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I mean what is the value of having NFT's at all? Fraud and price inflation might be solvable problems, but it still seems like you have the core issue that the

by skohan 5y ago

I mean what is the value of having NFT's at all? Fraud and price inflation might be solvable problems, but it still seems like you have the core issue that there's no underlying value to the asset at all. And that's not even a comment on the artistic merit of many of these, which is a farce in itself, but all you get is your name in a ledger. The work itself is just a file like any other.

bko 5y ago
I'm skeptical, but I can think of few use cases: 1. you could actually want to support the artist. Right now I don't think the popular NFTs are real artists, but there's no reason real public artists can't jump on board. NFT could be a flex 2. Social networks could build in NFTs. Dorsey from Twitter mentioned he wants to add NFT verification into the app, so that could be a thing. And they could give you more prominent placement. It's basically like non-commercial advertising. Kind of like a star next to your name. 3. VR could try to enforce that some objects can only be controlled by the owner. It would be difficult, but possible
- skohan 5y ago
  1. You can already donate to an artist you like through a platform like Patreon 2. If it's a feature of a social network, don't you already need a central authority? What's the value of an NFT then rather than just an entry in a database? 3. Similar: whoever is implementing this theoretical VR environment could just be the authority of who owns what. I don't see what an NFT adds here
  - BlueDingo 5y ago
    I think they mean that NFTs could be brought into the game or platform like Twitter. Buy a painting NFT, show it off in Second Life or the like. So the apps wouldn't control the assets, only verify them. I'm not "for" NFTs but that seems like it could be used in cool ways.
    - danaris 5y ago
      That still requires a massive distributed investment in infrastructure to support this. Every game that you want to show off your painting in needs to a) support importing any of these "portable NFT-based items", b) actually implement the models (and any necessary supporting code) for them in their own format, whatever that happens to be, and c) implement restrictions based on checking the ownership of NFTs against some identifier for the actual items. Again: Every game/environment that you want to bring your NFT-items to has to implement this. And they're not getting paid to do so, because your NFT money is going to whoever is brokering them. Where the hell is the incentive...?
      - kevinventullo 5y ago
        One incentive might be that the game/environment wants to compete against other games/environments on being a platform which facilitates NFT trading. Taking their pound of flesh off the top of course. I’m not a big crypto guy at all, but I do see the analogy with the very real digital economies you see on platforms like Steam.
        skohan 5y ago
        But again, what's the incentive? For instance with something like CS: Go skins, the developers of the game are doing all the investment creating the asset, and they have zero incentive to make this available outside of their game?
        sinsterizme 5y ago
        Secondary markets increase demand for the primary market
        acdha 5y ago
        How would that benefit them? The major game companies already have robust systems for making digital assets and selling them to people, does it really seem likely that they’d jump to give a large fraction of that revenue to someone else for the privilege of having a slow, cumbersome intermediary which would still require custom integration work for every game?
  - bko 5y ago
    > 1. You can already donate to an artist you like through a platform like Patreon You feel like you own something that the artist can only sell once (assuming they're honest). Also, I don't know if there is a credible receipt for a donation on Patreon that you can use to flex > 2. If it's a feature of a social network, don't you already need a central authority? What's the value of an NFT then rather than just an entry in a database? I guess a social network could leverage the hype behind existing NFTs rather than rolling their own. Sure there will be some that will try to have home-spun NFTs, but Twitter indicated for now they just want to use existing NFTS > 3. Similar: whoever is implementing this theoretical VR environment could just be the authority of who owns what. I don't see what an NFT adds here NFTs could also be transferable across platforms. Obviously platforms wouldn't like this, but as a user if I buy a virtual house, it would be better not to be tied to any one platform. So new or existing platforms could try to lure me over by saying I can bring my house with me
    - skohan 5y ago
      > You feel like you own something that the artist can only sell once (assuming they're honest). Also, I don't know if there is a credible receipt for a donation on Patreon that you can use to flex Yeah I mean I understand the appeal of ownership, but it's just so abstract in this case. If you "own" a picasso, you have something nobody else has. If you "own" an NFT, anyone with a copy of the file has exactly what you have. > I guess a social network could leverage the hype behind existing NFTs rather than rolling their own. Sure there will be some that will try to have home-spun NFTs, but Twitter indicated for now they just want to use existing NFTS What would this feature/integration actually look like? > NFTs could also be transferable across platforms. Obviously platforms wouldn't like this, but as a user if I buy a virtual house, it would be better not to be tied to any one platform. So new or existing platforms could try to lure me over by saying I can bring my house with me Yeah but why would they? So what would my NFT "house" be? I guess this is a 3D asset, with a model, some textures, and a collision model that can be rendered inside this VR world. Basically every platform which wants to make this asset usable has to bear the costs of supporting and rendering this asset, while the NFT issuer reaps the profits. What is the incentive here?
    - acdha 5y ago
MaxBarraclough 5y ago
> I mean what is the value of having NFT's at all? Fraud and price inflation might be solvable problems, but it still seems like you have the core issue that there's no underlying value to the asset at all. I think the analogy to baseball cards works very well. Owning an NFT generally doesn't grant you copyrights over the underlying work of art. Owning a baseball card doesn't mean the athlete now works for you. They can both still have value as collectible items, if that's something that interests you. The problem is when people start talking about NFTs as if it entitles the holder to ownership of the underlying thing. It's possible to own a work of art, either physically or in terms of copyrights. NFTs are neither. When Dorsey sold an NFT of the first ever tweet, that didn't entitle the buyer to copyrights or even the ability to delete the tweet. It's purely a collectible that derives value from official endorsement and scarcity. That's not something that interests me personally, but it all seems above board. The problem is when I read Dorsey sold the first ever tweet. He did not. He sold an NFT.
- skohan 5y ago
  Yeah I think it's quite different from baseball cards. There the authenticity of the physical item is quite a part of the value proposition. People want to own the the actual original which was part of the print run in whatever year. Reproductions have no value, and things like the physical condition of the card play a huge role. With an NFT there's nothing besides the notion of ownership which separates the owner of the NFT from anyone else who has access to the digital asset. I'm not saying there's nothing interesting about the notion of digital ownership, but someone would have to figure out a way for that ownership to actually mean something, which has not been achieved in the current iteration.
  - MaxBarraclough 5y ago
    > There the authenticity of the physical item is quite a part of the value proposition. It's exactly the same for NFTs. Dorsey's NFT sold for $2.9 precisely because it was 'issued' by him, and there's the implicit promise that he won't sell another NFT associated with that same tweet. If you or I tried to sell NFTs to that tweet, nothing would happen to the tweet, but we wouldn't find willing buyers. > I'm not saying there's nothing interesting about the notion of digital ownership, but someone would have to figure out a way for that ownership to actually mean something, which has not been achieved in the current iteration. Ownership of digital goods is the domain of copyright law.
lukifer 5y ago
One analogy I find interesting: imagine a book signed by the author (clearly worth more than an unsigned book). Now imagine that the signature could be extracted from its physical form, and traded independently. Is it silly to value that? Maybe; but that begs the question of why people value signatures. At any rate, there are other use cases for NFTs beyond ephemeral pseudo-ownership of art [0]. Strictly speaking, a library card is a type of "non-fungible token". The real magic happens in the social ecosystems and institutions that define relationships using those tokens (same as with fungible tokens, which are otherwise just paper). [0] https://theblockchainsocialist.com/unlocked-the-best-leftist-hot-take-on-nfts-youll-ever-listen-to-remix/ https://theblockchainsocialist.com/unlocked-the-best-leftist...
- skohan 5y ago
  So I think the value of a signed book (which I agree in itself is dubious) is based in the provable history and scarcity of the artifact. You know that this individual copy of the book you are holding was touched by the author themself. There is something romantic about that, and you have something nobody else has. With an NFT, your "copy" of the actual work is totally indistinguishable from every other. The whole concept of ownership here is also incredibly abstract. I'm not saying there will never be a legitimate use case for something like an NFT, but I think we haven't seen it yet.

by skohan 5y ago

bko 5y ago

I'm skeptical, but I can think of few use cases: 1. you could actually want to support the artist. Right now I don't think the popular NFTs are real artists, but there's no reason real public artists can't jump on board. NFT could be a flex 2. Social networks could build in NFTs. Dorsey from Twitter mentioned he wants to add NFT verification into the app, so that could be a thing. And they could give you more prominent placement. It's basically like non-commercial advertising. Kind of like a star next to your name. 3. VR could try to enforce that some objects can only be controlled by the owner. It would be difficult, but possible

skohan 5y ago
1. You can already donate to an artist you like through a platform like Patreon 2. If it's a feature of a social network, don't you already need a central authority? What's the value of an NFT then rather than just an entry in a database? 3. Similar: whoever is implementing this theoretical VR environment could just be the authority of who owns what. I don't see what an NFT adds here
- BlueDingo 5y ago
  I think they mean that NFTs could be brought into the game or platform like Twitter. Buy a painting NFT, show it off in Second Life or the like. So the apps wouldn't control the assets, only verify them. I'm not "for" NFTs but that seems like it could be used in cool ways.
  - danaris 5y ago
    That still requires a massive distributed investment in infrastructure to support this. Every game that you want to show off your painting in needs to a) support importing any of these "portable NFT-based items", b) actually implement the models (and any necessary supporting code) for them in their own format, whatever that happens to be, and c) implement restrictions based on checking the ownership of NFTs against some identifier for the actual items. Again: Every game/environment that you want to bring your NFT-items to has to implement this. And they're not getting paid to do so, because your NFT money is going to whoever is brokering them. Where the hell is the incentive...?
    - kevinventullo 5y ago
      One incentive might be that the game/environment wants to compete against other games/environments on being a platform which facilitates NFT trading. Taking their pound of flesh off the top of course. I’m not a big crypto guy at all, but I do see the analogy with the very real digital economies you see on platforms like Steam.
      - skohan 5y ago
        But again, what's the incentive? For instance with something like CS: Go skins, the developers of the game are doing all the investment creating the asset, and they have zero incentive to make this available outside of their game?
        sinsterizme 5y ago
        Secondary markets increase demand for the primary market
      - acdha 5y ago
        How would that benefit them? The major game companies already have robust systems for making digital assets and selling them to people, does it really seem likely that they’d jump to give a large fraction of that revenue to someone else for the privilege of having a slow, cumbersome intermediary which would still require custom integration work for every game?
- bko 5y ago
  > 1. You can already donate to an artist you like through a platform like Patreon You feel like you own something that the artist can only sell once (assuming they're honest). Also, I don't know if there is a credible receipt for a donation on Patreon that you can use to flex > 2. If it's a feature of a social network, don't you already need a central authority? What's the value of an NFT then rather than just an entry in a database? I guess a social network could leverage the hype behind existing NFTs rather than rolling their own. Sure there will be some that will try to have home-spun NFTs, but Twitter indicated for now they just want to use existing NFTS > 3. Similar: whoever is implementing this theoretical VR environment could just be the authority of who owns what. I don't see what an NFT adds here NFTs could also be transferable across platforms. Obviously platforms wouldn't like this, but as a user if I buy a virtual house, it would be better not to be tied to any one platform. So new or existing platforms could try to lure me over by saying I can bring my house with me
  - skohan 5y ago
    > You feel like you own something that the artist can only sell once (assuming they're honest). Also, I don't know if there is a credible receipt for a donation on Patreon that you can use to flex Yeah I mean I understand the appeal of ownership, but it's just so abstract in this case. If you "own" a picasso, you have something nobody else has. If you "own" an NFT, anyone with a copy of the file has exactly what you have. > I guess a social network could leverage the hype behind existing NFTs rather than rolling their own. Sure there will be some that will try to have home-spun NFTs, but Twitter indicated for now they just want to use existing NFTS What would this feature/integration actually look like? > NFTs could also be transferable across platforms. Obviously platforms wouldn't like this, but as a user if I buy a virtual house, it would be better not to be tied to any one platform. So new or existing platforms could try to lure me over by saying I can bring my house with me Yeah but why would they? So what would my NFT "house" be? I guess this is a 3D asset, with a model, some textures, and a collision model that can be rendered inside this VR world. Basically every platform which wants to make this asset usable has to bear the costs of supporting and rendering this asset, while the NFT issuer reaps the profits. What is the incentive here?
  - acdha 5y ago

MaxBarraclough 5y ago

> I mean what is the value of having NFT's at all? Fraud and price inflation might be solvable problems, but it still seems like you have the core issue that there's no underlying value to the asset at all. I think the analogy to baseball cards works very well. Owning an NFT generally doesn't grant you copyrights over the underlying work of art. Owning a baseball card doesn't mean the athlete now works for you. They can both still have value as collectible items, if that's something that interests you. The problem is when people start talking about NFTs as if it entitles the holder to ownership of the underlying thing. It's possible to own a work of art, either physically or in terms of copyrights. NFTs are neither. When Dorsey sold an NFT of the first ever tweet, that didn't entitle the buyer to copyrights or even the ability to delete the tweet. It's purely a collectible that derives value from official endorsement and scarcity. That's not something that interests me personally, but it all seems above board. The problem is when I read Dorsey sold the first ever tweet. He did not. He sold an NFT.

skohan 5y ago
Yeah I think it's quite different from baseball cards. There the authenticity of the physical item is quite a part of the value proposition. People want to own the the actual original which was part of the print run in whatever year. Reproductions have no value, and things like the physical condition of the card play a huge role. With an NFT there's nothing besides the notion of ownership which separates the owner of the NFT from anyone else who has access to the digital asset. I'm not saying there's nothing interesting about the notion of digital ownership, but someone would have to figure out a way for that ownership to actually mean something, which has not been achieved in the current iteration.
- MaxBarraclough 5y ago
  > There the authenticity of the physical item is quite a part of the value proposition. It's exactly the same for NFTs. Dorsey's NFT sold for $2.9 precisely because it was 'issued' by him, and there's the implicit promise that he won't sell another NFT associated with that same tweet. If you or I tried to sell NFTs to that tweet, nothing would happen to the tweet, but we wouldn't find willing buyers. > I'm not saying there's nothing interesting about the notion of digital ownership, but someone would have to figure out a way for that ownership to actually mean something, which has not been achieved in the current iteration. Ownership of digital goods is the domain of copyright law.

lukifer 5y ago

One analogy I find interesting: imagine a book signed by the author (clearly worth more than an unsigned book). Now imagine that the signature could be extracted from its physical form, and traded independently. Is it silly to value that? Maybe; but that begs the question of why people value signatures. At any rate, there are other use cases for NFTs beyond ephemeral pseudo-ownership of art [0]. Strictly speaking, a library card is a type of "non-fungible token". The real magic happens in the social ecosystems and institutions that define relationships using those tokens (same as with fungible tokens, which are otherwise just paper). [0] https://theblockchainsocialist.com/unlocked-the-best-leftist-hot-take-on-nfts-youll-ever-listen-to-remix/ https://theblockchainsocialist.com/unlocked-the-best-leftist...

skohan 5y ago
So I think the value of a signed book (which I agree in itself is dubious) is based in the provable history and scarcity of the artifact. You know that this individual copy of the book you are holding was touched by the author themself. There is something romantic about that, and you have something nobody else has. With an NFT, your "copy" of the actual work is totally indistinguishable from every other. The whole concept of ownership here is also incredibly abstract. I'm not saying there will never be a legitimate use case for something like an NFT, but I think we haven't seen it yet.