5 ms·
I think people here are being quite short sighted. Yes, the impermanence of many (most) NFTs right now is a big problem, but that is a problem that many are wo
by berberous 6y ago
I think people here are being quite short sighted.
Yes, the impermanence of many (most) NFTs right now is a big problem, but that is a problem that many are working on and I expect to largely be solved within a year.
A few things of note:
https://artblocks.io/learn https://artblocks.io/learn
ArtBlock allows generative artists to create a script, which a user can then mint an artwork whereby a unique hash passed to that script creates an output. This leads to the creation of a cohesive set of visual works, but with each piece having a unique feel that still feels part of the set. See Archetypes or Ringers for two well known collections on ArtBlocks. The script and hash is all stored on chain.
https://www.deafbeef.com/ https://www.deafbeef.com/
This artist has created C-code that lives on chain which can re-create the audio and visual components of the media you are buying. So you can always re-create the media with what is stored on chain.
There are numerous other projects that are storing the media "on chain".
Other projects store a hash of the file you are purchasing in the NFT, and then point the URL to an IPFS gateway. As long as someone on the IPFS network is hosting the media, the hash will find it. Their are platforms being created to assist with this (e.g https://infinft.com/#about https://infinft.com/#about)
See also Arweave and Filecoin, which are decentralized networks that can be used to incentivize others to store the media (in Arweave's case, potentially "forever").
This space will continue to evolve and new standards will be developed to address these issues.
In the meantime though, it is definitively caveat emptor and I would urge diligence as to how any NFT you might purchase handles these types of issues.
- GrumpyNl 6y agoSo what exactly do you own when you buy a NFT?
- dralley 6y agoThey may as well stuff the data into a QR code, print it out, and stick it on the wall. That's really the only "artwork" that they come out of this transaction possessing.
- jdauriemma 6y agoIt's a unit of cryptocurrency adorned with pieces of flair
- atmosx 6y agoI agree. I don’t see “permanent storage” as an unsolvable problem. What I see as a problem, is creating a process to identify ownership of the NFTs. I wonder how auctions do that. Technically must quite expensive to prove ownership of a digital asset.
- acdha 6y agoPermanent storage is a harder problem than many people give credit: it costs money for storage and for access. When you have a little bit of data used by a few people, you can probably find volunteers on the internet who will donate capacity but that falls apart once a service becomes popular enough that people have expectations of reliability or support. It also becomes legally a minefield the first time someone puts copyrighted or illegal material there, so nodes are going to become selective about what fraction of the total they mirror. This seems like a challenge for artwork since blockchains are so inefficient compared to the alternatives and for any one person it's both cheaper and more reliable to store their collection on a regular storage service which has SLAs. Why pay more to take on other people's problems?
- atmosx 6y agoTotally agree! My point was that although you can solve long term storage with tech and there are projects who can try to solve the problem, with all the caveats you mentioned, there is no way technically to solve the artwork provenance part. You have to assign to an individual or team to go through drills.
- lmarcos 6y agoYou can do all of that without blockchain, without NFTs.
- Igelau 6y agoSo for artblocks you get to pay so that an entry on the blockchain says you paid for this: https://api.artblocks.io/token/7 https://api.artblocks.io/token/7 And all you get to say is you paid for that. Because anyone can go see https://api.artblocks.io/generator/7 https://api.artblocks.io/generator/7 in all its glory, but only one person (presumably) can say they were the last one to pay for the pointer. This isn't "a thing of note". This is not even bullshit, because art might actually be bullshit. This is bullshit dropping its own shit, blindly, on a spreadsheet.