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Probably the same reason I don’t scam fools on the internet. I was born with a debilitating moral compass

by jcpham2 6y ago

enriquto 6y ago
Overtly scamming super-rich fools is not that bad in most moral compasses. Most folks will cheer you on that.
- seniorivn 6y ago
  most people you know, probably, but you have no data about everyone else
WJW 6y ago
This is not even scamming. People willingly pay for the NFT and they know what they are getting. That you and I don't put any value on an NFT is meaningless, I also don't put a value of hundreds of millions on a Rembrand painting yet museums do it all the time.
- Robin_Message 6y ago
  At least the museum then owns the Rembrand and could, for example, charge people to come and see it, or increase the prestige of their museum by displaying it. Whereas, with the Grumpy Cat NFT, someone, somewhere, can exhibit some bits that shows they "own"(?) this particular image of Grumpy Cat, which is reproduced millions of times across the internet. Does the NFT even convey the legal rights to the image? Can you send DMCA takedowns based on owning the NFT for an image? What even makes the NFT non-fungible? In fact, if anyone wants it, I'll happily sell you the NFT https://robinmessage.com/nft/GrumpyCat https://robinmessage.com/nft/GrumpyCat for $100,000 and I'll promise: - to probably never issue that NFT to anyone else; - and that, in some ineffable way, it represents the original Grumpy Cat.
  - qqii 6y ago
    The owner of the Grumpy Cat NFT can do one better, he could flash loan his NFT at a small cost. Simplified you can think of an NFT being the following tuple: (NFT contract address, public address). Uniqueness of this tuple is guarenteed by the EVM and liveness of this information is guaranteed by the Ethereum blockchain. A lot of the NFTs value derives from the popularity of the individual that holds the private address corresponding to the public key that created the NFT contract. This is the implicit way it represents the original Grumpy Cat and is not something you can duplicate seeing as you're not Tabatha Bundesen.
  - J-dawg 6y ago
    > Can you send DMCA takedowns based on owning the NFT for an image? I'm also curious about this. Does the buyer now legally own the image itself, as well as the NFT?
  - jcpham2 6y ago
    I can’t help but wonder if satoshi did it best by _not_ attaching a real life persona to the thing. Ethereum is still a huge utterly insane risk because of Vitalik himself. I wouldn’t purchase anything of value as a store of value because of the creator. Value seen or not.
- teekert 6y ago
  Yeah, this more akin to "I'm gonna drink some paint and throw up on a large piece of paper and call it `Naked lady descending`".
- purple_ferret 6y ago
  > People willingly pay for the NFT and they know what they are getting. I doubt most people know what they're getting. I doubt they know what is actually stored on the blockchain (that the image itself isn't for instance) or how to find what is.
  - qqii 6y ago
    If you look at the accounts of those buying NFTs you'll find that they're have a long history with decentralised finance and other cryptocurrency projects.
- Barrin92 6y ago
  >, I also don't put a value of hundreds of millions on a Rembrand painting yet museums do it all the time. at the very least with a Rembrandt painting you can be reasonably sure that it's still worth something in a few years because 1. it actually constitutes a significant contribution to art and human culture, 2. it's been recognised as such for a few hundred years What exactly is the chance that a digitally signed picture of a grumpy looking cat is something anyone cares about in another decade. A Pokemon trading card is high culture by comparison
  - qqii 6y ago
    Grumpy cat went viral in 2018 and since then hasn't seen that much popularity, if a "meaningless token" created by the owner is worth this much who's to say it: * doesn't represent a significant contribution to internet culture * will be still recognised as a meme in a few hundred years I can't say which memes will survive but I wouldn't rule it out either. Using this reasoning you can easily see why Jack Dorsey's NFT sold for so much more.
exikyut 6y ago
Hmmmm. I learned somewhere that certain people that pass a certain "threshold" are not only fooled^H^H^H^H^H^Hconvinced by Nigerian prince scams, but utterly convinced that they are true. I'm now wondering if there's a variant of this occurring on the other side of the equation, where people that fit within a certain threshold of "not being scammed" fit within this threshold so strongly it's impossible for them to break out of it and look at "how to actually scam ethically" from outside the box (where said box would say "hang on a minute, that sentence right there is an oxymoron")

Probably the same reason I don’t scam fools on the internet. I was born with a debilitating moral compass

enriquto 6y ago

Overtly scamming super-rich fools is not that bad in most moral compasses. Most folks will cheer you on that.

seniorivn 6y ago
most people you know, probably, but you have no data about everyone else

WJW 6y ago

This is not even scamming. People willingly pay for the NFT and they know what they are getting. That you and I don't put any value on an NFT is meaningless, I also don't put a value of hundreds of millions on a Rembrand painting yet museums do it all the time.

Robin_Message 6y ago
At least the museum then owns the Rembrand and could, for example, charge people to come and see it, or increase the prestige of their museum by displaying it. Whereas, with the Grumpy Cat NFT, someone, somewhere, can exhibit some bits that shows they "own"(?) this particular image of Grumpy Cat, which is reproduced millions of times across the internet. Does the NFT even convey the legal rights to the image? Can you send DMCA takedowns based on owning the NFT for an image? What even makes the NFT non-fungible? In fact, if anyone wants it, I'll happily sell you the NFT https://robinmessage.com/nft/GrumpyCat https://robinmessage.com/nft/GrumpyCat for $100,000 and I'll promise: - to probably never issue that NFT to anyone else; - and that, in some ineffable way, it represents the original Grumpy Cat.
- qqii 6y ago
  The owner of the Grumpy Cat NFT can do one better, he could flash loan his NFT at a small cost. Simplified you can think of an NFT being the following tuple: (NFT contract address, public address). Uniqueness of this tuple is guarenteed by the EVM and liveness of this information is guaranteed by the Ethereum blockchain. A lot of the NFTs value derives from the popularity of the individual that holds the private address corresponding to the public key that created the NFT contract. This is the implicit way it represents the original Grumpy Cat and is not something you can duplicate seeing as you're not Tabatha Bundesen.
- J-dawg 6y ago
  > Can you send DMCA takedowns based on owning the NFT for an image? I'm also curious about this. Does the buyer now legally own the image itself, as well as the NFT?
- jcpham2 6y ago
  I can’t help but wonder if satoshi did it best by _not_ attaching a real life persona to the thing. Ethereum is still a huge utterly insane risk because of Vitalik himself. I wouldn’t purchase anything of value as a store of value because of the creator. Value seen or not.
teekert 6y ago
Yeah, this more akin to "I'm gonna drink some paint and throw up on a large piece of paper and call it `Naked lady descending`".
purple_ferret 6y ago
> People willingly pay for the NFT and they know what they are getting. I doubt most people know what they're getting. I doubt they know what is actually stored on the blockchain (that the image itself isn't for instance) or how to find what is.
- qqii 6y ago
  If you look at the accounts of those buying NFTs you'll find that they're have a long history with decentralised finance and other cryptocurrency projects.
Barrin92 6y ago
>, I also don't put a value of hundreds of millions on a Rembrand painting yet museums do it all the time. at the very least with a Rembrandt painting you can be reasonably sure that it's still worth something in a few years because 1. it actually constitutes a significant contribution to art and human culture, 2. it's been recognised as such for a few hundred years What exactly is the chance that a digitally signed picture of a grumpy looking cat is something anyone cares about in another decade. A Pokemon trading card is high culture by comparison
- qqii 6y ago
  Grumpy cat went viral in 2018 and since then hasn't seen that much popularity, if a "meaningless token" created by the owner is worth this much who's to say it: * doesn't represent a significant contribution to internet culture * will be still recognised as a meme in a few hundred years I can't say which memes will survive but I wouldn't rule it out either. Using this reasoning you can easily see why Jack Dorsey's NFT sold for so much more.

exikyut 6y ago

Hmmmm. I learned somewhere that certain people that pass a certain "threshold" are not only fooled^H^H^H^H^H^Hconvinced by Nigerian prince scams, but utterly convinced that they are true. I'm now wondering if there's a variant of this occurring on the other side of the equation, where people that fit within a certain threshold of "not being scammed" fit within this threshold so strongly it's impossible for them to break out of it and look at "how to actually scam ethically" from outside the box (where said box would say "hang on a minute, that sentence right there is an oxymoron")