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I guess a lot of people want to spend $200 in gas fees to buy a URL to a JPEG that comes with no rights whatsoever to the image itself. What a time to be alive.

I guess a lot of people want to spend $200 in gas fees to buy a URL to a JPEG that comes with no rights whatsoever to the image itself. What a time to be alive. Maybe I was wrong, maybe the Fed's loose monetary policy has gone too far after all haha.

ausudhz 5y ago
I think the main point is that people are happy to do so cause they can sell that JPEG for more later on The gas problem is well known and it has been addressed with the London upgrade
- Danieru 5y ago
  > The gas problem is well known and it has been addressed with the London upgrade Gas prices are up. London only made the prices more predictable; high and predictable. "prices go high and low" is not a problems who's solution is "keep it high all the time". The actual promised solution to high gas prices is sharing. Which got delayed behind proof of stake backed validation. Aka: delayed until other long delayed feature is shipped.
  - ausudhz 5y ago
    Yes that was my point, it was the main change for eth 2.0 but it still has a long way to go. I guess other chain that use an utility token and main token have a better control over the transaction fee as compared as eth.
mattbeckman 5y ago
BAYC gave rights to NFT owners, and that's why they became the example. Larva Labs / Punks is doing it wrong IMO.
dheera 5y ago
I tried to sell some AI-generated cat pictures and it didn't work. Nobody wanted to pay for it. I think some element of it is a famous person doing it, so the spending is associated with the person, not the URL to the art. Which basically means, if you're famous, you can get some free money from idiots.
- kaustavha 5y ago
  You need to create customers and wide appeal first. Cryptopunks were free at the start, so were cryptokitties. Lootproject just launched and anyone could mint a free loot bag and the floor is now 10 ETH. Beeple NFTs were dirt cheap. Pixel portraits were dirt cheap. Maybe you set your price too high and didnt do a good job of marketing? Learn about the space before you try to make a quick cash grab?
  - dheera 5y ago
    Oh I just figured it was designed to be a free cash grab, I set the price pretty low actually. Not really interested in learning how to market vaporware but if idiots want to pay me for nothing I'll take it
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      You got downvoted because in order to win the money, you have to play the game. You can't be openly cynical. Keep that inside! :)
- puranjay 5y ago
  This is true for all art markets - nothing surprising. Outside of a few masters, you can’t expect immediate liquidity from your art.
- panarky 5y ago
  > Nobody wanted to pay for it Easy to solve with shill bidding to manufacture an illusion of demand and value.
  - dheera 5y ago
    Is there a service that can shill bid for me? Well actually is there a service that can take any crap JPEG, post it as NFT, deal with all the PR, take half the profits and give me the other half?
kaustavha 5y ago
What rights do you get if you buy a painting? Can you enforce any rights you give yourself after buying a painting?
- ddalex 5y ago
  The right of ownership of the actual asset, not of a paper in the safe with the written address of the asset :)
ramijames 5y ago
You are entirely misunderstanding the purpose of NFTs. As a first-hand buyer, you are paying to act as a patron for artists/projects that you believe in. You enable those people to spend time producing more art that you like. This is a very interesting and valuable use-case in and of itself. I have recently started putting up my digital work and it is the first time in my life (41) that I can create unique works and have access to a market that allows people to support me. Don't poo poo what you don't really understand. For anyone interested: https://opensea.io/assets/0x495f947276749ce646f68ac8c248420045cb7b5e/58789883292276363432626242406826596569980987264880464997549246459021856079873 https://opensea.io/assets/0x495f947276749ce646f68ac8c2484200... I have a store up here: https://www.ramijames.com/ https://www.ramijames.com/
- puranjay 5y ago
  My wife had a conference yesterday that was initially going to be held in Berlin but because of the pandemic, happened entirely online. The conference organizers set up a virtual environment in Gather.town where your avatar could walk around a game-like virtual room and initiate conversations with people (over Zoom) by walking up to them. There were different rooms where you could attend different sessions. For my wife and most of the academics present, it was their first virtual/gaming experience, and they all loved it. People don’t realize it but the metaverse is here already. In the metaverse, your avatar is your digital identity. How much would people be willing to pay for a more desirable digital identity (avatar)? What if that digital identity also got you exclusive access to select clubs? None of this is new - people pay tons of money for more desirable real world identities (clothes, makeup, accessories). If we spend half our lives online, is it really surprising that people will eventually want a more desirable online identity too?
  - ItsMonkk 5y ago
    Gamers have been spending real money for proprietary "skins" for quite a while now. Epic makes billions on FortNite through such a system. But they are only able to charge such fees because they are in control of the system. They would never voluntarily give up that control if they could. Making the world that players choose to socialize in is where the hard work is. Facebook is betting that the Metaverse is the next step. The Metaverse is already here, and it's called VRchat. There are millions of skins that chatters can use for free, though like early YouTube much of it is breaking copyright. It takes real skill to create a skin, and if you want a custom skin there are people willing to pay for the creation of a skin that fits them. These custom jobs can take modelers tens to hundreds of hours sculpting and animating and they can charge thousands for their hardwork. This is all already happening. That is to say, I see no reason that NFTs or cryptocurrency changes any of this. It's just false scarcity. The artists are already getting paid for their work.
puranjay 5y ago
It disappoints me that comments on crypto threads on HN have the same tone as NYTimes crypto articles. I would have expected this place to be more curious and less dismissive
- panarky 5y ago
  > more curious and less dismissive If a thing doesn't make sense to me, it must be that the thing is foolish, not that I lack understanding. What's really foolish is thinking in linear, mean-reverting, zero-sum terms in the face of exponentially increasing knowledge and value.

ausudhz 5y ago

I think the main point is that people are happy to do so cause they can sell that JPEG for more later on The gas problem is well known and it has been addressed with the London upgrade

Danieru 5y ago
> The gas problem is well known and it has been addressed with the London upgrade Gas prices are up. London only made the prices more predictable; high and predictable. "prices go high and low" is not a problems who's solution is "keep it high all the time". The actual promised solution to high gas prices is sharing. Which got delayed behind proof of stake backed validation. Aka: delayed until other long delayed feature is shipped.
- ausudhz 5y ago
  Yes that was my point, it was the main change for eth 2.0 but it still has a long way to go. I guess other chain that use an utility token and main token have a better control over the transaction fee as compared as eth.

mattbeckman 5y ago

BAYC gave rights to NFT owners, and that's why they became the example. Larva Labs / Punks is doing it wrong IMO.

dheera 5y ago

I tried to sell some AI-generated cat pictures and it didn't work. Nobody wanted to pay for it. I think some element of it is a famous person doing it, so the spending is associated with the person, not the URL to the art. Which basically means, if you're famous, you can get some free money from idiots.

kaustavha 5y ago
You need to create customers and wide appeal first. Cryptopunks were free at the start, so were cryptokitties. Lootproject just launched and anyone could mint a free loot bag and the floor is now 10 ETH. Beeple NFTs were dirt cheap. Pixel portraits were dirt cheap. Maybe you set your price too high and didnt do a good job of marketing? Learn about the space before you try to make a quick cash grab?
- dheera 5y ago
  Oh I just figured it was designed to be a free cash grab, I set the price pretty low actually. Not really interested in learning how to market vaporware but if idiots want to pay me for nothing I'll take it
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    You got downvoted because in order to win the money, you have to play the game. You can't be openly cynical. Keep that inside! :)
puranjay 5y ago
This is true for all art markets - nothing surprising. Outside of a few masters, you can’t expect immediate liquidity from your art.
panarky 5y ago
> Nobody wanted to pay for it Easy to solve with shill bidding to manufacture an illusion of demand and value.
- dheera 5y ago
  Is there a service that can shill bid for me? Well actually is there a service that can take any crap JPEG, post it as NFT, deal with all the PR, take half the profits and give me the other half?

kaustavha 5y ago

What rights do you get if you buy a painting? Can you enforce any rights you give yourself after buying a painting?

ddalex 5y ago
The right of ownership of the actual asset, not of a paper in the safe with the written address of the asset :)

ramijames 5y ago

You are entirely misunderstanding the purpose of NFTs. As a first-hand buyer, you are paying to act as a patron for artists/projects that you believe in. You enable those people to spend time producing more art that you like. This is a very interesting and valuable use-case in and of itself. I have recently started putting up my digital work and it is the first time in my life (41) that I can create unique works and have access to a market that allows people to support me. Don't poo poo what you don't really understand. For anyone interested: https://opensea.io/assets/0x495f947276749ce646f68ac8c248420045cb7b5e/58789883292276363432626242406826596569980987264880464997549246459021856079873 https://opensea.io/assets/0x495f947276749ce646f68ac8c2484200... I have a store up here: https://www.ramijames.com/ https://www.ramijames.com/

puranjay 5y ago
My wife had a conference yesterday that was initially going to be held in Berlin but because of the pandemic, happened entirely online. The conference organizers set up a virtual environment in Gather.town where your avatar could walk around a game-like virtual room and initiate conversations with people (over Zoom) by walking up to them. There were different rooms where you could attend different sessions. For my wife and most of the academics present, it was their first virtual/gaming experience, and they all loved it. People don’t realize it but the metaverse is here already. In the metaverse, your avatar is your digital identity. How much would people be willing to pay for a more desirable digital identity (avatar)? What if that digital identity also got you exclusive access to select clubs? None of this is new - people pay tons of money for more desirable real world identities (clothes, makeup, accessories). If we spend half our lives online, is it really surprising that people will eventually want a more desirable online identity too?
- ItsMonkk 5y ago
  Gamers have been spending real money for proprietary "skins" for quite a while now. Epic makes billions on FortNite through such a system. But they are only able to charge such fees because they are in control of the system. They would never voluntarily give up that control if they could. Making the world that players choose to socialize in is where the hard work is. Facebook is betting that the Metaverse is the next step. The Metaverse is already here, and it's called VRchat. There are millions of skins that chatters can use for free, though like early YouTube much of it is breaking copyright. It takes real skill to create a skin, and if you want a custom skin there are people willing to pay for the creation of a skin that fits them. These custom jobs can take modelers tens to hundreds of hours sculpting and animating and they can charge thousands for their hardwork. This is all already happening. That is to say, I see no reason that NFTs or cryptocurrency changes any of this. It's just false scarcity. The artists are already getting paid for their work.

puranjay 5y ago

It disappoints me that comments on crypto threads on HN have the same tone as NYTimes crypto articles. I would have expected this place to be more curious and less dismissive

panarky 5y ago
> more curious and less dismissive If a thing doesn't make sense to me, it must be that the thing is foolish, not that I lack understanding. What's really foolish is thinking in linear, mean-reverting, zero-sum terms in the face of exponentially increasing knowledge and value.