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One thing I have noticed when listening to the interviews of NFT companies is that, when describing NFT is the future, the arguments from these founders are exa

One thing I have noticed when listening to the interviews of NFT companies is that, when describing NFT is the future, the arguments from these founders are examples of people/artists made money by selling NFT online. It has become more and more a theme for cryptocurrency technology has well: the reason you should be in is that other people have made money rather than the benefit of the technology itself. It is not a good sign.

tiborsaas 5y ago
Lots of people got "into the internet" because others have made money on it and not for the technology (html, tcp/ip, dns...) Yes, crypto is mostly focused on financial apps, so they are harder to understand than "send me 140 chars and we make a timeline of it".
- eitland 5y ago
  All IMO: To be honest, that example is also the weirdest one to actually break through, and together with Snapchat the ones who took it farthest into almost unusable and still made bank. (Yo, and I think a number of other tried even further down that street but has failed AFAIK.)
- simias 5y ago
  Imagine if Google Search achieved success not by providing a search engine but by publishing a whitepaper outlining how PageRank would eventually work, then selling $GOOG tokens to let people speculate on the hype (but not actually entitle them to anything regarding the company, so it's like venture capitalism, but worse). Then nothing happens for a decade or so, and then Google finally publishes a first version of their engine that takes 30s to search among a couple hundred websites. Effectively unusable, but hey, it's the early day! Bullish! I also disagree that cryptocurrencies are "hard to understand", it's only hard because their promoters feel the need to obfuscate with technobabble how dumb and ineffective 99% of proposed blockchain solutions are. It's hard to understand because there's nothing to understand.
  - tiborsaas 5y ago
    You are projecting an existing, well understood stack on a fundamentally different platform. What works on Earth would be silly to assume it should be the same on the ISS and vice-versa. > Then nothing happens for a decade or so... I guess you took the comfortable position to choose starting point of the internet as 1998, but what about 1980's or 70's? It was rather slow progress, just as you described. > I also disagree that cryptocurrencies are "hard to understand" I was referring to financial apps in general. For most people to think about interests and investments is a challenge even with fiat currencies. I agree though that a major crypto/blockchain revolution hasn't happened yet and probably it will never replace the current internet, but it will co-exists and be much more significant than today once a group hits a sweet spot with UX, utility and adoption.
  - PascLeRasc 5y ago
    Plus whenever someone criticizes Google for doing something bad, others could jump in and say “well they’re supposed to move to Don’t Be Evil next year, so it’s ok”
- xtracto 5y ago
  Another example is videogame development: Initially there was pure sweat, blood and passion (around the 80s for PC gaming). But nowadays most of the people in there are for profiteering. Once the bean counters enter a tech field, they suck all the fun.
agumonkey 5y ago
another is that every problem becomes an opportunity. things too slow ? new layer on top of the old. Not enough privacy ? side project that will connect with the old. Everybody jumps on everything to grab their share, get funding and start working but it's all stacked potential.. but nothing stable yet.
andrefuchs 5y ago
I'm an artist and collector on hicetnunc.xyz. The culture is totally different there and most artists aren't there to make a quick buck.
- tauntz 5y ago
  Honest question - why are they there then if not to make money? What other reasons exist for selling NFTs if not to make (quick) money? I'm genuinely curious here :)
  - adnzzzzZ 5y ago
    He did say "not to make a quick buck" and not to not make money in general. As an artist, it's cool when you're getting paid for your work, but it doesn't mean it's the primary motivator for everything you do.
    - andrefuchs 5y ago
      Exactly. The media is all about the money aspect of NFTs. There is much more to it. At least in the art world.
      - croon 5y ago
        You say "Exactly", and then proceed to contradict what they said. What are the other aspects of NFTs (in the art world or elsewhere)?
        meowkit 5y ago
        NFTs act as unique instances of objects that can be “digital shadows” of real physical objects, or their own thing, wrt the blockchain they exist on. For the art world, they are a new medium and can be used to secure provenance. In the rest of the world they are being looked at as mediums for selling tickets or keys to access unique experiences (an art piece/door/puzzle that activates or lights up if presented with a valid NFT as a simple example) among many theoretical use cases. A lot of crypto stuff doesn’t make sense unless we get Decentralized Identities (DIDs) right, so things like NFTs can be associated with with a user. https://www.artworkarchive.com/blog/what-every-art-collector-needs-to-know-about-provenance https://www.artworkarchive.com/blog/what-every-art-collector... https://www.w3.org/TR/did-core/ https://www.w3.org/TR/did-core/
nly 5y ago
Imho it stems from a lack of understanding and faith in the financial services industry, probably exacerbated by the financial crisis. A large % of people now believe that the finance industry only exists to work against them and make an elite minority rich. There's a strong sense of "Fuck You, I Got Mine" from the last generation, so the current generation is saying "Fine, I'm going to invent my own system... with Black Jack, and hookers!". Crypto/DeFi is creating a sense of euphoria and hope against a backdrop of helplessness where people are thinking "I will never own a home", "I will never be able to afford to retire" etc, so why not take a punt on the next big thing? I was intrigued by some comments on HN the other day that dApps are where all the 'innovation' in crypto is today, so spent some time looking in to it. After many hours I couldn't find anything even remotely interesting.
- qwerty456127 5y ago
  "I will never own a home" is not the only reason. The whole financial system is "fuck you this and fuck you that, incl. when you least expect and depend the most, and we won't tell you why". Yesterday here were news about PayPal terminating an account without explanation again (by the way, even when they don't ban you, their verification and customer services are a disaster anyway). This bullshit has to stop. Every person on Earth (even those with questionable reputation or even convicted felons) should be able to wire/accept some reasonable amounts of money (I don't advocate letting terrorists make million-dollar deals) freely, no questions asked, like in cash. It's a basic thing in today world, like eating and shitting.
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    Maybe if we would question why we (don't) need money in the first place, and why people turn to terrorism, we wouldn't have problems in the first place. Let everyone have a home, eat and drink as much as they need, receive proper education and healthcare, and thrive working for something they see interest in not a paycheck/boss and you'll see terrorism will be entirely rid of. In the meantime, i agree it's a reasonable expectation that people can exchange money freely with the caveat that there should be taxes. As much as i hate taxes because they will fund police terrorizing my neighborhood, big corporations for their next nature-destroying megaproject, and cameras everywhere in the big cities, they are important as long as we live in a capitalist system to ensure we have basic public services. A system like GNU/Taler is really interesting because it promises buyer's secrecy while retaining public accounting for receivers so that they can be subject to taxes. Cash is better of course as anonymity is guaranteed on both sides, and that's precisely why the chief scammers are pushing for the abolition of cash... so much of informal economy/solidarity would disappear overnight i'm having nightmares over it.
simias 5y ago
The only thing that really works with cryptocurrencies and adjacent technologies is to use them for pyramid schemes and using them for illegal payments like buying things on the darknet or paying ransomware. The rest is just empty promises and short term hype. NFT is just the last in a long series. Before that we had the Lightning network that would revolutionize payments and make cryptocurrencies actually usable, ICOs that would revolutionize startup founding etc... I wonder how long the cryptocurrency world will manage to maintain this facade of being a miracle tech in order to justify the insane amount of money poured into it, while at the same time continuously failing to deliver on everything.
- didericis 5y ago
  Cryptocurrencies have also been used as a way to escape hyperinflation and retain savings despite a coercive and highly restrictive government, eg Venezuela. When a system becomes corrupt and dysfunctional and normal transactions and savings become ineffective or illegal, cryptocurrencies have proven themselves as a viable means of escape. The value of that is hard to understate. I agree that a lot of other applications are overhyped, and that there is a lot of bloat and excess in the crypto space. I think their core use case and value is in providing an extremely difficult to block form of value storage despite restrictive and irresponsible governments. The value of that depends on how restrictive and irresponsible your government is being.
  - thatguyagain 5y ago
    Any sources on how many Venezuelans actually moved their money into crypto?
    - Nursie 5y ago
      Usually this is where someone from Venezuela comes along and tells us that this is a tiny minority, and most people want US Dollars because they can actually use those.
      - aga98mtl 5y ago
stjohnswarts 5y ago
They all sound like used car sales people to me that's the biggest warning sign I've seen.

tiborsaas 5y ago

Lots of people got "into the internet" because others have made money on it and not for the technology (html, tcp/ip, dns...) Yes, crypto is mostly focused on financial apps, so they are harder to understand than "send me 140 chars and we make a timeline of it".

eitland 5y ago
All IMO: To be honest, that example is also the weirdest one to actually break through, and together with Snapchat the ones who took it farthest into almost unusable and still made bank. (Yo, and I think a number of other tried even further down that street but has failed AFAIK.)
simias 5y ago
Imagine if Google Search achieved success not by providing a search engine but by publishing a whitepaper outlining how PageRank would eventually work, then selling $GOOG tokens to let people speculate on the hype (but not actually entitle them to anything regarding the company, so it's like venture capitalism, but worse). Then nothing happens for a decade or so, and then Google finally publishes a first version of their engine that takes 30s to search among a couple hundred websites. Effectively unusable, but hey, it's the early day! Bullish! I also disagree that cryptocurrencies are "hard to understand", it's only hard because their promoters feel the need to obfuscate with technobabble how dumb and ineffective 99% of proposed blockchain solutions are. It's hard to understand because there's nothing to understand.
- tiborsaas 5y ago
  You are projecting an existing, well understood stack on a fundamentally different platform. What works on Earth would be silly to assume it should be the same on the ISS and vice-versa. > Then nothing happens for a decade or so... I guess you took the comfortable position to choose starting point of the internet as 1998, but what about 1980's or 70's? It was rather slow progress, just as you described. > I also disagree that cryptocurrencies are "hard to understand" I was referring to financial apps in general. For most people to think about interests and investments is a challenge even with fiat currencies. I agree though that a major crypto/blockchain revolution hasn't happened yet and probably it will never replace the current internet, but it will co-exists and be much more significant than today once a group hits a sweet spot with UX, utility and adoption.
- PascLeRasc 5y ago
  Plus whenever someone criticizes Google for doing something bad, others could jump in and say “well they’re supposed to move to Don’t Be Evil next year, so it’s ok”
xtracto 5y ago
Another example is videogame development: Initially there was pure sweat, blood and passion (around the 80s for PC gaming). But nowadays most of the people in there are for profiteering. Once the bean counters enter a tech field, they suck all the fun.

agumonkey 5y ago

another is that every problem becomes an opportunity. things too slow ? new layer on top of the old. Not enough privacy ? side project that will connect with the old. Everybody jumps on everything to grab their share, get funding and start working but it's all stacked potential.. but nothing stable yet.

andrefuchs 5y ago

I'm an artist and collector on hicetnunc.xyz. The culture is totally different there and most artists aren't there to make a quick buck.

tauntz 5y ago
Honest question - why are they there then if not to make money? What other reasons exist for selling NFTs if not to make (quick) money? I'm genuinely curious here :)
- adnzzzzZ 5y ago
  He did say "not to make a quick buck" and not to not make money in general. As an artist, it's cool when you're getting paid for your work, but it doesn't mean it's the primary motivator for everything you do.
  - andrefuchs 5y ago
    Exactly. The media is all about the money aspect of NFTs. There is much more to it. At least in the art world.
    - croon 5y ago
      You say "Exactly", and then proceed to contradict what they said. What are the other aspects of NFTs (in the art world or elsewhere)?
      - meowkit 5y ago
        NFTs act as unique instances of objects that can be “digital shadows” of real physical objects, or their own thing, wrt the blockchain they exist on. For the art world, they are a new medium and can be used to secure provenance. In the rest of the world they are being looked at as mediums for selling tickets or keys to access unique experiences (an art piece/door/puzzle that activates or lights up if presented with a valid NFT as a simple example) among many theoretical use cases. A lot of crypto stuff doesn’t make sense unless we get Decentralized Identities (DIDs) right, so things like NFTs can be associated with with a user. https://www.artworkarchive.com/blog/what-every-art-collector-needs-to-know-about-provenance https://www.artworkarchive.com/blog/what-every-art-collector... https://www.w3.org/TR/did-core/ https://www.w3.org/TR/did-core/

nly 5y ago

Imho it stems from a lack of understanding and faith in the financial services industry, probably exacerbated by the financial crisis. A large % of people now believe that the finance industry only exists to work against them and make an elite minority rich. There's a strong sense of "Fuck You, I Got Mine" from the last generation, so the current generation is saying "Fine, I'm going to invent my own system... with Black Jack, and hookers!". Crypto/DeFi is creating a sense of euphoria and hope against a backdrop of helplessness where people are thinking "I will never own a home", "I will never be able to afford to retire" etc, so why not take a punt on the next big thing? I was intrigued by some comments on HN the other day that dApps are where all the 'innovation' in crypto is today, so spent some time looking in to it. After many hours I couldn't find anything even remotely interesting.

qwerty456127 5y ago
"I will never own a home" is not the only reason. The whole financial system is "fuck you this and fuck you that, incl. when you least expect and depend the most, and we won't tell you why". Yesterday here were news about PayPal terminating an account without explanation again (by the way, even when they don't ban you, their verification and customer services are a disaster anyway). This bullshit has to stop. Every person on Earth (even those with questionable reputation or even convicted felons) should be able to wire/accept some reasonable amounts of money (I don't advocate letting terrorists make million-dollar deals) freely, no questions asked, like in cash. It's a basic thing in today world, like eating and shitting.
- southerntofu 5y ago
  Maybe if we would question why we (don't) need money in the first place, and why people turn to terrorism, we wouldn't have problems in the first place. Let everyone have a home, eat and drink as much as they need, receive proper education and healthcare, and thrive working for something they see interest in not a paycheck/boss and you'll see terrorism will be entirely rid of. In the meantime, i agree it's a reasonable expectation that people can exchange money freely with the caveat that there should be taxes. As much as i hate taxes because they will fund police terrorizing my neighborhood, big corporations for their next nature-destroying megaproject, and cameras everywhere in the big cities, they are important as long as we live in a capitalist system to ensure we have basic public services. A system like GNU/Taler is really interesting because it promises buyer's secrecy while retaining public accounting for receivers so that they can be subject to taxes. Cash is better of course as anonymity is guaranteed on both sides, and that's precisely why the chief scammers are pushing for the abolition of cash... so much of informal economy/solidarity would disappear overnight i'm having nightmares over it.

simias 5y ago

The only thing that really works with cryptocurrencies and adjacent technologies is to use them for pyramid schemes and using them for illegal payments like buying things on the darknet or paying ransomware. The rest is just empty promises and short term hype. NFT is just the last in a long series. Before that we had the Lightning network that would revolutionize payments and make cryptocurrencies actually usable, ICOs that would revolutionize startup founding etc... I wonder how long the cryptocurrency world will manage to maintain this facade of being a miracle tech in order to justify the insane amount of money poured into it, while at the same time continuously failing to deliver on everything.

didericis 5y ago
Cryptocurrencies have also been used as a way to escape hyperinflation and retain savings despite a coercive and highly restrictive government, eg Venezuela. When a system becomes corrupt and dysfunctional and normal transactions and savings become ineffective or illegal, cryptocurrencies have proven themselves as a viable means of escape. The value of that is hard to understate. I agree that a lot of other applications are overhyped, and that there is a lot of bloat and excess in the crypto space. I think their core use case and value is in providing an extremely difficult to block form of value storage despite restrictive and irresponsible governments. The value of that depends on how restrictive and irresponsible your government is being.
- thatguyagain 5y ago
  Any sources on how many Venezuelans actually moved their money into crypto?
  - Nursie 5y ago
    Usually this is where someone from Venezuela comes along and tells us that this is a tiny minority, and most people want US Dollars because they can actually use those.
    - aga98mtl 5y ago

stjohnswarts 5y ago

They all sound like used car sales people to me that's the biggest warning sign I've seen.