5 ms·

What are your thoughts on NFT's after giving it the benefit of the doubt? I, too, wanted to give the NFT space a chance because admittedly I wanted to cash in w

What are your thoughts on NFT's after giving it the benefit of the doubt? I, too, wanted to give the NFT space a chance because admittedly I wanted to cash in while the gettin was good. But after digging into things before I dipped my toes, the whole thing smelled foul, even if people I know and respect are making good money in that space. It's just off to me, the motivations, moreso than the tech & function & problems it purports to address/ solve. A big ole hype machine that doesn't seem like it has real depth, integrity or soul, to use a bit more flowery language. Curious what you landed on, though.

eli 5y ago
Well, if your question is just can you make a buck off them, I'd guess you probably could. But I don't like gambling and I'm more interested in whether there's anything of lasting value here. Tl;dr I don't own any NFTs and have no plans to buy any. The NFTs that just point to a painting or a youtube video, I don't think so. They don't do anything and I don't think owning them will be valuable. The NFTs of, like, NBA clips I can sort of understand as digital trading cards. Being purely digital I think they're inferior to the baseball cards I collected as a kid, but I can kinda see it. But 1) they don't need a blockchain; a public database would probably work better for everyone and 2) I don't think sports trading cards are generally a good investment. There's something maybe interesting in the "creator economy" angle where like a new podcaster auctions off NFTs of the episodes to early fans, who then become invested in its success. If the show takes off, newly minted NFTs will go for more and more money benefitting the creator and the secondary market will appreciate for early supporters. To be clear, I don't think this is actually a good idea for a lot of reasons... but it's interesting. All the games and pets and racehorses seem like junk.
- acjohnson55 5y ago
  I think the idea of digital collectibles is a novelty. Just like real world collectibles. People talk about it like it's a world changing thing, and it's a lot of bullshit. There's not a whole lot about it that truly requires decentralization. Like, sure, NFTs hypothetically make it so that ownership of Top Shots can persist regardless of whether the company that operates it survives. But would the actual Flow blockchain survive the demise of Dapper Labs? I kind of doubt it. And where would the Top Shots I supposedly own continue to be hosted? It's effectively just a centralized marketplace. I've tried to think about what would truly be unique and interesting about decentralized NFTs, and to me, they make sense if they hold credibility independent of any producer. So, something like a tradable auth role that is respected in many spaces. Kind of like an identity, except that I think the concept of a role makes a bit more sense as something that people can trade. Consider it to be like an event ticket that is respected in an entire ecosystem of different companies. To me, that's where it starts to enable something that's unlike what's existed before, but it's still hard for me to imagine a real use case. And that's core of the problem of the crypto world: the technology solves problems that don't map on to existing B2B or B2C services. It's literally a solution in search of a problem.
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    > Like, sure, NFTs hypothetically make it so that ownership of Top Shots can persist regardless of whether the company that operates it survives. They don't confer copyright or licensing or anything at all other than a URL. This means it would be illegal to build a site that displays such content, and it would get instantly DMCA'd into oblivion. My issuing an NFT of the Mona Lisa is basically me grabbing a museum map from the Louvre, circling the Mona Lisa on it, signing my name, then selling that map to you for big money. The map doesn't given you a license to display the Mona Lisa. It's just a set of instructions re: how to find it alongside my signature. If they move the painting to a new location, it gets stolen, destroyed, or the Louvre is shut down - well, tough. And anyone can do it, with any map of the Louvre. > Consider it to be like an event ticket that is respected in an entire ecosystem of different companies. Event tickets have one issuer and one point of redemption. Generally, Ticketmaster is on both sides (they own the issuance via Ticketmaster and they own the redemption side - the venues - via Live Nation). It's not in their interest as a business to relinquish even the tinies bit of control.
    - miracle2k 5y ago
      It's true that copyright is not transferred but courts may well recognize the buyers right to display those images on a website as implicitly given. If you are minting an NFT today, putting the file on IPFS, accepting the fact that it will be freely available across the internet, and selling to someone "digital ownership", you will I think fins it hard to convince a judge that you did not intend to grant such a license. Also, consider that in NFTs, the only one selling an NFT to the Mona Lisa is Leonardo.
      - arcticbull 5y ago
        > It's true that copyright is not transferred but courts may well recognize the buyers right to display those images on a website as implicitly given. No. Copyright must be explicitly assigned. > Also, consider that in NFTs, the only one selling an NFT to the Mona Lisa is Leonardo. Nah anyone can do it any time.

eli 5y ago

Well, if your question is just can you make a buck off them, I'd guess you probably could. But I don't like gambling and I'm more interested in whether there's anything of lasting value here. Tl;dr I don't own any NFTs and have no plans to buy any. The NFTs that just point to a painting or a youtube video, I don't think so. They don't do anything and I don't think owning them will be valuable. The NFTs of, like, NBA clips I can sort of understand as digital trading cards. Being purely digital I think they're inferior to the baseball cards I collected as a kid, but I can kinda see it. But 1) they don't need a blockchain; a public database would probably work better for everyone and 2) I don't think sports trading cards are generally a good investment. There's something maybe interesting in the "creator economy" angle where like a new podcaster auctions off NFTs of the episodes to early fans, who then become invested in its success. If the show takes off, newly minted NFTs will go for more and more money benefitting the creator and the secondary market will appreciate for early supporters. To be clear, I don't think this is actually a good idea for a lot of reasons... but it's interesting. All the games and pets and racehorses seem like junk.

acjohnson55 5y ago
I think the idea of digital collectibles is a novelty. Just like real world collectibles. People talk about it like it's a world changing thing, and it's a lot of bullshit. There's not a whole lot about it that truly requires decentralization. Like, sure, NFTs hypothetically make it so that ownership of Top Shots can persist regardless of whether the company that operates it survives. But would the actual Flow blockchain survive the demise of Dapper Labs? I kind of doubt it. And where would the Top Shots I supposedly own continue to be hosted? It's effectively just a centralized marketplace. I've tried to think about what would truly be unique and interesting about decentralized NFTs, and to me, they make sense if they hold credibility independent of any producer. So, something like a tradable auth role that is respected in many spaces. Kind of like an identity, except that I think the concept of a role makes a bit more sense as something that people can trade. Consider it to be like an event ticket that is respected in an entire ecosystem of different companies. To me, that's where it starts to enable something that's unlike what's existed before, but it's still hard for me to imagine a real use case. And that's core of the problem of the crypto world: the technology solves problems that don't map on to existing B2B or B2C services. It's literally a solution in search of a problem.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  > Like, sure, NFTs hypothetically make it so that ownership of Top Shots can persist regardless of whether the company that operates it survives. They don't confer copyright or licensing or anything at all other than a URL. This means it would be illegal to build a site that displays such content, and it would get instantly DMCA'd into oblivion. My issuing an NFT of the Mona Lisa is basically me grabbing a museum map from the Louvre, circling the Mona Lisa on it, signing my name, then selling that map to you for big money. The map doesn't given you a license to display the Mona Lisa. It's just a set of instructions re: how to find it alongside my signature. If they move the painting to a new location, it gets stolen, destroyed, or the Louvre is shut down - well, tough. And anyone can do it, with any map of the Louvre. > Consider it to be like an event ticket that is respected in an entire ecosystem of different companies. Event tickets have one issuer and one point of redemption. Generally, Ticketmaster is on both sides (they own the issuance via Ticketmaster and they own the redemption side - the venues - via Live Nation). It's not in their interest as a business to relinquish even the tinies bit of control.
  - miracle2k 5y ago
    It's true that copyright is not transferred but courts may well recognize the buyers right to display those images on a website as implicitly given. If you are minting an NFT today, putting the file on IPFS, accepting the fact that it will be freely available across the internet, and selling to someone "digital ownership", you will I think fins it hard to convince a judge that you did not intend to grant such a license. Also, consider that in NFTs, the only one selling an NFT to the Mona Lisa is Leonardo.
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      > It's true that copyright is not transferred but courts may well recognize the buyers right to display those images on a website as implicitly given. No. Copyright must be explicitly assigned. > Also, consider that in NFTs, the only one selling an NFT to the Mona Lisa is Leonardo. Nah anyone can do it any time.