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I've never seen any compelling argument in favor of NFT. Everything points to it being pure hype with no redeeming value whatsoever, and this is no different. T

I've never seen any compelling argument in favor of NFT. Everything points to it being pure hype with no redeeming value whatsoever, and this is no different. To wit, I don't recall reading even a single comment on HN entirely supportive of NFTs, and there's hardly ever any shortage of contrarians on most topics.

dehrmann 5y ago
But Gamestop doing it makes it meta hype!
meowface 5y ago
Yeah, I'd be interested in seeing a steelman for them. Pretty much everywhere you go, sentiment is nearly 100% negative. I see some value in ideas like using tokens for tickets of some sort, but that would likely use a semi-fungible token system (ERC-1155), not non-fungible tokens (ERC-721).
Quekid5 5y ago
NFT is tulips all over again, basically.
noxer 5y ago
Posted this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26954023 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26954023 about a month ago. No one cared about it as expected. The video is the interesting part skip to 13 minutes and 50 seconds.
mattdesl 5y ago
The basic idea is that distributed ledgers, tokenization, and smart contracts are enabling new paradigms for what it means to "own" digital property — in such a way that it is provably secure, transparent, and decentralized (i.e. built on distributed trust). The other important aspect is that these systems and their tokens are programmable: "NFT" is just a standard set of functions within a blockchain smart contract, but new markets are emerging that explore alternative uses of the same tech, such as governance and/or entrance tokens that allows holders to participate in decentralized structures (multi-signature collaborative wallets, DAOs, etc). Here's two interesting & positive examples off the top of my head: [1] Hicetnunc.xyz - https://restofworld.org/2021/inside-brazils-diy-nft-art-marketplace/ https://restofworld.org/2021/inside-brazils-diy-nft-art-mark... [2] Mirror.xyz - a blogging platform that allows authors to create new markets, e.g. this crowdfunding campaign for a DAO creative residency that rewards backers with governance tokens https://creators.mirror.xyz/20Eyc57rknNJYL9vJa11zvupU_MXP7NZJUADTzTlCjQ https://creators.mirror.xyz/20Eyc57rknNJYL9vJa11zvupU_MXP7NZ... EDIT: I should say I haven't looked at this OP's GameStop link, and there is tons of junk and unnecessary ideas in the NFT/crypto space. But if you look beyond the mainstream media headlines you may find the technology interesting.
- duped 5y ago
  The problem I have grokking is the actual practical issue of digital ownership, which is that it is nonsensical. In this context ownership merely defines who has the right to be the seller in a transaction. As far as I understand this, blockchains don't handle the issue of duplication, where it doesn't matter who has the rights to begin a transaction - anyone can still access the bits. For something like currency which is entirely defined by its ability to be used in transactions then the application of blockchain to define ownership is obvious. For something like media, where ownership is not just transactions but also access, it isn't obvious to me at all. In other words, blockchains and smart contracts handle authenticity of a piece of data when used in transactions. That's valuable for data that is defined by its ability to be transactional. It's not necessarily valuable for data that needs to be more than that. I would also contend that it's not secure by all definitions.
  - mattdesl 5y ago
    In the context of blockchain tokens, “digital ownership” is equally as nonsensical as owning a fine art print with ink and a pencil signature on it. These artefacts, and the ideas of ownership around them, are social constructs. The mental shift that most struggle with, is that the NFT ownership is not owning the digital image/file/media/bits (which can be copied on any machine, “Right click save as”). It’s probably closer to purchasing conceptual art (see Sol LeWitt), or similar to owning a certificate of authenticity handed to you by the artist. Or, perhaps somewhat analogous to “owning” digital property such as a domain name. I agree this tech does not magically make everything more secure. But, for example, you can query the “current owner” of a million dollar CryptoPunk - as long as the blockchain survives, the database record will be secure & immutable, and cannot be changed except from the token holder’s own wallet address. Reading the Solidity code & querying the contract myself helped me understand the value here is not in the digital media file; it’s in the ledger record (or state). https://etherscan.io/address/0xb47e3cd837ddf8e4c57f05d70ab865de6e193bbb#readContract https://etherscan.io/address/0xb47e3cd837ddf8e4c57f05d70ab86...
    - duped 5y ago
matt_s 5y ago
NFT's applied to real world things or stuff like video clips does seem kinda silly. You are right, NFT seems geared towards things with no redeeming value whatsoever ... in the real world. Video games have had the concept of tokens for decades and those even have printed on them that they aren't redeemable. That is why NFT and video games are a perfect combination, possibly industry changing. Think of it in terms of an operating arcade. A video game NFT is like a special physical token only you can own (or maybe limited numbers of them) and when you drop it into a game, it gives you a unique item, exchanges for currency in-game, etc. If this is what GameStop is doing, they could be the backbone for all of this - the token machine at the arcade. Or the token machine for every arcade. I think NFT might become a marketable term for things that aren't an actual crypto currency but use blockchain simply because there is a lot to unpack and understand to explain to someone like a grandma. Some possible uses based on my limited understanding of NFT's/blockchain: - Revenue sharing of second hand digital games with developers. If a game purchase is an NFT and gets resold, my understanding is there is the possibility for royalties to go back to the original owner. This would make second-hand games a very profitable business for GameStop and game developers. - Novelty/Collectibles - say a sports star purchases a digital game as an NFT, sells it at auction for charity and now someone gets to own the single copy of that game that sports star owned, with a one of a kind in-game item. - In-game currencies, cross platform, cross-game. You have a stack of tokens usable across anything. Kinda like old school arcades. Yeah that's not NFT more of a wallet concept, again think of NFT as a marketing concept. - Verifyable leaderboards, speedrun records, esports trophies.
- himinlomax 5y ago
  None of these applications seem to benefit significantly from cryptocurrency, and the technical/security issues are orthogonal to it.
- NoSorryCannot 5y ago
  I can see the business appeal of the prospect of being able to skim off the top of second hand sales while maintaining a thread of DRM enforcement along the way, but it's pretty cynical and at the expense of consumers. Most other uses, like whether some particular series of bits have been blessed by a particular person and to the benefit of whom, seem to already have been solved by the nonrepudiation of digital signatures. It appears to me that the distributed and public properties of the block chain are not being used for good here.
C-x_C-f 5y ago
Something that I haven't seen mentioned in discussions about NFTs (not that I've followed many) is their potential for facilitating money laundering. It looks like they would provide a value similar to that of certain auction houses where large amounts of suspicious money are regularly transferred in the name of subjectively perceived value [1]. Is there something that I am missing, or could this be a tacitly sought-after (if illegal) potential use of NFTs? [1] https://www.ft.com/content/c7883919-26e5-49f5-816b-de1747232506 https://www.ft.com/content/c7883919-26e5-49f5-816b-de1747232...

dehrmann 5y ago

But Gamestop doing it makes it meta hype!

meowface 5y ago

Yeah, I'd be interested in seeing a steelman for them. Pretty much everywhere you go, sentiment is nearly 100% negative. I see some value in ideas like using tokens for tickets of some sort, but that would likely use a semi-fungible token system (ERC-1155), not non-fungible tokens (ERC-721).

Quekid5 5y ago

NFT is tulips all over again, basically.

noxer 5y ago

Posted this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26954023 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26954023 about a month ago. No one cared about it as expected. The video is the interesting part skip to 13 minutes and 50 seconds.

mattdesl 5y ago

The basic idea is that distributed ledgers, tokenization, and smart contracts are enabling new paradigms for what it means to "own" digital property — in such a way that it is provably secure, transparent, and decentralized (i.e. built on distributed trust). The other important aspect is that these systems and their tokens are programmable: "NFT" is just a standard set of functions within a blockchain smart contract, but new markets are emerging that explore alternative uses of the same tech, such as governance and/or entrance tokens that allows holders to participate in decentralized structures (multi-signature collaborative wallets, DAOs, etc). Here's two interesting & positive examples off the top of my head: [1] Hicetnunc.xyz - https://restofworld.org/2021/inside-brazils-diy-nft-art-marketplace/ https://restofworld.org/2021/inside-brazils-diy-nft-art-mark... [2] Mirror.xyz - a blogging platform that allows authors to create new markets, e.g. this crowdfunding campaign for a DAO creative residency that rewards backers with governance tokens https://creators.mirror.xyz/20Eyc57rknNJYL9vJa11zvupU_MXP7NZJUADTzTlCjQ https://creators.mirror.xyz/20Eyc57rknNJYL9vJa11zvupU_MXP7NZ... EDIT: I should say I haven't looked at this OP's GameStop link, and there is tons of junk and unnecessary ideas in the NFT/crypto space. But if you look beyond the mainstream media headlines you may find the technology interesting.

duped 5y ago
The problem I have grokking is the actual practical issue of digital ownership, which is that it is nonsensical. In this context ownership merely defines who has the right to be the seller in a transaction. As far as I understand this, blockchains don't handle the issue of duplication, where it doesn't matter who has the rights to begin a transaction - anyone can still access the bits. For something like currency which is entirely defined by its ability to be used in transactions then the application of blockchain to define ownership is obvious. For something like media, where ownership is not just transactions but also access, it isn't obvious to me at all. In other words, blockchains and smart contracts handle authenticity of a piece of data when used in transactions. That's valuable for data that is defined by its ability to be transactional. It's not necessarily valuable for data that needs to be more than that. I would also contend that it's not secure by all definitions.
- mattdesl 5y ago
  In the context of blockchain tokens, “digital ownership” is equally as nonsensical as owning a fine art print with ink and a pencil signature on it. These artefacts, and the ideas of ownership around them, are social constructs. The mental shift that most struggle with, is that the NFT ownership is not owning the digital image/file/media/bits (which can be copied on any machine, “Right click save as”). It’s probably closer to purchasing conceptual art (see Sol LeWitt), or similar to owning a certificate of authenticity handed to you by the artist. Or, perhaps somewhat analogous to “owning” digital property such as a domain name. I agree this tech does not magically make everything more secure. But, for example, you can query the “current owner” of a million dollar CryptoPunk - as long as the blockchain survives, the database record will be secure & immutable, and cannot be changed except from the token holder’s own wallet address. Reading the Solidity code & querying the contract myself helped me understand the value here is not in the digital media file; it’s in the ledger record (or state). https://etherscan.io/address/0xb47e3cd837ddf8e4c57f05d70ab865de6e193bbb#readContract https://etherscan.io/address/0xb47e3cd837ddf8e4c57f05d70ab86...
  - duped 5y ago

matt_s 5y ago

NFT's applied to real world things or stuff like video clips does seem kinda silly. You are right, NFT seems geared towards things with no redeeming value whatsoever ... in the real world. Video games have had the concept of tokens for decades and those even have printed on them that they aren't redeemable. That is why NFT and video games are a perfect combination, possibly industry changing. Think of it in terms of an operating arcade. A video game NFT is like a special physical token only you can own (or maybe limited numbers of them) and when you drop it into a game, it gives you a unique item, exchanges for currency in-game, etc. If this is what GameStop is doing, they could be the backbone for all of this - the token machine at the arcade. Or the token machine for every arcade. I think NFT might become a marketable term for things that aren't an actual crypto currency but use blockchain simply because there is a lot to unpack and understand to explain to someone like a grandma. Some possible uses based on my limited understanding of NFT's/blockchain: - Revenue sharing of second hand digital games with developers. If a game purchase is an NFT and gets resold, my understanding is there is the possibility for royalties to go back to the original owner. This would make second-hand games a very profitable business for GameStop and game developers. - Novelty/Collectibles - say a sports star purchases a digital game as an NFT, sells it at auction for charity and now someone gets to own the single copy of that game that sports star owned, with a one of a kind in-game item. - In-game currencies, cross platform, cross-game. You have a stack of tokens usable across anything. Kinda like old school arcades. Yeah that's not NFT more of a wallet concept, again think of NFT as a marketing concept. - Verifyable leaderboards, speedrun records, esports trophies.

himinlomax 5y ago
None of these applications seem to benefit significantly from cryptocurrency, and the technical/security issues are orthogonal to it.
NoSorryCannot 5y ago
I can see the business appeal of the prospect of being able to skim off the top of second hand sales while maintaining a thread of DRM enforcement along the way, but it's pretty cynical and at the expense of consumers. Most other uses, like whether some particular series of bits have been blessed by a particular person and to the benefit of whom, seem to already have been solved by the nonrepudiation of digital signatures. It appears to me that the distributed and public properties of the block chain are not being used for good here.

C-x_C-f 5y ago

Something that I haven't seen mentioned in discussions about NFTs (not that I've followed many) is their potential for facilitating money laundering. It looks like they would provide a value similar to that of certain auction houses where large amounts of suspicious money are regularly transferred in the name of subjectively perceived value [1]. Is there something that I am missing, or could this be a tacitly sought-after (if illegal) potential use of NFTs? [1] https://www.ft.com/content/c7883919-26e5-49f5-816b-de1747232506 https://www.ft.com/content/c7883919-26e5-49f5-816b-de1747232...