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NFTs are trash. I get a feeling that a lot of people are falling for the same clonecoin scam we saw the early days of Bitcoin. You are a complete sucker if you

NFTs are trash. I get a feeling that a lot of people are falling for the same clonecoin scam we saw the early days of Bitcoin. You are a complete sucker if you buy into this. I say this as a deep Bitcoiner who believes that all value on the planet will eventually be measured in BTC. I've seen a thousand chains launched and fail, taking everyones stored value with them. Digital things like coins are not valuable because its on a blockchain. They are not valuable because custody can be traced. Anyone can publish NFTs, and anyone can publish EVM tokens. There is no scarcity, there is no legal binding, there is only grift and scams. Bitcoin derives its value from the difficulty in producing new coins, and the fixed emission. Are we at peak stupid?

etaioinshrdlu 5y ago
But is there something fundamental about Bitcoin that makes it unlikely to be usurped by something better? I'm seeing a lot of blind confidence in your comment.
- paulgb 5y ago
  There isn't. But if I owned any, I'd sure want to convince you that there was, and I feel like that will cloud any responses you get.
  - rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
    Well, when one does have skin in the game, it is easy to believe (and want to convince). I would argue that there is something very special about Bitcoin. https://www.blockchain.com/charts/hash-rate https://www.blockchain.com/charts/hash-rate The problem is that everyone is always looking for the next get rich quick scheme. Bitcoin was never this, it is a not get poor slowly scheme.
    - paulgb 5y ago
      The problem I have with the hash rate as an indicator of anything long-term is that it's artificially subsidized in the present from a diminishing pool of reserve Bitcoin (or inflation, if you prefer to think of it that way). Currently to the tune of about 98-99% of the total block reward[1]. For all the talk of Bitcoin being a long-term asset, there's little evidence that the incentive system can work (i.e. fend off a 51% attack) in its terminal state, or even a couple decades from now when the block reward is ~97% lower than today. [1] https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-fee_to_reward.html#3y https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-fee_to_reward.h...
      - rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
        That is a fair statement, and I guess we don't know. I suspect a future contentious blocksize change should take care of the fee rewards at the tail end. We are currently about 6sat/byte ($0.40/std tx) for a low priority tx today. Satoshi himself said "I'm sure that in 20 years there will either be very large transaction volume or no volume." That being said, there are plenty of older protocols without financial incentives that operate as expected, like Tor.
casi18 5y ago
I'm curious what you would make of something like Jonathan Manns NFTs (the song-a-day guy). There is a known difficulty to the production of assets, a known stable emission rate. He makes one song a day for the rest of his life, he has produced over 4000 days of songs now. Would you see this as something that could have value like bitcoin? Where are the boundaries of scarcity, effort, and value? why is bitcoin on one side of this threshold and everything else on the other side? At what point did bitcoin cross that line into legitimacy for you, and what would everything else need to do to get there? or is it only bitcoin for eternity? wouldnt that be a strangly dogmatic, arbitrary line to be drawn forever and ever?
- rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
  Not really. Because his art is not the token. The NFT is a representation of his art, but it is not unique or unclonable. There is nothing that prevents this token from being copied -- this is by design. There is nothing to stop anyone from releasing an NFT with someone elses work. It is not binding. Bitcoin just is.
MarkSweep 5y ago
Excuses me, my NFT is not trash. It’s poop. https://www.programmerspoop.com/ https://www.programmerspoop.com/
random_kris 5y ago
What about nft that represents a digital right? I think gaming NFTs are really nice. The blockchain with POW is not needed for this usecase, because I think the better usecase for blockchain here is having a common interface for different project to build on and be interopable, this itself is valuable, of course not on same level as Bitcoin but still valuable
- rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
  What are "digital rights"? Is it something that requires enforcement by a meatspace court??? There is only one known real world meatspace -> blockchainspace binding that can be enforced without the courts. Energy and work. Anything else is just tradfi with extra steps.

etaioinshrdlu 5y ago

But is there something fundamental about Bitcoin that makes it unlikely to be usurped by something better? I'm seeing a lot of blind confidence in your comment.

paulgb 5y ago
There isn't. But if I owned any, I'd sure want to convince you that there was, and I feel like that will cloud any responses you get.
- rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
  Well, when one does have skin in the game, it is easy to believe (and want to convince). I would argue that there is something very special about Bitcoin. https://www.blockchain.com/charts/hash-rate https://www.blockchain.com/charts/hash-rate The problem is that everyone is always looking for the next get rich quick scheme. Bitcoin was never this, it is a not get poor slowly scheme.
  - paulgb 5y ago
    The problem I have with the hash rate as an indicator of anything long-term is that it's artificially subsidized in the present from a diminishing pool of reserve Bitcoin (or inflation, if you prefer to think of it that way). Currently to the tune of about 98-99% of the total block reward[1]. For all the talk of Bitcoin being a long-term asset, there's little evidence that the incentive system can work (i.e. fend off a 51% attack) in its terminal state, or even a couple decades from now when the block reward is ~97% lower than today. [1] https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-fee_to_reward.html#3y https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-fee_to_reward.h...
    - rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
      That is a fair statement, and I guess we don't know. I suspect a future contentious blocksize change should take care of the fee rewards at the tail end. We are currently about 6sat/byte ($0.40/std tx) for a low priority tx today. Satoshi himself said "I'm sure that in 20 years there will either be very large transaction volume or no volume." That being said, there are plenty of older protocols without financial incentives that operate as expected, like Tor.

casi18 5y ago

I'm curious what you would make of something like Jonathan Manns NFTs (the song-a-day guy). There is a known difficulty to the production of assets, a known stable emission rate. He makes one song a day for the rest of his life, he has produced over 4000 days of songs now. Would you see this as something that could have value like bitcoin? Where are the boundaries of scarcity, effort, and value? why is bitcoin on one side of this threshold and everything else on the other side? At what point did bitcoin cross that line into legitimacy for you, and what would everything else need to do to get there? or is it only bitcoin for eternity? wouldnt that be a strangly dogmatic, arbitrary line to be drawn forever and ever?

rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
Not really. Because his art is not the token. The NFT is a representation of his art, but it is not unique or unclonable. There is nothing that prevents this token from being copied -- this is by design. There is nothing to stop anyone from releasing an NFT with someone elses work. It is not binding. Bitcoin just is.

MarkSweep 5y ago

Excuses me, my NFT is not trash. It’s poop. https://www.programmerspoop.com/ https://www.programmerspoop.com/

random_kris 5y ago

What about nft that represents a digital right? I think gaming NFTs are really nice. The blockchain with POW is not needed for this usecase, because I think the better usecase for blockchain here is having a common interface for different project to build on and be interopable, this itself is valuable, of course not on same level as Bitcoin but still valuable

rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
What are "digital rights"? Is it something that requires enforcement by a meatspace court??? There is only one known real world meatspace -> blockchainspace binding that can be enforced without the courts. Energy and work. Anything else is just tradfi with extra steps.