7 ms·

The very idea of NFTs aren't a scam, but many of the current manifestations could be described as scams.

arcticbull 5y ago
Selling signed URLs to frequently low-effort JPEGs, that don't convey ownership, don't guarantee the continued existence of the thing they point at, and don't come with any legal rights whatsoever? It's basically just a next-gen version of the star registry scam that's been going on for decades. [1] [1] https://www.star-registration.com/ https://www.star-registration.com/
- knownjorbist 5y ago
  I don't see how this refutes my point. The concept is independent of any of these manifestations.
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    It's a scam because you're buying nothing in both cases lol. You're exchanging money, with value, for nothing.
    - knownjorbist 5y ago
      What if I didn't exchange any money? What if the token in question does provide value by granting me access to something?
      - arcticbull 5y ago
        The former isn't really possible right, as you have to pay at minimum gas fees. The latter is extrinsic.
        knownjorbist 5y ago
        The former is possible on chains where "gas" is a fraction of a fraction of a cent. Even if we're being pedantic there - what, the miners/validators are the scammers in this case? The latter is not extrinsic at all - it's all in the contracts on the blockchain.
    - ChainOfFools 5y ago
      I guarantee some court of the 27th century will be deliberating the validity of someone's claim on Gliese 674 simply because they have the only documented claim anyone ever bothered to make, in the form of a vacuum preserved slip of foolscap naming their star registry buying ancestor as the owner.
      - JeremyReimer 5y ago
        Kind of like this: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2012/05/07/the-fullness-of-time1 https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2012/05/07/the-fullness-o...
      - munk-a 5y ago
        I can almost promise you this won't happen - since star registries have no claim to the rights they're selling. Most star registries I've ever seen are purely about naming and just because a town is named Munkton and I'm the sole descendant of the original owner doesn't mean I have any implicit claim to any of the town land - even undeveloped city land is still held by actual entities. I will grant it is slightly possible if we have a data destruction period between now and the 27th century. Claims to property after the nazis were overthrown could often be made by jewish residents with very little proof due to the fact that all the real proof was intentionally destroyed. But even those could end up extremely contentious. You can read up on Jewish Restitution[1] and you'll see a lot of really difficult cases that had to be dealt with. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_claims_for_restitution_for_Nazi-looted_art https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_claims_for_restitution...
    - coralreef 5y ago
      When you buy stocks, you think you're buying a share of a corporation. It sits in your brokerage account. Now you've traded money for "something" you can't touch. The existence of your stock ownership depends on a legal and social framework to exist. If the government was overthrown and you were exiled tomorrow, you have nothing. If an asteroid destroyed half the earth tomorrow, and you survived, you still have nothing. You take for granted the systems in which you live and function in. There are many things we "own" and cannot touch, yet they are as real as anything. The money in your bank account is an example of that. It has value, you own it, but if we are stranded on a deserted island with no electricity or wifi, it ceases to exist to us.
      - antifa 5y ago
        > There are many things we "own" and cannot touch, yet they are as real as anything. That's a great metaphor, but the issue is that NFTs are an order of magnitude more fake than stocks, money, etc.
        coralreef 5y ago
        You should qualify what "more fake" means and how.
      - chinathrow 5y ago
        > The existence of your stock ownership depends on a legal and social framework to exist. That's true for most things we own these days, and it works quite well.
        coralreef 5y ago
        It does, and it will always be needed for the physical world.
- coralreef 5y ago
  Selling thin pieces of cardboard with images of athletes printed of them, which don't come with any legal rights whatsoever? Oh, that's the sports collectibles trading card industry. NFTs on blockchains solve the problem of provenance and permanence. You need to do a bit of effort and think about why anything is worth anything at all. Why is the Mona Lisa worth millions but a forgery worth nothing, even if they are indistinguishable from one another?
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    > You need to do a bit of effort and think about why anything is worth anything at all. Why is the Mona Lisa worth millions but a forgery worth nothing, even if they are indistinguishable from one another? How much is a museum map from the Louvre with directions from the entrance to the current location of the Mona Lisa, signed the museum attendant worth haha. They are of course distinguishable. One was actually physically created by the artist. The images the URLs point at are 100% exactly identical, and you do not have the right to the image in question. You may not even have the right to display it to anyone. You're just buying the plastic sleeves the baseball cards come in without the card itself. > NFTs on blockchains solve the problem of provenance and permanence. [edit] Not really no. After all the provenance is on faith that the person who originally sold the NFT is both the original creator of the work (or authorized to sell it) and that they have the legal right to do so, probably, who even knows. Trust me, the judge is the judge of that, not the blockchain. Blockchains only actually work for concepts wholly encapsulated by the blockchain. Art is not that. And as for permanence, no, it's just a URL. The contents may disappear, even in IPFS.
    - coralreef 5y ago
      > Trust me, the judge is the judge of that, not the blockchain. Blockchains only actually work for concepts wholly encapsulated by the blockchain. Art is not that. Art is represented and encapsulated by data. The judge of provenance is society: whatever the buyer deems necessary to prove legitamacy is what sets value. An old rolex with papers is worth more than one without. A rolex that can't be identified as authentic by anyone is worth nothing.
- miracle2k 5y ago
  It isn't, because the seller of the certificate is the moral owner of the work - the artist; this is not the case for stars. The Tate is the owner of the following certificate of ownership by Sol Le Witt: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/lewitt-a-wall-divided-vertically-into-fifteen-equal-parts-each-with-a-different-line-t01766 https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/lewitt-a-wall-divided-v... Are they the victim of a scam?
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    The certificate itself says that it is to accompany the actual work. I suspect the certificate itself, separate from the work, isn't actually worth much.
    - miracle2k 5y ago
      That's not correct. These wall drawings are not transferred physically; it would be hard to move a wall. Instead, draughtsmen will simply recreate it according to the instructions of the artist, as given in the diagram, at a new location. See for example https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/lewitt-wall-drawing-1136-ar00165 https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/lewitt-wall-drawing-113...: "Wall Drawing #1136 can be installed, removed, and then reinstalled in another location, as many times as required for exhibition purposes. As such, there can also be periods of time in which the work does not exist in physical form."
      - arcticbull 5y ago
        Cool, sounds like this is in fact the work of art then, not a certificate of authenticity. It's a neat concept!
        miracle2k 5y ago
        So how is it different than an NFT? For starters, let's take the Autoglyphs (https://www.larvalabs.com/autoglyphs https://www.larvalabs.com/autoglyphs): the smart contract gives a list of instructions for each piece that you can use to draw the final output. Cool concept or scam?
- chinathrow 5y ago
  It's basically the new ICO on the block. You buy a string, you own nothing.
- PretzelPirate 5y ago
  You seem to misunderstand the comment you replied to. They agreed that the current manifestation (signed URLs to JPEGs) are scammy, but that is one use of the NFT concept. In gaming, NFTs can represent in-game items with utility and unique attributes that change as you use them. They can be used across multiple games and sold/traded on an open marketplace.
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    > In gaming, NFTs can represent in-game items with utility and unique attributes that change as you use them. They can be used across multiple games and sold/traded on an open marketplace. I hear this a lot, but it really makes no sense to me. An in-game item is really only suited for the game in which it exists. What good is a CoD FN FAL with certain balance, certain damage, certain bullet velocity, certain balance - in Minecraft? Anywhere else really? Game creators go to extreme lengths to make their games balanced and fun and engaging. Opening up the ability for people to port in legendary weapons from unrelated games seems like the last thing game creators would want, and certainly, it's the last thing I'd want as a player. Am I missing something? What's the draw? Then if there's only one source for items, and only one place to use those items, you've got what we call a centralized system. Why would the game creator then want to give away the revenue from such a marketplace to "the blockchain" when they can just do it themselves and have a far more lucrative business model?
    - chipgap98 5y ago
      They could be cosmetics as well. Or there could be new paradigms in gaming where there are items that do work in multiple games. I don't think the point is that this is settled and will definitely work, but there are interesting applications for NFTs and games.
    - Kiro 5y ago
      CoD items in Minecraft make no sense but imagine two new games adhering to the same metadata in the NFT. Or a new game explicitly made to be compatible with NFT items of another game.
jjulius 5y ago
They're a scam the same way that buying a star in space for someone is a scam.

Selling signed URLs to frequently low-effort JPEGs, that don't convey ownership, don't guarantee the continued existence of the thing they point at, and don't come with any legal rights whatsoever? It's basically just a next-gen version of the star registry scam that's been going on for decades. [1] [1] https://www.star-registration.com/ https://www.star-registration.com/

knownjorbist 5y ago
I don't see how this refutes my point. The concept is independent of any of these manifestations.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  It's a scam because you're buying nothing in both cases lol. You're exchanging money, with value, for nothing.
  - knownjorbist 5y ago
    What if I didn't exchange any money? What if the token in question does provide value by granting me access to something?
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      The former isn't really possible right, as you have to pay at minimum gas fees. The latter is extrinsic.
      - knownjorbist 5y ago
        The former is possible on chains where "gas" is a fraction of a fraction of a cent. Even if we're being pedantic there - what, the miners/validators are the scammers in this case? The latter is not extrinsic at all - it's all in the contracts on the blockchain.
  - ChainOfFools 5y ago
    I guarantee some court of the 27th century will be deliberating the validity of someone's claim on Gliese 674 simply because they have the only documented claim anyone ever bothered to make, in the form of a vacuum preserved slip of foolscap naming their star registry buying ancestor as the owner.
    - JeremyReimer 5y ago
      Kind of like this: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2012/05/07/the-fullness-of-time1 https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2012/05/07/the-fullness-o...
    - munk-a 5y ago
      I can almost promise you this won't happen - since star registries have no claim to the rights they're selling. Most star registries I've ever seen are purely about naming and just because a town is named Munkton and I'm the sole descendant of the original owner doesn't mean I have any implicit claim to any of the town land - even undeveloped city land is still held by actual entities. I will grant it is slightly possible if we have a data destruction period between now and the 27th century. Claims to property after the nazis were overthrown could often be made by jewish residents with very little proof due to the fact that all the real proof was intentionally destroyed. But even those could end up extremely contentious. You can read up on Jewish Restitution[1] and you'll see a lot of really difficult cases that had to be dealt with. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_claims_for_restitution_for_Nazi-looted_art https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_claims_for_restitution...
  - coralreef 5y ago
    When you buy stocks, you think you're buying a share of a corporation. It sits in your brokerage account. Now you've traded money for "something" you can't touch. The existence of your stock ownership depends on a legal and social framework to exist. If the government was overthrown and you were exiled tomorrow, you have nothing. If an asteroid destroyed half the earth tomorrow, and you survived, you still have nothing. You take for granted the systems in which you live and function in. There are many things we "own" and cannot touch, yet they are as real as anything. The money in your bank account is an example of that. It has value, you own it, but if we are stranded on a deserted island with no electricity or wifi, it ceases to exist to us.
    - antifa 5y ago
      > There are many things we "own" and cannot touch, yet they are as real as anything. That's a great metaphor, but the issue is that NFTs are an order of magnitude more fake than stocks, money, etc.
      - coralreef 5y ago
        You should qualify what "more fake" means and how.
    - chinathrow 5y ago
      > The existence of your stock ownership depends on a legal and social framework to exist. That's true for most things we own these days, and it works quite well.
      - coralreef 5y ago
        It does, and it will always be needed for the physical world.
coralreef 5y ago
Selling thin pieces of cardboard with images of athletes printed of them, which don't come with any legal rights whatsoever? Oh, that's the sports collectibles trading card industry. NFTs on blockchains solve the problem of provenance and permanence. You need to do a bit of effort and think about why anything is worth anything at all. Why is the Mona Lisa worth millions but a forgery worth nothing, even if they are indistinguishable from one another?
- arcticbull 5y ago
  > You need to do a bit of effort and think about why anything is worth anything at all. Why is the Mona Lisa worth millions but a forgery worth nothing, even if they are indistinguishable from one another? How much is a museum map from the Louvre with directions from the entrance to the current location of the Mona Lisa, signed the museum attendant worth haha. They are of course distinguishable. One was actually physically created by the artist. The images the URLs point at are 100% exactly identical, and you do not have the right to the image in question. You may not even have the right to display it to anyone. You're just buying the plastic sleeves the baseball cards come in without the card itself. > NFTs on blockchains solve the problem of provenance and permanence. [edit] Not really no. After all the provenance is on faith that the person who originally sold the NFT is both the original creator of the work (or authorized to sell it) and that they have the legal right to do so, probably, who even knows. Trust me, the judge is the judge of that, not the blockchain. Blockchains only actually work for concepts wholly encapsulated by the blockchain. Art is not that. And as for permanence, no, it's just a URL. The contents may disappear, even in IPFS.
  - coralreef 5y ago
    > Trust me, the judge is the judge of that, not the blockchain. Blockchains only actually work for concepts wholly encapsulated by the blockchain. Art is not that. Art is represented and encapsulated by data. The judge of provenance is society: whatever the buyer deems necessary to prove legitamacy is what sets value. An old rolex with papers is worth more than one without. A rolex that can't be identified as authentic by anyone is worth nothing.
miracle2k 5y ago
It isn't, because the seller of the certificate is the moral owner of the work - the artist; this is not the case for stars. The Tate is the owner of the following certificate of ownership by Sol Le Witt: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/lewitt-a-wall-divided-vertically-into-fifteen-equal-parts-each-with-a-different-line-t01766 https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/lewitt-a-wall-divided-v... Are they the victim of a scam?
- arcticbull 5y ago
  The certificate itself says that it is to accompany the actual work. I suspect the certificate itself, separate from the work, isn't actually worth much.
  - miracle2k 5y ago
    That's not correct. These wall drawings are not transferred physically; it would be hard to move a wall. Instead, draughtsmen will simply recreate it according to the instructions of the artist, as given in the diagram, at a new location. See for example https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/lewitt-wall-drawing-1136-ar00165 https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/lewitt-wall-drawing-113...: "Wall Drawing #1136 can be installed, removed, and then reinstalled in another location, as many times as required for exhibition purposes. As such, there can also be periods of time in which the work does not exist in physical form."
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      Cool, sounds like this is in fact the work of art then, not a certificate of authenticity. It's a neat concept!
      - miracle2k 5y ago
        So how is it different than an NFT? For starters, let's take the Autoglyphs (https://www.larvalabs.com/autoglyphs https://www.larvalabs.com/autoglyphs): the smart contract gives a list of instructions for each piece that you can use to draw the final output. Cool concept or scam?
chinathrow 5y ago
It's basically the new ICO on the block. You buy a string, you own nothing.
PretzelPirate 5y ago
You seem to misunderstand the comment you replied to. They agreed that the current manifestation (signed URLs to JPEGs) are scammy, but that is one use of the NFT concept. In gaming, NFTs can represent in-game items with utility and unique attributes that change as you use them. They can be used across multiple games and sold/traded on an open marketplace.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  > In gaming, NFTs can represent in-game items with utility and unique attributes that change as you use them. They can be used across multiple games and sold/traded on an open marketplace. I hear this a lot, but it really makes no sense to me. An in-game item is really only suited for the game in which it exists. What good is a CoD FN FAL with certain balance, certain damage, certain bullet velocity, certain balance - in Minecraft? Anywhere else really? Game creators go to extreme lengths to make their games balanced and fun and engaging. Opening up the ability for people to port in legendary weapons from unrelated games seems like the last thing game creators would want, and certainly, it's the last thing I'd want as a player. Am I missing something? What's the draw? Then if there's only one source for items, and only one place to use those items, you've got what we call a centralized system. Why would the game creator then want to give away the revenue from such a marketplace to "the blockchain" when they can just do it themselves and have a far more lucrative business model?
  - chipgap98 5y ago
    They could be cosmetics as well. Or there could be new paradigms in gaming where there are items that do work in multiple games. I don't think the point is that this is settled and will definitely work, but there are interesting applications for NFTs and games.
  - Kiro 5y ago
    CoD items in Minecraft make no sense but imagine two new games adhering to the same metadata in the NFT. Or a new game explicitly made to be compatible with NFT items of another game.

jjulius 5y ago

They're a scam the same way that buying a star in space for someone is a scam.