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>Why is it that Elon Musk can sell an NFT of Elon Musk's tweet, but Jeff Bezos would have a much harder time doing the same? Elon and Jeff have the same level o
by jasode 6y ago
>Why is it that Elon Musk can sell an NFT of Elon Musk's tweet, but Jeff Bezos would have a much harder time doing the same? Elon and Jeff have the same level of ability to screenshot Elon's tweet and stick it into an NFT dapp, so what's the difference? To anyone who has even a basic intuitive understanding of human social psychology (or the fake art scene), the answer is obvious: Elon selling Elon's tweet is the real thing, and Jeff doing the same is not. Once again, millions of dollars of value are being controlled and allocated, not by individuals or cryptographic keys, but by social conceptions of legitimacy.
It seems like Vitalik has stumbled into another restatement of the famous essay "What Colour are your bits?"[1] ... which is basically a poetic way of saying "What _Provenance_ are your bits?"
Provenance matters.
(But I'm not claiming that NFTs will have enduring value. I can't tell if they will be a fad or not.)
[1] https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23#:~:text=Having%20identical%20bits%20means%20by,computers%2C%20are%20Colour%2Dblind https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23#:~:text=Having%20identica....
- timoth3y 6y ago> ... but Jeff Bezos would have a much harder time doing the same? I question that assumption. Let's keep in mind that we have already accepted that URLs pointing to a video or jpeg become valuable once they are put on a blockchain. So let's keep an open mind here. NFTs have value because people believe they have value, and people currently believe they have value because a lot of people are telling good stories about why the should. So, while Jeff could not sell Elon's tweet while claiming to the Elon, he could easily sell it by telling a different story. The more attention-getting the better. He could easily sell it is part of his limited collection of "!00 stupidest tweets of all time" or something like that. The hype-machine would kick in and everyone would want to "own a part of it."
- thefourthchime 6y agoOh I bet Jeff could sell a tweet from Elon, it just won't got for as much.
- tehlike 6y agoyou have no idea. justin sun seems to have infinite <stup...> ehem money.
- strogonoff 6y agoJeff (or anyone else) could easily sell Elon’s tweet by pretending to be Elon, just like the other day someone was pretending to be Simon Stålenhag to sell his art as NFT. (This hypothetical scenario works best if impersonation target is not aware of or not inclined to engage with NFTs, of course.)
- capableweb 6y agoThis wouldn't work at all. Who buys something from ebay that is made by "ElonMusk534" without looking up if Elon himself has confirmed via another venue that it's actually him? Same goes for NFTs.
- strogonoff 6y agoThis is true if you expect Elon to care to register his handle on every NFT marketplace. Which may be true for him, but not the majority of people.
- capableweb 6y agoWhat does that have to do with anything? You wouldn't confirm if Elon on Marketplace #1 by checking his profiles on Marketplace #2 (neither of which you know is actually is Elon). You would check Marketplace #1 and #2 by going to some place where he is verified like Twitter.
- strogonoff 6y agoSo somebody who isn’t verified on mainstream social media or generally hasn’t made themselves publicly available for a comment is a fair target then? Besides, where does the idea that NFT purchasers even care who listed the NFT? They bought and own the actual item (artwork, tweet, etc.), who sold it is secondary—just as Mona Lisa doesn’t suddenly become something different if sold by a thief.
- capableweb 6y ago