7 ms·

Am I the only one who sees the interest in NFTs as an indictment of the whole crypo scene? NFTs abandon all the arguments that crypto people have usually used

by slg 5y ago

Am I the only one who sees the interest in NFTs as an indictment of the whole crypo scene? NFTs abandon all the arguments that crypto people have usually used to argue why cryptocurrencies have value. People are dropping all pretext and openly admitting that these things only have value because they are artificially scarce and therefore maybe someone else will pay you more for it in the future. There is no other value. And now that we see that alone is enough to drive up prices, I start to wonder if anyone really believed all those arguments for cryptocurrencies or they were just too scared to admit that this was always all about trying to ride the artificial bubble for as long as possible.

Applejinx 5y ago
I'm pretty sure the end game is either exerting social or even legal pressure to KEEP the value going up, simply because so much money is involved. It's like 'because this is ridiculous, it is therefore obvious that it's only about the money invested in it, not in any sense what it's 'about'. Therefore, the money has to keep getting more valuable. Because money, that's why. If that argument holds, then it is money, full stop. No matter what else it is or isn't. The entire difference between it being a weird speculative prank, and it being money in the weightiest possible sense of the word, is how it's treated by society and any governments that have jurisdiction.
- nradov 5y ago
  How would that pressure work exactly? Markets can remain irrational for a long time, but over a sufficiently long period they eventually revert to fundamental value. There is a limited supply of "greater fools" and they don't have infinite cash. Market values for other types of collectibles like ceramic figurines or stuffed animals have dropped significantly in recent years; sometimes there are no buyers at any price.
  - Applejinx 5y ago
    My hope, personally, is that the pressure would NOT work. Market dynamics are fine in their place, even useful, but nothing about them is inherently free from exploit. Crypto and finance operate in a context that's set by law and custom. We agree 'if your crypto fails, hard luck, you lost money'. If it was beneficial to literally threaten government until they changed the rule to 'if your crypto fails, but you are entity X, Y or Z, then you are to apply to the government and they will make you whole, printing 'money' if necessary'. This would be pitched in the name of 'stability' but it'd be a straight power play. The benefit to X, Y, and Z is obvious. Doesn't matter much what kind of pressure they would impose, only the end result matters. It could be negotiation, blackmail, threat of physical harm: view this pressure as stepping outside the rules of the system to rig the rules of the system, secretly or explicitly. The idea is to legislate that markets can't be irrational, because (if you're X, Y, or Z) markets will be guaranteed to do what you want. No risk. Therefore, rational.
- slg 5y ago
  >I'm pretty sure the end game is either exerting social or even legal pressure to KEEP the value going up, simply because so much money is involved. This just reminds me of how society screwed over future generations once the decision was made to treat housing as an investment. There is now a tremendous amount of social, political, and legal pressure to keep values going up in order to protect the financial health of a good percentage of people which is diametrically opposed with the financial health of a separate group of people who cannot afford those rising costs.
ghfjfh 5y ago
NFTs have value because people who have been into crypto are rich now and any activity surrounding them is now a rich persons game.
- nradov 5y ago
  “How can you have money,” demanded Ford, “if none of you actually produces anything? It doesn't grow on trees you know.” “If you would allow me to continue..." Ford nodded dejectedly. “Thank you. Since we decided a few weeks ago to adopt the leaf as legal tender, we have, of course, all become immensely rich.” -Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/685739-if-the-management-consultant-said-tersely-we-could-for-a https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/685739-if-the-management-co...
toomanydoubts 5y ago
Well, I'm a firm believer in cryptocurrency but I have yet to find legit use cases for NFTs, so you can be pro-currency and nft-skeptical.
- Imnimo 5y ago
  I think the previous poster's point is that if an NFT is useless but is still worth a boatload of money, shouldn't that make us skeptical of the fact that a Bitcoin is worth a boatload of money also? Like perhaps Bitcoin's value is actually as detached from its utility as the NFT's.
  - slg 5y ago
    Exactly. NFTs seem to be an admission that the utility of cryptocurrencies was not the driver of either prices or excitement.
  - xboxnolifes 5y ago
    I cannot come to that conclusion, because NFT came after the cryptocurrency upsurge. People saw the monetary value of crypto go up, and that same value has been associated with NFTs. To me, just because people are aiming for a second lucky ticket, doesn't mean the first was a fake.
    - Imnimo 5y ago
      It certainly don't demonstrate that the value of bitcoin is similarly baseless, it just suggests that the contrapositive - the idea the high value of bitcoin shows that bitcoin is useful - is not a solid argument.
- stillsut 5y ago
  NFT's represent a rather beautiful but whacky idea: that money supply is controlled by the critical reception of new artwork. Not the opinion of the snobby art world, but a completely democratic market for art populi - where the aesthetic leans meme - think less MOMA and more favorite contestant on American Idol. This means NFT's have the ability of dynamically change the money supply based on the prevaliling Keynsian animal spirits across society, versus bitcoins pre-determined money supply schedule. This is a novel feature to the crypto ecosystem: in a way it's moving the activity of mining for block rewards from a robotic and silicon-based process into a creative human process of mining for memetic uptake. Another interesting opportunity is for patronage to sponsor our society's artists. Just like Florentine status competitions of religious paintings supported Da Vinci's works, our crypto merchants could be supporting the man who will still be going viral five hundred years later. Let me know if you find him.
tomp 5y ago
I'm really tempted to take one of these famous NFTs and use it as a Twitter avatar, without owning it. I guess I could have copyright issues with it, but I doubt I would (why would the original artist care anyways? did s/he even package up the copyright rights to travel along with the NFT token as it's traded? maybe...). You can own it and say it's rare, but it's not actually rare.
- mattnewton 5y ago
  Go ahead, the people who own the NFT don’t have copyright over the underlying image, and afaict usually don’t have any special rights to the image at all.
- dcolkitt 5y ago
  Nobody would care anymore than the owner of a Van Gogh would care about you printing a copy of the painting and hanging it up on your wall. The value isn’t in the raw image, it’s in the status and prestige of socially recognized ownership.
  - tomp 5y ago
    If I buy a Van Gogh, I have a Van Gogh hanging in my living room. You don't (not the same one, anyways). People buy NFT JPEGs and then put them as their Twitter avatars. Anyone can do that.
    - dcolkitt 5y ago
      Digital replications of paintings are perfect. So it’s just as easy to say: If I buy an NFT, I have a monkey as my Twitter avatar. You don’t (not the same monkey, anyway).
      - mattnewton 5y ago
        Everyone can have the exact same monkey down to each bit, it’s just that you have a note on a blockchain that says you bought the monkey and no one else did. It’s like if we had matter replicators from the Star Trek universe and anyone could print a van goh copy down to the same molecular structure and hang it on their wall, but you bought an impractical-to-forge piece of paper that says yours is the original.
ben_w 5y ago
I’m unsure either way. On the one hand, I regard crypto-foo in general as a failure to grok foo for all foo other than “graphy” and “nomicon”. On the other, NFTs seem to fit into the same category as all other collectibles: I have no interest in used stamps, my dad collected them; original paintings and sculptures from famous artists fetch high prices, if I wanted one I’d get a (2D or 3D) print; autographs fetch vast sums and have zero valence for me. Pretty much the only thing I care to collect are achievement badges in games and gamified educational services. Which of these NFTs represent — magical thinking or collectibility — I do not know.
debacle 5y ago
In 2021, I don't think you can treat NFTs and GME and other confusing/contrived aspects of the economy as separate in any way. The reality is that money, on the whole, is becoming more and more meaningless. The world still needs something that fulfills the promise of cryptocurrency, even if it's a little distracted right now.
- sumedh 5y ago
  > The reality is that money, on the whole, is becoming more and more meaningless. Probably because of low interest rates, huge QE and now the public knows the system is rigged against them.
logifail 5y ago
> things only have value because they are artificially scarce Of course scarcity can (rightly) influence value, on the other hand, think of tulip bulbs and the year 1637.
- rcpt 5y ago
  Or housing
  - logifail 5y ago
    > Or housing You can live in an over-priced house that you've bought. I'm struggling to think of uses for an over-priced tulip bulb, other than one Spring's worth of flowering (maybe)...
- amelius 5y ago
  The word "value" is wrong. E.g. oxygen has value, even if not scarce. I wish economists refrained from using the word "value" for concepts that are not that.
  - logifail 5y ago
    > oxygen has value, even if not scarce Q: How much did you pay for the oxygen you personally used in the last 24h?
    - X6S1x6Okd1st 5y ago
      > Economic value is not the same as market price, nor is economic value the same thing as market value. If a consumer is willing to buy a good, it implies that the customer places a higher value on the good than the market price. The difference between the value to the consumer and the market price is called "consumer surplus". It is easy to see situations where the actual value is considerably larger than the market price: purchase of drinking water is one example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_(economics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_(economics)
X6S1x6Okd1st 5y ago
Artificial scarcity has always been a key part of the argument. NFTs are just a new name for a concept that's been around in bitcoin since the very early years: Colored coins https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Colored_Coins https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Colored_Coins
thebean11 5y ago
I see it differently. Are online casinos an indictment of the internet? NFTs are just an application.
flignats 5y ago
The NFT (Erc721) technology has started and will continue to disrupt so many parts of life that it is nearly unfathomable. The technology was championed through artistic channels and we're still very early which is why it is the majority of the attention. Some of these NFTs have intrinsic value simply for being the firsts/help create upon a technology that will continue to permeate through our culture and livelihood.
- fouc 5y ago
  disrupt how?
  - flignats 5y ago
    There are many ways, right now the media focuses on the artistic disruptions. https://twitter.com/darrenrovell/status/1435967697913880580 https://twitter.com/darrenrovell/status/1435967697913880580 Never before have artists had this much control of their ip.
    - slg 5y ago
      I'm not following your argument unless your definition of "disrupt" is simply "to make more expensive".
      - flignats 5y ago
        Then you are not interested in finding out answers that do not agree with you. It is very clear that IP ownership has been disrupted with several positive, value-added mechanisms. This is no longer an opinion.
    - xemoka 5y ago
      Yeah, I still just don't get it. That whole twitter feeds looks like a hunt for a greater fool. This doesn't seem like artists controlling their IP, to me it seems like another method of sales that lets them tap into essentially a pineapple fund. Those who made money in crypto, sloshing around the excess, making it look bigger and bigger.
hackcasual 5y ago
At least crypto kitties was fun
janto 5y ago
You're using the word "artificial" in at least two different ways here. The US dollar is artificially scarce. What inherent value does it have?
- rspeele 5y ago
  The inherent value is that if you pay taxes in the US you need dollars to pay them with.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    Not only that, but any debt in the US can be paid in dollars. Like, I can bring a stack of $20s to my landlord and they just have to accept them. They don't have to accept BTC or ETH or even Mastercard.
    - janto 5y ago
      This is also part of the "artificial" value of the dollar in the sense that it requires enforcement by the US gov and banking systems to remain useful. In-game currency is also useful, but that does not give it inherent value, in any meaningful sense of the word.
      - HWR_14 5y ago
        I mean, sure. But if we're only saying things are valuable because the US government enforces it, that's a strange bar. So movies and tv shows aren't valuable?
        janto 5y ago
        My issue was with the original comment's ambiguous use of artificial, not really value. He was drawing a connection between crypto as "artificially scarce" and an "artificial bubble". I agree that people can value movies and tv shows, which in some sense therefore actually has more inherent value than the dollar.
me_me_me 5y ago
Yes! All crypto people are 100% behind NFTs. Therfore i can say: 'Am I the only one who sees the interest in NFTs as an indictment of the whole crypo scene?' You are not even trying. Lets change crypto to apples and NFTs to thieving. "Thieves were caught eating apples ==> All apple eater are behind thievery."

by slg 5y ago

Applejinx 5y ago

I'm pretty sure the end game is either exerting social or even legal pressure to KEEP the value going up, simply because so much money is involved. It's like 'because this is ridiculous, it is therefore obvious that it's only about the money invested in it, not in any sense what it's 'about'. Therefore, the money has to keep getting more valuable. Because money, that's why. If that argument holds, then it is money, full stop. No matter what else it is or isn't. The entire difference between it being a weird speculative prank, and it being money in the weightiest possible sense of the word, is how it's treated by society and any governments that have jurisdiction.

nradov 5y ago
How would that pressure work exactly? Markets can remain irrational for a long time, but over a sufficiently long period they eventually revert to fundamental value. There is a limited supply of "greater fools" and they don't have infinite cash. Market values for other types of collectibles like ceramic figurines or stuffed animals have dropped significantly in recent years; sometimes there are no buyers at any price.
- Applejinx 5y ago
  My hope, personally, is that the pressure would NOT work. Market dynamics are fine in their place, even useful, but nothing about them is inherently free from exploit. Crypto and finance operate in a context that's set by law and custom. We agree 'if your crypto fails, hard luck, you lost money'. If it was beneficial to literally threaten government until they changed the rule to 'if your crypto fails, but you are entity X, Y or Z, then you are to apply to the government and they will make you whole, printing 'money' if necessary'. This would be pitched in the name of 'stability' but it'd be a straight power play. The benefit to X, Y, and Z is obvious. Doesn't matter much what kind of pressure they would impose, only the end result matters. It could be negotiation, blackmail, threat of physical harm: view this pressure as stepping outside the rules of the system to rig the rules of the system, secretly or explicitly. The idea is to legislate that markets can't be irrational, because (if you're X, Y, or Z) markets will be guaranteed to do what you want. No risk. Therefore, rational.
slg 5y ago
>I'm pretty sure the end game is either exerting social or even legal pressure to KEEP the value going up, simply because so much money is involved. This just reminds me of how society screwed over future generations once the decision was made to treat housing as an investment. There is now a tremendous amount of social, political, and legal pressure to keep values going up in order to protect the financial health of a good percentage of people which is diametrically opposed with the financial health of a separate group of people who cannot afford those rising costs.

ghfjfh 5y ago

NFTs have value because people who have been into crypto are rich now and any activity surrounding them is now a rich persons game.

nradov 5y ago
“How can you have money,” demanded Ford, “if none of you actually produces anything? It doesn't grow on trees you know.” “If you would allow me to continue..." Ford nodded dejectedly. “Thank you. Since we decided a few weeks ago to adopt the leaf as legal tender, we have, of course, all become immensely rich.” -Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/685739-if-the-management-consultant-said-tersely-we-could-for-a https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/685739-if-the-management-co...

toomanydoubts 5y ago

Well, I'm a firm believer in cryptocurrency but I have yet to find legit use cases for NFTs, so you can be pro-currency and nft-skeptical.

Imnimo 5y ago
I think the previous poster's point is that if an NFT is useless but is still worth a boatload of money, shouldn't that make us skeptical of the fact that a Bitcoin is worth a boatload of money also? Like perhaps Bitcoin's value is actually as detached from its utility as the NFT's.
- slg 5y ago
  Exactly. NFTs seem to be an admission that the utility of cryptocurrencies was not the driver of either prices or excitement.
- xboxnolifes 5y ago
  I cannot come to that conclusion, because NFT came after the cryptocurrency upsurge. People saw the monetary value of crypto go up, and that same value has been associated with NFTs. To me, just because people are aiming for a second lucky ticket, doesn't mean the first was a fake.
  - Imnimo 5y ago
    It certainly don't demonstrate that the value of bitcoin is similarly baseless, it just suggests that the contrapositive - the idea the high value of bitcoin shows that bitcoin is useful - is not a solid argument.
stillsut 5y ago
NFT's represent a rather beautiful but whacky idea: that money supply is controlled by the critical reception of new artwork. Not the opinion of the snobby art world, but a completely democratic market for art populi - where the aesthetic leans meme - think less MOMA and more favorite contestant on American Idol. This means NFT's have the ability of dynamically change the money supply based on the prevaliling Keynsian animal spirits across society, versus bitcoins pre-determined money supply schedule. This is a novel feature to the crypto ecosystem: in a way it's moving the activity of mining for block rewards from a robotic and silicon-based process into a creative human process of mining for memetic uptake. Another interesting opportunity is for patronage to sponsor our society's artists. Just like Florentine status competitions of religious paintings supported Da Vinci's works, our crypto merchants could be supporting the man who will still be going viral five hundred years later. Let me know if you find him.

tomp 5y ago

I'm really tempted to take one of these famous NFTs and use it as a Twitter avatar, without owning it. I guess I could have copyright issues with it, but I doubt I would (why would the original artist care anyways? did s/he even package up the copyright rights to travel along with the NFT token as it's traded? maybe...). You can own it and say it's rare, but it's not actually rare.

mattnewton 5y ago
Go ahead, the people who own the NFT don’t have copyright over the underlying image, and afaict usually don’t have any special rights to the image at all.
dcolkitt 5y ago
Nobody would care anymore than the owner of a Van Gogh would care about you printing a copy of the painting and hanging it up on your wall. The value isn’t in the raw image, it’s in the status and prestige of socially recognized ownership.
- tomp 5y ago
  If I buy a Van Gogh, I have a Van Gogh hanging in my living room. You don't (not the same one, anyways). People buy NFT JPEGs and then put them as their Twitter avatars. Anyone can do that.
  - dcolkitt 5y ago
    Digital replications of paintings are perfect. So it’s just as easy to say: If I buy an NFT, I have a monkey as my Twitter avatar. You don’t (not the same monkey, anyway).
    - mattnewton 5y ago
      Everyone can have the exact same monkey down to each bit, it’s just that you have a note on a blockchain that says you bought the monkey and no one else did. It’s like if we had matter replicators from the Star Trek universe and anyone could print a van goh copy down to the same molecular structure and hang it on their wall, but you bought an impractical-to-forge piece of paper that says yours is the original.

ben_w 5y ago

I’m unsure either way. On the one hand, I regard crypto-foo in general as a failure to grok foo for all foo other than “graphy” and “nomicon”. On the other, NFTs seem to fit into the same category as all other collectibles: I have no interest in used stamps, my dad collected them; original paintings and sculptures from famous artists fetch high prices, if I wanted one I’d get a (2D or 3D) print; autographs fetch vast sums and have zero valence for me. Pretty much the only thing I care to collect are achievement badges in games and gamified educational services. Which of these NFTs represent — magical thinking or collectibility — I do not know.

debacle 5y ago

In 2021, I don't think you can treat NFTs and GME and other confusing/contrived aspects of the economy as separate in any way. The reality is that money, on the whole, is becoming more and more meaningless. The world still needs something that fulfills the promise of cryptocurrency, even if it's a little distracted right now.

sumedh 5y ago
> The reality is that money, on the whole, is becoming more and more meaningless. Probably because of low interest rates, huge QE and now the public knows the system is rigged against them.

logifail 5y ago

> things only have value because they are artificially scarce Of course scarcity can (rightly) influence value, on the other hand, think of tulip bulbs and the year 1637.

rcpt 5y ago
Or housing
- logifail 5y ago
  > Or housing You can live in an over-priced house that you've bought. I'm struggling to think of uses for an over-priced tulip bulb, other than one Spring's worth of flowering (maybe)...
amelius 5y ago
The word "value" is wrong. E.g. oxygen has value, even if not scarce. I wish economists refrained from using the word "value" for concepts that are not that.
- logifail 5y ago
  > oxygen has value, even if not scarce Q: How much did you pay for the oxygen you personally used in the last 24h?
  - X6S1x6Okd1st 5y ago
    > Economic value is not the same as market price, nor is economic value the same thing as market value. If a consumer is willing to buy a good, it implies that the customer places a higher value on the good than the market price. The difference between the value to the consumer and the market price is called "consumer surplus". It is easy to see situations where the actual value is considerably larger than the market price: purchase of drinking water is one example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_(economics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_(economics)

X6S1x6Okd1st 5y ago

Artificial scarcity has always been a key part of the argument. NFTs are just a new name for a concept that's been around in bitcoin since the very early years: Colored coins https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Colored_Coins https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Colored_Coins

thebean11 5y ago

I see it differently. Are online casinos an indictment of the internet? NFTs are just an application.

flignats 5y ago

The NFT (Erc721) technology has started and will continue to disrupt so many parts of life that it is nearly unfathomable. The technology was championed through artistic channels and we're still very early which is why it is the majority of the attention. Some of these NFTs have intrinsic value simply for being the firsts/help create upon a technology that will continue to permeate through our culture and livelihood.

fouc 5y ago
disrupt how?
- flignats 5y ago
  There are many ways, right now the media focuses on the artistic disruptions. https://twitter.com/darrenrovell/status/1435967697913880580 https://twitter.com/darrenrovell/status/1435967697913880580 Never before have artists had this much control of their ip.
  - slg 5y ago
    I'm not following your argument unless your definition of "disrupt" is simply "to make more expensive".
    - flignats 5y ago
      Then you are not interested in finding out answers that do not agree with you. It is very clear that IP ownership has been disrupted with several positive, value-added mechanisms. This is no longer an opinion.
  - xemoka 5y ago
    Yeah, I still just don't get it. That whole twitter feeds looks like a hunt for a greater fool. This doesn't seem like artists controlling their IP, to me it seems like another method of sales that lets them tap into essentially a pineapple fund. Those who made money in crypto, sloshing around the excess, making it look bigger and bigger.

hackcasual 5y ago

At least crypto kitties was fun

janto 5y ago

You're using the word "artificial" in at least two different ways here. The US dollar is artificially scarce. What inherent value does it have?

rspeele 5y ago
The inherent value is that if you pay taxes in the US you need dollars to pay them with.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  Not only that, but any debt in the US can be paid in dollars. Like, I can bring a stack of $20s to my landlord and they just have to accept them. They don't have to accept BTC or ETH or even Mastercard.
  - janto 5y ago
    This is also part of the "artificial" value of the dollar in the sense that it requires enforcement by the US gov and banking systems to remain useful. In-game currency is also useful, but that does not give it inherent value, in any meaningful sense of the word.
    - HWR_14 5y ago
      I mean, sure. But if we're only saying things are valuable because the US government enforces it, that's a strange bar. So movies and tv shows aren't valuable?
      - janto 5y ago
        My issue was with the original comment's ambiguous use of artificial, not really value. He was drawing a connection between crypto as "artificially scarce" and an "artificial bubble". I agree that people can value movies and tv shows, which in some sense therefore actually has more inherent value than the dollar.

me_me_me 5y ago

Yes! All crypto people are 100% behind NFTs. Therfore i can say: 'Am I the only one who sees the interest in NFTs as an indictment of the whole crypo scene?' You are not even trying. Lets change crypto to apples and NFTs to thieving. "Thieves were caught eating apples ==> All apple eater are behind thievery."