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>Instead of ads, I thought I would try and sell an NFT of the page. I’d read a fair amount about NFTs (both good and bad), and I was a mix of sceptical and curi
by simias 6y ago
>Instead of ads, I thought I would try and sell an NFT of the page. I’d read a fair amount about NFTs (both good and bad), and I was a mix of sceptical and curious. I thought this would be an interesting and weird opportunity to try it out myself. Added to this, it could be a fun meta-meme. I thought it would be fun to be the first meme website to sell itself as an NFT.
I don't quite understand, what was sold here exactly? You can't sell the DNS since ".com" doesn't exist on the blockchain (you could for a NameCoin domain, but who uses that). So is it like a capture of the source code? Or is it really just a token saying "istheshipstillstuck.com"?
I can sort of get NFTs when it's about selling digital artwork since it's a way for the artist to generate artificial scarcity for something that's technically endlessly copiable and it creates a notion of what's "the original". After all, IP laws and regulations are full of that stuff (cue the "what colour are your bits" essay).
But here there's already a digital token that's unique and can be auctioned: the domain name itself. It's pretty obvious to me that the "true" istheshipstillstuck.com will be whoever owns the DNS, not some random person with an NFT token.
- xyzelement 6y agoI think he's just playing around/being cheeky with all this stuff, so I don't think it was ever meant to stand up to robust scrutiny :>
- simias 6y agoI completely get that, but I was thinking from the point of view of the person who decided to put $200 into the joke.
- platz 6y agoeven with art, an NFT doesn't confer copyright rights, so you don't even own the art. > a way for the artist to generate artificial scarcity The art isn't stored on-chain, so it's not scarce either. All the NFT is is a pointer that has some text about who created it and what it points to. Not sure why why that pointer itself is valuable except as a status of "i am the only one that owns this unique pointer". Of course there's nothing stopping anyone from creating another pointer that points to the same thing as the one you just bought and selling that. So unless you find some value in pointers, intrinsically in themselves, NFT's are useless.
- gumby 6y agoIt’s valuable because someone felt it was. It’s the pet rock of 2021.
- platz 6y agohttps://opensea.io/assets/0x495f947276749ce646f68ac8c248420045cb7b5e/83825760427488223808482593817219266099452636995972606999418214012989867032577 https://opensea.io/assets/0x495f947276749ce646f68ac8c2484200... > Link to a print-ready high-resolution image file will be unlocked on purchase (2048 x 2048 pixels). LOL
- martin_a 6y agoAs somebody working in the printing industry, I would not call that "printable", but okay... (Except you don't want your art to be printed in a reasonable size.)
- joosters 6y agoI don't quite understand, what was sold here exactly? This question applies to all NFTs! All you 'own' is a smart contract on a blockchain. That contract might contain a URL, and that URL might have some content on it. Or it could be a broken link. But you definitely do not own the thing that the URL points to. Nor do you have any guarantee that there are no other NFTs on the blockchain using that same URL. Luckily enough for the scammers/sellers, the buyers don't seem to care about these details!
- simias 6y agoOh, so normally NFTs don't actually contain the digital artwork, just a reference to it? I assumed that the art itself would be stored into the blockchain, which would give it some form of permanence.
- WJW 6y agoThat only works for digital things, for obvious reasons.
- PavleMiha 6y agoThe vast majority of NFT's sell art that is not on the blockchain, is hosted somewhere else. There are some pixel art-y small things that people have put on the actual blockchain but it's rare.
- another_sock 6y agoYeah, most NFTs are just references to a database hosting a file somewhere. There are exceptions, but this is the case with sites like Rarible as far as I know. The exceptions are less popular and less well known because they aren't scams and are actually interesting technology-wise, and thus aren't doing a ton of marketing or promotion or being used for money laundering or tax scams like most NFTs currently are.
- henvic 6y agoNFT is just a joke went too far. I'm starting to consider creating a NFT to sell NFTs of NFTs emitted elsewhere. Or one for people who doesn't "own an asset" to sell it.
- kamel3d 6y agoThat's why I still think NFTs are scam
- ihuman 6y agoHow is it a scam if you get exactly what you paid for?
- tyrust 6y agoIt's like a signed baseball card, where it is signed by whoever is selling the NFT. The cardboard and ink is worthless, but add the signature and you have something. When the signer matches the creator (e.g. beeple selling NFTs of his art, this guy selling an NFT of his site), the interesting part isn't really the thing, but the signature.
- jrochkind1 6y agoYes, NFT's are one of the weirdest blockchain related scams/pyramid schemes yet.
- redisman 6y agoWell since "ICO"s seem to be dead you gotta come up with something new to split the fools from their money.
- Sebb767 6y ago> pyramid scheme Could this be a pyramid scheme? From my (very limited) understanding of the technology, it is basically a single-sell item - so the value you get out of it does not depend on whether they take off or cease to exists post-buy. A pyramid doesn't really fit to this. Or am I missing something?
- jrochkind1 6y agogood point. I'm used to applying "pyramid scheme" to "i buy this thing not cause I want it but just hoping I can sell it to someone else for more money later, and they're going to be doing the same thing as me." Cause that is likely to leave someone holding the bag. But I guess that is an overlapping phenomenon that may not be the same as a pyramid scheme. What do we call that phenomenon? Just "capitalism"?
- erik_seaberg 6y agoA pyramid scheme pays out fake returns that were actually new investments, which requires unsustainable geometric growth. An asset bubble doesn’t depend on fraud or growth, it just keeps going until speculators’ confidence is shaken.
- redisman 6y agoA pyramid is a more psychologically powerful scam as many people actually get big returns and become true believers. Made up assets are more akin to the tulip mania and such.
- paulpauper 6y agoI think he was hoping for a Beeple-like windfall such as from Elon Musk or an early crypto adopter...a huge right-tail in terms of potential profit. No dice though.