoKitties, you can do something with the tokens (play a virtual pet game). But with something like CryptoPunks you're essentially paying for digital beanie babies, which are worse than real ones since anyone can display and enjoy the image you paid for. You can brag about owning such-and-such an image, but only as long as enough other people desire images from that particular set. When a set's popularity wanes, so does your token's value, and your ability to show it off. I'm always happy to see artists being paid for their work, and if they can make some money during this craze - more power to them. Beyond a few creators being rewarded, it seems like this is going to be 90% bubble (with plenty of hucksters), and 10% real use cases that stand the test of time.

lazzlazzlazz 6y ago
> it seems like this is going to be 90% bubble (with plenty of hucksters), and 10% real use cases that stand the test of time All the most interesting developments in computing start like this. This is good. The future is being born now and not without the required creative destruction.
- TigeriusKirk 6y ago
  Not sure why you're downvoted. You're exactly right. This is how new frontiers always are. Lots of hype, most of which never pans out, with a core of projects that change the world.
scsilver 6y ago
You obviously wont be displaying your rare nft art collection in the west wing of your 2-bit, thirdlifeVR mansion.
- Animats 6y ago
  That may be Decentraland's business model.
berberous 6y ago
CryptoPunks will be in the MoMA one day. They are a pioneer — and will be valued as such. Derivative works and obvious cash grabs are a bubble and low effort art will trend back to $0.
- tasogare 6y ago
  > low effort art will trend back to $0 This is being continuously disproved since decades by contemporary art.
  - gbear605 6y ago
    Most contemporary art has a lot more effort put into it than you think. It’s perfectly okay to not value that effort, but things like those “black squares” or whatever actually aren’t just that. If you see them in person, you can see how the different brush strokes overlap and theoretically signify different things.
    - elsurudo 6y ago
      > If you see them in person, you can see how the different brush strokes overlap and theoretically signify different things. You had me until this bit
      - injidup 6y ago
        Son, see the weave on the emperor's gown and how it's delicate changes in weave and texture signify the greatness, taste and glory of our leader. Mama! Yes but ....
      - DrewRWx 6y ago
        Respecting nuance in other other people's perspectives, even if you don't see it, is a good skill to learn.
    - RobertKerans 6y ago
      The example you're using isn't contemporary, it's over a century old, and it's a design for a stage curtain. It's not valuable for the effort put in * (it's literally just a solid black painted square), it's valuable because of the point in time it represents w/r/t art history * edit for clarity: what would be commonly considered technical artistic effort, although a large % of graphic designers would disagree with that as composition is a skill, and conceptual artists would disagree due to the thought put in (which imo feels post-hoc but hey ho)
tablespoon 6y ago
> You can brag about owning such-and-such an image, but only as long as enough other people desire images from that particular set. When a set's popularity wanes, so does your token's value, and your ability to show it off. And only as long as people recognize your NFT claim to ownership as even being valid. Other people may view that brag as being as sad as someone bragging about their land holdings on the moon: https://lunarland.com/ https://lunarland.com/.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- andypants 6y ago
  There's a difference if the author of the art is the one that minted the NFT. It's like jack dorsey selling an NFT of the first tweet compared with any random person trying to do the same.
  - jameshart 6y ago
    What rights do you actually have in a tweet? Which of those rights are actually transferable? What rights do you have in a tweet that you made in your capacity as an employee of a company? What rights do twitter as a company have with respect to tweets? Or to impose restrictions on the ability of people to transfer rights with respect to tweets?
    - Rule35 6y ago
      Right. This is an example of the dumbest kind of NFT. It's not even a signed original, it's just a token that says "You own the thing!" but for a resource that anyone could download anyway and ownership isn't tied to use or display. It's about what I expect from Jack. At least with cryptokitties, love em or hate em, the NFT was the character and the permission, so while anyone could admire your cat nobody but you could publish actions from it.
arcticbull 6y ago
> NFTs make perfect sense for representing a claim on things that can be used, like event tickets or in-game virtual goods. There’s absolutely no reason for that to be decentralized, only one party can honor the tokens anyways. Like most things crypto they don’t actually make sense for anything.
- jayd16 6y ago
  You still might want to hand out tokens to third parties to trade but not copy. I agree that a decentralized structure is not necessary.
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    If that’s what you want throw a “transfer” button on your site. There’s already a button to do this on the Ticketmaster app.
    - jayd16 6y ago
      Agreed. I still think there's some charm to the idea that it can be supported passively but as you say the fulfilment is ultimately not passive, so it doesn't really gain you all that much.
    - throwaway_kufu 6y ago
      > If that’s what you want throw a “transfer” button on your site. Well when you buy a ticket from ticketmaster you can’t exactly dictate what features they offer through their platform...not to mention ticket master is a 3rd party service that they take a massive cut. blockchain is cutting these 3rd parties out in these use cases, allowing the event holders to easily mint the admission tickets and users take advantage of peer to peer open source technology. Meaning easily trace the tickets and buy/trade/sell without relying on Ticketmaster.
      - calciphus 6y ago
        The thing that makes ticketing difficult is not minting and selling unique items of inventory - that's a well understood problem with many viable solutions. Nor is verifying at any given moment if a single piece of inventory is valid and who owns it - again, that's a solved problem. The secondary markets in ticketing exist because there's an excess of demand and entities who can exploit access, speed, or technical know-how for arbitrage. Blockchain ticketing companies don't fundamentally change that statement - they enable it. No one likes Ticketmaster - but to call them a 3rd party service that takes a massive cut is inaccurate. Ticketmaster is owned by Live Nation, which usually owns both the venue and the artist's tour schedule. And owns the primary and secondary ticketing sales. So Ticketmaster is usually the first, second, and third-party in ticketing. Blockchain doesn't magically fix this. It doesn't change the deep relationship Live Nation has with labels and artists, their fodness for excluding artists who play at rival and independent venues, their habit of defining contract requirements that can only be fulfilled by Ticketmaster software... Blockchain is solving all of the wrong problems in ticketing. I don't need a distributed, trustless ledger of who owns a ticket when all of them are issued by and redeemed at the same location. The only real reason to push for blockchain in ticketing is to help scalpers hide what they're doing.
soulofmischief 6y ago
Cryptopunks will always have mindshare as an early mover. In the collectible world it will maintain decent value. More than the original purchase prices. In many worlds, image NFTs you own are displayed with special indicators that they are yours. You can print out a picture of the Mona Lisa, but its not going to have the same impression as the real painting. Original Beanie Babies are worth a fortune. This craze is happening because many people realize that at the least, there is sustained value in first-mover NFTs of various types. Before dismissing this as yet another craze or bubble, consider that a digital world where 90% of NFTs are worthless is no different than real life with commoditized art.
- ChainOfFools 6y ago
  I believe the rarepepewallet project is considerably older (on the crypto time scale) than cryptopunks, maybe the first fully functional NFT market, and operating before the term was even in use. but its less polished and much of the content is laced with various racist smells.
tshaddox 6y ago
> But with something like CryptoPunks you're essentially paying for digital beanie babies, which are worse than real ones since anyone can display and enjoy the image you paid for. It seems like the obvious counterpoint is that perhaps all of these “collectible” scarce physical things which are bought and sold for huge amounts of money (art, coins, relics, etc.) are in fact being used simply as a way to identify a unique “token” that is good for generating hype among a group of people and exchanging value among that group because it has a story attached to it and isn’t easily counterfeitable. It’s pretty obvious that a decent reproduction of most of these things would deliver the raw surface aesthetic experience to the vast majority of interested people and would cost much less. For many famous paintings it’s easy to understand why someone would want a reproduction in their house for decoration. It’s less obvious to me why someone would want a reproduction of an old coin with a minting flaw, but perhaps that’s just me.
- dools 6y ago
  Also if anything is a digital beanie baby then so is Bitcoin, what’s the difference?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - bob33212 6y ago
    It is permissionless. You can transfer BTC without a bank or eBay or the postal service being involved. It is the best way to buy LSD from a stranger. So it has some value because of that. Similar to rare wine, most of the price is due today to speculation and asset diversification, and rich hobbiests.
    - dools 6y ago
      You can transfer an NFT to someone else exactly the same. It's just that someone has made a real world distinction between 2 distinct NFTs, like if someone found that a particular coin's hash spelled out "Jesus will rise again" in base64. I agree re: rare wine and rich hobbyists. Bitcoin's value is much the same, although without the wine. Everything Seth is saying about NFTs is true for every crypto coin.
runeks 6y ago
> You can brag about owning such-and-such an image [...] How? You don’t own a (digital) image. You own a token that references an image. Everyone else can view the image and send it to their friends. But you have some token allegedly signed by the author of the image — who cares?
- fluffything 6y ago
  The author cares. They got real cash for signing a meaningless token.
  - aabhay 6y ago
    So why not ask for donations or sell prints?
- meowface 6y ago
  You're correct, though if I understand correctly, some NFT platforms do provide some (centralized) feature for "unlocking" content. For example, you could upload a full resolution art piece to an NFT platform or any other place and have the server serve the content to any request that proves ownership of the token. This is a pretty terrible system, though, as it's completely off-chain and not "Web 3.0" or decentralized in the slightest. The server has to store the "private" content in a private centralized database, so the server owners also can access the content, and any hacker could access the database and publicly dump all of the supposedly token-walled content. It's just taking advantage of the fact that any computer can determine the Ethereum address that owns a particular token and can check to see if a message was signed by that address's private key. I could imagine a future standard that could maybe integrate this into Ethereum proper, though I'm not sure if it's technologically possible. There's no way to prevent someone from just publicly releasing the art, but one could imagine some system like the full resolution piece stored as a public key-encrypted blob in the blockchain which can only be decrypted by a token holder. Maybe upon token ownership transfers the key could be encrypted with the token buyer's Ethereum address public key, though I'm not sure how or if it could work since I think the original content key would have to stored on the network in some fashion in order to later encrypt the key for token owners. So it might not be possible even in theory, though I don't know nearly enough about Ethereum and cryptography to say with any certainty.
AlunAlun 6y ago
> in-game virtual goods. But as certificates layered on top of collectibles... I'm not so sure. I agree - the problem with most NFTs at the moment is that you can't actually do anything with them, apart from trade them. There are games coming out now (e.g. Goal Revolution[0]) where your NFTs' properties (and, by extension, value) change based on what you do with them (how you use them). If the NFT thing is going to have any future, it needs to follow this example. [0] https://www.goalrev.com/ https://www.goalrev.com/
- andreaorru 6y ago
  Have you played Aavegotchi? [0] [0] https://www.aavegotchi.com/ https://www.aavegotchi.com/
- freshhawk 6y ago
  So the best case scenario for them is to be a part of the worst type of video games? The pay-to-win/microtransaction sector?
- qqii 6y ago
  > the problem with most ~NFTs~ art at the moment is that you can't actually do anything with them, apart from trade them. I dot agree with this statement but perhaps it'll help you expand why you think this way. As the article says, you don't have to own the Mona Lisa to appreciate it's beauty.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ThomPete 6y ago
This always comes down to how you understand value. How valuable is Jimmy Hendrix guitar pick? How valuable is a lok of Justin Biebers hair? How valuable is a book owned by Charles Darwin? Of course NFT is a bubble just like about every other thing humans create, but humans will always attach value and meaning to dead things even digital ones. And so NFTs can be used for many things including allowing people to buy something overhyped that will depreciate in value. That's all good, the more of this the better.
- aklein 6y ago
  Only in this case the value is stored in “digital gold”. Unlike gold, which is chemically stable, I’m far from convinced the digital format itself will end up sticking around long term.
  - ThomPete 6y ago
    Not sure about your definition for long term. TCP/IP looks pretty solid to me. NFT is basically TCP/IP with memory, why shouldn't that be useful for all sorts of things? Bitcoin is more like gold, NFTs are more like network based consensus validation of ownership.
    - aklein 6y ago
      Right, but unlike TCP/IP, which is a stateless protocol, the validation of an NFT requires a specific blockchain. While Bitcoin and Ethereum seem to be “here to stay”, they both seem under constant competitive pressure from other blockchains.
      - ThomPete 6y ago
        Silver and gold live side by side.
bradleyjg 6y ago
This has value because it’s a tangible reductio ad absurdum for crypto currencies. Best case art, median case scam.
snarf21 6y ago
NFTs are nonsense and just as much a pyramid scheme as everything else crypto. People will get left holding the bag at the top just like with CryptoKitties. I have several hand painted reproductions of famous paintings (impressionist). I get just as much enjoyment looking at them on my wall as I have at the museums looking at the real ones. I don't need to have $100M. I'm glad that content creators are getting paid now but remember that most "artists" end up penniless and their art is only highly valued posthumously.
- gruez 6y ago
  >NFTs are nonsense and just as much a pyramid scheme as everything else crypto. People will get left holding the bag at the top just like with CryptoKitties. You can say this about literally every non-productive asset, including NFT's real-life counterparts eg. painting or trading cards.
  - bostonpete 6y ago
    Except those sorts of collectibles drive much of their value from their limited supply.
    - gruez 6y ago
      paintings might be limited in supply, but trading cards are easily mass produced.
      - bostonpete 6y ago
        They are easily mass produced, but the companies still limit the supply specifically so there is value for collectors
        gruez 6y ago
        But the same dynamic exists with NFTs. The issuers can limit supply to ensure value for collectors.
playingchanges 6y ago
It seems like your argument is more agains collectibles in general. I also can go online and look at the art for various rare Pokémon cards for example. I think you underestimate the psychological component of ‘ownership’ and the extra satisfaction that might bring a collector. An anecdote, I am an avid jazz record collector (vinyl). Every record I own is available to me on Spotify and I actually frequently find new records to purchase on Spotify (they have a great jazz selection). Interestingly, or maybe not, I find that I listen to the records I own more than those I don’t even though I have access to so many more. I also find myself having significantly more patience with the records I buy blindly than I would a random thing that comes on algorithm radio. The point being, ownership creates psychological attachment which in turn creates some intangible form of value that I can’t quite put a number on but I definitely feel.
zemo 6y ago
what is the use-case for an NFT for an in-game virtual good? A sword from World of Warcraft (WoW) can already be traded between players within WoW, since the environment in which it appears is already centralized and that's already provided by the environment. Trading a WoW sword outside of WoW has ambiguous logic. Let's say you sold your WoW sword to a Destiny player. Ok, does the sword still exist in WoW or not? What if the WoW servers just say that it does? Do all players verify that other players have the items the server says they have? If the player uses the sword and the server says "they did 9000 damage because that's how big the sword is", what difference does it make if your client say "NO! Nooo! They don't -HAVE- that sword"? You can't just wave your hand and say "but we'll just make the games peer to peer and that fixes it". P2P lockstep protocols were extremely widespread but fell out of favor due to performance and anticheat issues inherent in lockstep protocols. Most gamedevs would prefer the luxury of not having to run any servers. How do you make a purely P2P multiplayer game protocol that is cheat-resistant and allows more than a very small number of players to witness one another simultaneously? If everyone needs to establish a network connection to everyone near them inside the virtual world, how do you handle crowded spaces? When the sword is sold -outside of WoW-, how does it have value in another context? Can a Destiny character equip a WoW sword? (No.) Ok but what if the Destiny devs made an in-game Destiny item that was pegged to that WoW sword, and then the games all checked your inventory at login? You'd have to check the ledger -every time the item is used- or the player can just login, trade it away, and then stay logged in and continue to use it (use after sell, essentially). If players can -already- trade items within the simulation where they were created, but we're not defining what it actually means to move an asset -between simulations-, what is the actual use-case here? That you can trade non-functional skins outside of the game? That's it? Why is that good?
- jamesgreenleaf 6y ago
  I will help clear up some confusion if I'm able. First, I don't think the big use case is for items being traded between different games. However, a system like that is possible. Blizzard would be a good example here, since their games have a high degree of cross-pollination, and they frequently offer promotions that unlock similar items in several of their games at once. So, owning a Blizzard "magic sword" token might give you a sword item in WoW, another one in Diablo, and a sword card in Hearthstone, each adapted for its own game. This is a small use case, in my opinion. I imagine that the big use case is for any game developer (indies especially) to leverage the marketplace without having to build one, or be locked into one provided by a single publisher/distributor. The game itself does not have to be p2p as you're suggesting. Game architecture would remain centralized, and would communicate with a blockchain where the tokens are stored. The process might look like this: 1) A player purchases an NFT representing an in-game item issued by a wallet owned by the game developer. 2) The player sends that token to a smart-contract address, also owned by the developer, with a memo that identifies their player account. 3) The smart contract notifies a centralized game server, then sends the token back to the player's wallet. 4) The in-game item appears in the player's inventory, within the game. There could be any number of steps involved, and the contracts could operate however you'd like. The token could be destroyed after a single use (like purchasing keys for loot crates in CS:GO) or used and traded any number of times. The game server would have to keep track of which player account controlled which token, and update players' inventories whenever the token changed hands. One more thing - NFTs can be programmed such that creators receive an automatic royalty (a percentage of the sale lands in the creator's wallet address) whenever the item is sold on the blockchain, no matter who is selling to whom. This could be huge for indie developers, who would benefit not only from selling the original items up front, but also from the long-tail resale of such items between their players.
runarberg 6y ago
Looks like artists aren’t quite making money either: https://twitter.com/isyourguy/status/1366176796996112385 https://twitter.com/isyourguy/status/1366176796996112385
joyeuse6701 6y ago
I feel that this is true of any art, NFT or otherwise.
mlthoughts2018 6y ago
> “You can brag about owning such-and-such an image, but only as long as enough other people desire images from that particular set.” I think that’s the whole point. An enduring aspect of human culture is that we praise and confer social status on owners or stewards of rare curiosities. You aren’t buying NFTs for tangible value, you’re buying a speculative investment in social status. And people feel very confident that the market cap and liquidity for buying and trading this type of social status will go way up, and that unique, verifiable digital ownership allows the pay-for-status desires to take place untethered to physical goods.
jasonlaramburu 6y ago
NFTs also suffer from the same attribution issues as traditional certificates for collectibles. You still have to validate that whichever account 'minted' the NFT was actually controlled by the creator of the collectible at that time.
funkshui 6y ago
You're missing the point completely and you have to take some time to think about it and let it roll around in your brain to start making sense of it. It took me a long time but now I fully believe. Including cryptopunks. In real life, people wear rolexes. Why? You and I both know that a casio can tell time just as well as a Rolex. I don't know the difference between one model of Rolex from another, but some may cost 10k and some may cost 20k. To those deep in the Rolex world, the difference is huge. They can tell right away. Why do people wear rolexes? A casio is lighter and easier to tell time. But a Rolex. That's status. You're not SAYING you're rich, but you signal you're rich. Big difference. The former, people will scoff at. The latter, people may be impressed. And if you're in the Rolex world and you own the top of the line Rolex? Those in the know are even more impressed. How does this translate online? How can you signal status online? In centralized systems like twitter, you just look at followers. But what if... you just now made a twitter account to talk about something you love, and you have no followers? How can you signal status to people you talk to that you deserve some clout? Enter something like cryptopunks. People in the cryptospace use cryptopunks as their twitter pic. Those in the know realize that one cryptopunk does not equal another cryptopunk. Maybe yours has red hair and only 2 percent of cryptopunks have red hair. Maybe you know all red hair cryptopunks command a huge premium and cost tens of thousands of dollars. They can verify in your wallet that you own that crypto punk. You can move from one platform to another, with no followers, and suddenly, you have digital clout. Mull it over for awhile.

lazzlazzlazz 6y ago

> it seems like this is going to be 90% bubble (with plenty of hucksters), and 10% real use cases that stand the test of time All the most interesting developments in computing start like this. This is good. The future is being born now and not without the required creative destruction.

TigeriusKirk 6y ago
Not sure why you're downvoted. You're exactly right. This is how new frontiers always are. Lots of hype, most of which never pans out, with a core of projects that change the world.

scsilver 6y ago

You obviously wont be displaying your rare nft art collection in the west wing of your 2-bit, thirdlifeVR mansion.

Animats 6y ago
That may be Decentraland's business model.

berberous 6y ago

CryptoPunks will be in the MoMA one day. They are a pioneer — and will be valued as such. Derivative works and obvious cash grabs are a bubble and low effort art will trend back to $0.

tasogare 6y ago
> low effort art will trend back to $0 This is being continuously disproved since decades by contemporary art.
- gbear605 6y ago
  Most contemporary art has a lot more effort put into it than you think. It’s perfectly okay to not value that effort, but things like those “black squares” or whatever actually aren’t just that. If you see them in person, you can see how the different brush strokes overlap and theoretically signify different things.
  - elsurudo 6y ago
    > If you see them in person, you can see how the different brush strokes overlap and theoretically signify different things. You had me until this bit
    - injidup 6y ago
      Son, see the weave on the emperor's gown and how it's delicate changes in weave and texture signify the greatness, taste and glory of our leader. Mama! Yes but ....
    - DrewRWx 6y ago
      Respecting nuance in other other people's perspectives, even if you don't see it, is a good skill to learn.
  - RobertKerans 6y ago
    The example you're using isn't contemporary, it's over a century old, and it's a design for a stage curtain. It's not valuable for the effort put in * (it's literally just a solid black painted square), it's valuable because of the point in time it represents w/r/t art history * edit for clarity: what would be commonly considered technical artistic effort, although a large % of graphic designers would disagree with that as composition is a skill, and conceptual artists would disagree due to the thought put in (which imo feels post-hoc but hey ho)

tablespoon 6y ago

> You can brag about owning such-and-such an image, but only as long as enough other people desire images from that particular set. When a set's popularity wanes, so does your token's value, and your ability to show it off. And only as long as people recognize your NFT claim to ownership as even being valid. Other people may view that brag as being as sad as someone bragging about their land holdings on the moon: https://lunarland.com/ https://lunarland.com/.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
andypants 6y ago
There's a difference if the author of the art is the one that minted the NFT. It's like jack dorsey selling an NFT of the first tweet compared with any random person trying to do the same.
- jameshart 6y ago
  What rights do you actually have in a tweet? Which of those rights are actually transferable? What rights do you have in a tweet that you made in your capacity as an employee of a company? What rights do twitter as a company have with respect to tweets? Or to impose restrictions on the ability of people to transfer rights with respect to tweets?
  - Rule35 6y ago
    Right. This is an example of the dumbest kind of NFT. It's not even a signed original, it's just a token that says "You own the thing!" but for a resource that anyone could download anyway and ownership isn't tied to use or display. It's about what I expect from Jack. At least with cryptokitties, love em or hate em, the NFT was the character and the permission, so while anyone could admire your cat nobody but you could publish actions from it.

arcticbull 6y ago

> NFTs make perfect sense for representing a claim on things that can be used, like event tickets or in-game virtual goods. There’s absolutely no reason for that to be decentralized, only one party can honor the tokens anyways. Like most things crypto they don’t actually make sense for anything.

jayd16 6y ago
You still might want to hand out tokens to third parties to trade but not copy. I agree that a decentralized structure is not necessary.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  If that’s what you want throw a “transfer” button on your site. There’s already a button to do this on the Ticketmaster app.
  - jayd16 6y ago
    Agreed. I still think there's some charm to the idea that it can be supported passively but as you say the fulfilment is ultimately not passive, so it doesn't really gain you all that much.
  - throwaway_kufu 6y ago
    > If that’s what you want throw a “transfer” button on your site. Well when you buy a ticket from ticketmaster you can’t exactly dictate what features they offer through their platform...not to mention ticket master is a 3rd party service that they take a massive cut. blockchain is cutting these 3rd parties out in these use cases, allowing the event holders to easily mint the admission tickets and users take advantage of peer to peer open source technology. Meaning easily trace the tickets and buy/trade/sell without relying on Ticketmaster.
    - calciphus 6y ago
      The thing that makes ticketing difficult is not minting and selling unique items of inventory - that's a well understood problem with many viable solutions. Nor is verifying at any given moment if a single piece of inventory is valid and who owns it - again, that's a solved problem. The secondary markets in ticketing exist because there's an excess of demand and entities who can exploit access, speed, or technical know-how for arbitrage. Blockchain ticketing companies don't fundamentally change that statement - they enable it. No one likes Ticketmaster - but to call them a 3rd party service that takes a massive cut is inaccurate. Ticketmaster is owned by Live Nation, which usually owns both the venue and the artist's tour schedule. And owns the primary and secondary ticketing sales. So Ticketmaster is usually the first, second, and third-party in ticketing. Blockchain doesn't magically fix this. It doesn't change the deep relationship Live Nation has with labels and artists, their fodness for excluding artists who play at rival and independent venues, their habit of defining contract requirements that can only be fulfilled by Ticketmaster software... Blockchain is solving all of the wrong problems in ticketing. I don't need a distributed, trustless ledger of who owns a ticket when all of them are issued by and redeemed at the same location. The only real reason to push for blockchain in ticketing is to help scalpers hide what they're doing.

soulofmischief 6y ago

Cryptopunks will always have mindshare as an early mover. In the collectible world it will maintain decent value. More than the original purchase prices. In many worlds, image NFTs you own are displayed with special indicators that they are yours. You can print out a picture of the Mona Lisa, but its not going to have the same impression as the real painting. Original Beanie Babies are worth a fortune. This craze is happening because many people realize that at the least, there is sustained value in first-mover NFTs of various types. Before dismissing this as yet another craze or bubble, consider that a digital world where 90% of NFTs are worthless is no different than real life with commoditized art.

ChainOfFools 6y ago
I believe the rarepepewallet project is considerably older (on the crypto time scale) than cryptopunks, maybe the first fully functional NFT market, and operating before the term was even in use. but its less polished and much of the content is laced with various racist smells.

tshaddox 6y ago

> But with something like CryptoPunks you're essentially paying for digital beanie babies, which are worse than real ones since anyone can display and enjoy the image you paid for. It seems like the obvious counterpoint is that perhaps all of these “collectible” scarce physical things which are bought and sold for huge amounts of money (art, coins, relics, etc.) are in fact being used simply as a way to identify a unique “token” that is good for generating hype among a group of people and exchanging value among that group because it has a story attached to it and isn’t easily counterfeitable. It’s pretty obvious that a decent reproduction of most of these things would deliver the raw surface aesthetic experience to the vast majority of interested people and would cost much less. For many famous paintings it’s easy to understand why someone would want a reproduction in their house for decoration. It’s less obvious to me why someone would want a reproduction of an old coin with a minting flaw, but perhaps that’s just me.

dools 6y ago
Also if anything is a digital beanie baby then so is Bitcoin, what’s the difference?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- bob33212 6y ago
  It is permissionless. You can transfer BTC without a bank or eBay or the postal service being involved. It is the best way to buy LSD from a stranger. So it has some value because of that. Similar to rare wine, most of the price is due today to speculation and asset diversification, and rich hobbiests.
  - dools 6y ago
    You can transfer an NFT to someone else exactly the same. It's just that someone has made a real world distinction between 2 distinct NFTs, like if someone found that a particular coin's hash spelled out "Jesus will rise again" in base64. I agree re: rare wine and rich hobbyists. Bitcoin's value is much the same, although without the wine. Everything Seth is saying about NFTs is true for every crypto coin.

runeks 6y ago

> You can brag about owning such-and-such an image [...] How? You don’t own a (digital) image. You own a token that references an image. Everyone else can view the image and send it to their friends. But you have some token allegedly signed by the author of the image — who cares?

fluffything 6y ago
The author cares. They got real cash for signing a meaningless token.
- aabhay 6y ago
  So why not ask for donations or sell prints?
meowface 6y ago
You're correct, though if I understand correctly, some NFT platforms do provide some (centralized) feature for "unlocking" content. For example, you could upload a full resolution art piece to an NFT platform or any other place and have the server serve the content to any request that proves ownership of the token. This is a pretty terrible system, though, as it's completely off-chain and not "Web 3.0" or decentralized in the slightest. The server has to store the "private" content in a private centralized database, so the server owners also can access the content, and any hacker could access the database and publicly dump all of the supposedly token-walled content. It's just taking advantage of the fact that any computer can determine the Ethereum address that owns a particular token and can check to see if a message was signed by that address's private key. I could imagine a future standard that could maybe integrate this into Ethereum proper, though I'm not sure if it's technologically possible. There's no way to prevent someone from just publicly releasing the art, but one could imagine some system like the full resolution piece stored as a public key-encrypted blob in the blockchain which can only be decrypted by a token holder. Maybe upon token ownership transfers the key could be encrypted with the token buyer's Ethereum address public key, though I'm not sure how or if it could work since I think the original content key would have to stored on the network in some fashion in order to later encrypt the key for token owners. So it might not be possible even in theory, though I don't know nearly enough about Ethereum and cryptography to say with any certainty.

AlunAlun 6y ago

> in-game virtual goods. But as certificates layered on top of collectibles... I'm not so sure. I agree - the problem with most NFTs at the moment is that you can't actually do anything with them, apart from trade them. There are games coming out now (e.g. Goal Revolution[0]) where your NFTs' properties (and, by extension, value) change based on what you do with them (how you use them). If the NFT thing is going to have any future, it needs to follow this example. [0] https://www.goalrev.com/ https://www.goalrev.com/

andreaorru 6y ago
Have you played Aavegotchi? [0] [0] https://www.aavegotchi.com/ https://www.aavegotchi.com/
freshhawk 6y ago
So the best case scenario for them is to be a part of the worst type of video games? The pay-to-win/microtransaction sector?
qqii 6y ago
> the problem with most ~NFTs~ art at the moment is that you can't actually do anything with them, apart from trade them. I dot agree with this statement but perhaps it'll help you expand why you think this way. As the article says, you don't have to own the Mona Lisa to appreciate it's beauty.

deleted 6y ago

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ThomPete 6y ago

This always comes down to how you understand value. How valuable is Jimmy Hendrix guitar pick? How valuable is a lok of Justin Biebers hair? How valuable is a book owned by Charles Darwin? Of course NFT is a bubble just like about every other thing humans create, but humans will always attach value and meaning to dead things even digital ones. And so NFTs can be used for many things including allowing people to buy something overhyped that will depreciate in value. That's all good, the more of this the better.

aklein 6y ago
Only in this case the value is stored in “digital gold”. Unlike gold, which is chemically stable, I’m far from convinced the digital format itself will end up sticking around long term.
- ThomPete 6y ago
  Not sure about your definition for long term. TCP/IP looks pretty solid to me. NFT is basically TCP/IP with memory, why shouldn't that be useful for all sorts of things? Bitcoin is more like gold, NFTs are more like network based consensus validation of ownership.
  - aklein 6y ago
    Right, but unlike TCP/IP, which is a stateless protocol, the validation of an NFT requires a specific blockchain. While Bitcoin and Ethereum seem to be “here to stay”, they both seem under constant competitive pressure from other blockchains.
    - ThomPete 6y ago
      Silver and gold live side by side.

bradleyjg 6y ago

This has value because it’s a tangible reductio ad absurdum for crypto currencies. Best case art, median case scam.

snarf21 6y ago

NFTs are nonsense and just as much a pyramid scheme as everything else crypto. People will get left holding the bag at the top just like with CryptoKitties. I have several hand painted reproductions of famous paintings (impressionist). I get just as much enjoyment looking at them on my wall as I have at the museums looking at the real ones. I don't need to have $100M. I'm glad that content creators are getting paid now but remember that most "artists" end up penniless and their art is only highly valued posthumously.

gruez 6y ago
>NFTs are nonsense and just as much a pyramid scheme as everything else crypto. People will get left holding the bag at the top just like with CryptoKitties. You can say this about literally every non-productive asset, including NFT's real-life counterparts eg. painting or trading cards.
- bostonpete 6y ago
  Except those sorts of collectibles drive much of their value from their limited supply.
  - gruez 6y ago
    paintings might be limited in supply, but trading cards are easily mass produced.
    - bostonpete 6y ago
      They are easily mass produced, but the companies still limit the supply specifically so there is value for collectors
      - gruez 6y ago
        But the same dynamic exists with NFTs. The issuers can limit supply to ensure value for collectors.

playingchanges 6y ago

It seems like your argument is more agains collectibles in general. I also can go online and look at the art for various rare Pokémon cards for example. I think you underestimate the psychological component of ‘ownership’ and the extra satisfaction that might bring a collector. An anecdote, I am an avid jazz record collector (vinyl). Every record I own is available to me on Spotify and I actually frequently find new records to purchase on Spotify (they have a great jazz selection). Interestingly, or maybe not, I find that I listen to the records I own more than those I don’t even though I have access to so many more. I also find myself having significantly more patience with the records I buy blindly than I would a random thing that comes on algorithm radio. The point being, ownership creates psychological attachment which in turn creates some intangible form of value that I can’t quite put a number on but I definitely feel.

zemo 6y ago

what is the use-case for an NFT for an in-game virtual good? A sword from World of Warcraft (WoW) can already be traded between players within WoW, since the environment in which it appears is already centralized and that's already provided by the environment. Trading a WoW sword outside of WoW has ambiguous logic. Let's say you sold your WoW sword to a Destiny player. Ok, does the sword still exist in WoW or not? What if the WoW servers just say that it does? Do all players verify that other players have the items the server says they have? If the player uses the sword and the server says "they did 9000 damage because that's how big the sword is", what difference does it make if your client say "NO! Nooo! They don't -HAVE- that sword"? You can't just wave your hand and say "but we'll just make the games peer to peer and that fixes it". P2P lockstep protocols were extremely widespread but fell out of favor due to performance and anticheat issues inherent in lockstep protocols. Most gamedevs would prefer the luxury of not having to run any servers. How do you make a purely P2P multiplayer game protocol that is cheat-resistant and allows more than a very small number of players to witness one another simultaneously? If everyone needs to establish a network connection to everyone near them inside the virtual world, how do you handle crowded spaces? When the sword is sold -outside of WoW-, how does it have value in another context? Can a Destiny character equip a WoW sword? (No.) Ok but what if the Destiny devs made an in-game Destiny item that was pegged to that WoW sword, and then the games all checked your inventory at login? You'd have to check the ledger -every time the item is used- or the player can just login, trade it away, and then stay logged in and continue to use it (use after sell, essentially). If players can -already- trade items within the simulation where they were created, but we're not defining what it actually means to move an asset -between simulations-, what is the actual use-case here? That you can trade non-functional skins outside of the game? That's it? Why is that good?

jamesgreenleaf 6y ago
I will help clear up some confusion if I'm able. First, I don't think the big use case is for items being traded between different games. However, a system like that is possible. Blizzard would be a good example here, since their games have a high degree of cross-pollination, and they frequently offer promotions that unlock similar items in several of their games at once. So, owning a Blizzard "magic sword" token might give you a sword item in WoW, another one in Diablo, and a sword card in Hearthstone, each adapted for its own game. This is a small use case, in my opinion. I imagine that the big use case is for any game developer (indies especially) to leverage the marketplace without having to build one, or be locked into one provided by a single publisher/distributor. The game itself does not have to be p2p as you're suggesting. Game architecture would remain centralized, and would communicate with a blockchain where the tokens are stored. The process might look like this: 1) A player purchases an NFT representing an in-game item issued by a wallet owned by the game developer. 2) The player sends that token to a smart-contract address, also owned by the developer, with a memo that identifies their player account. 3) The smart contract notifies a centralized game server, then sends the token back to the player's wallet. 4) The in-game item appears in the player's inventory, within the game. There could be any number of steps involved, and the contracts could operate however you'd like. The token could be destroyed after a single use (like purchasing keys for loot crates in CS:GO) or used and traded any number of times. The game server would have to keep track of which player account controlled which token, and update players' inventories whenever the token changed hands. One more thing - NFTs can be programmed such that creators receive an automatic royalty (a percentage of the sale lands in the creator's wallet address) whenever the item is sold on the blockchain, no matter who is selling to whom. This could be huge for indie developers, who would benefit not only from selling the original items up front, but also from the long-tail resale of such items between their players.

runarberg 6y ago

Looks like artists aren’t quite making money either: https://twitter.com/isyourguy/status/1366176796996112385 https://twitter.com/isyourguy/status/1366176796996112385

joyeuse6701 6y ago

I feel that this is true of any art, NFT or otherwise.

mlthoughts2018 6y ago

> “You can brag about owning such-and-such an image, but only as long as enough other people desire images from that particular set.” I think that’s the whole point. An enduring aspect of human culture is that we praise and confer social status on owners or stewards of rare curiosities. You aren’t buying NFTs for tangible value, you’re buying a speculative investment in social status. And people feel very confident that the market cap and liquidity for buying and trading this type of social status will go way up, and that unique, verifiable digital ownership allows the pay-for-status desires to take place untethered to physical goods.

jasonlaramburu 6y ago

NFTs also suffer from the same attribution issues as traditional certificates for collectibles. You still have to validate that whichever account 'minted' the NFT was actually controlled by the creator of the collectible at that time.

funkshui 6y ago

You're missing the point completely and you have to take some time to think about it and let it roll around in your brain to start making sense of it. It took me a long time but now I fully believe. Including cryptopunks. In real life, people wear rolexes. Why? You and I both know that a casio can tell time just as well as a Rolex. I don't know the difference between one model of Rolex from another, but some may cost 10k and some may cost 20k. To those deep in the Rolex world, the difference is huge. They can tell right away. Why do people wear rolexes? A casio is lighter and easier to tell time. But a Rolex. That's status. You're not SAYING you're rich, but you signal you're rich. Big difference. The former, people will scoff at. The latter, people may be impressed. And if you're in the Rolex world and you own the top of the line Rolex? Those in the know are even more impressed. How does this translate online? How can you signal status online? In centralized systems like twitter, you just look at followers. But what if... you just now made a twitter account to talk about something you love, and you have no followers? How can you signal status to people you talk to that you deserve some clout? Enter something like cryptopunks. People in the cryptospace use cryptopunks as their twitter pic. Those in the know realize that one cryptopunk does not equal another cryptopunk. Maybe yours has red hair and only 2 percent of cryptopunks have red hair. Maybe you know all red hair cryptopunks command a huge premium and cost tens of thousands of dollars. They can verify in your wallet that you own that crypto punk. You can move from one platform to another, with no followers, and suddenly, you have digital clout. Mull it over for awhile.