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The fact that something is or isn't one of a kind doesn't make it valuable though. If value only came from the art itself then whether something was one of a ki

by DSMan195276 5y ago

The fact that something is or isn't one of a kind doesn't make it valuable though. If value only came from the art itself then whether something was one of a kind shouldn't matter - especially so if a reproduction is close enough that they are visually identical. For expensive paintings the value of the painting is completely separate from the art itself - I think we can agree that a Picasso would sell for a lot less if you didn't tell people it was painted by Picasso. That's despite the fact that who painted something is not a physical aspect of the painting. An NFT is basically like a 'certificate of authenticity' - whether you think it's BS or not depends entirely on who issued it. A item that includes such a certificate from a known reputable source may be extremely valuable to a collector, where-as the regular item may be practically worthless, and that can be true even if nobody can tell the items apart. At the same time, John Doe down the street signing 'certificates of authenticity' doesn't provide any value because nobody cares who John Doe is, in the same way that some random person signing an NFT doesn't automatically make it worth anything since anybody else can just come along an do the same. But if the author of an artwork came by and produced an NFT of it, that's unique in a way that people may care about.

tshaddox 5y ago
It all comes down to technology. If we had the technology to create an atom-by-atom replica of a painting, then this justification would need to change. People would probably say “but these atoms are still the original ones.” Of course the only way to verify that at this point would be to have evidence of a chain of custody, which would likely be very difficult to establish with any confidence. So paintings just “lucked out” and already had a convenient scarce item that interested parties could agree represents the “original act of creation of the work of art,” because the technology to create an exact copy doesn’t exist, and it’s extremely expensive and difficult to create a convincing forgery.
lottin 5y ago
An NFT cannot be a certificate of authenticity, because the content is hosted by a third party. The third party can replace the supposedly original content with a non-original copy at any time.
- nybble41 5y ago
  > … the content is hosted by a third party. The third party can replace the supposedly original content with a non-original copy at any time. Generally the content is hosted in IPFS and identified by a content hash which was recorded as part of the transaction which minted the NFT in a blockchain, which makes it somewhere between "difficult" and "impossible" for any third party (or first or second party, for that matter) to replace the content.
- DSMan195276 5y ago
  I'm not saying they are a certificate of authenticity, I'm saying the value it creates is similar in concept. A certificate of authenticity has value based on the issuer of the certificate of authenticity - if the issuer is some random person it doesn't create any value because anybody can create such a thing, but if it is someone important/relevant in that field then it can be very meaningful. In a similar way an NFT has value based on particular details about the NFT such as the author and database it is in, not just the bytes themselves. You can certainly create the same NFT with a new author, or on a new database, or etc. but it's no longer the same NFT at that point, it's a replica and can be distinguished from the original. And while an NFT published by the author of the art might be a interesting thing to own/control, the same NFT published by a random John Doe doesn't carry the same relevance. And fundamentally you still can't change the properties of the original NFT in the original database.
  - lottin 5y ago
    I don't think that certificates of authenticity work like that. A certificate of authenticity has value in as much as it certifies authenticity, not because someone important has signed it. That would be an autograph.
    - DSMan195276 5y ago
      > A certificate of authenticity has value in as much as it certifies authenticity, not because someone important has signed it. I think you missed the point, someone has issued the certificate and it only matters if you value that person's or entity's opinion. If you don't then it's just a meaningless piece of paper. For example, PSA grades playing cards. A rare card that is graded highly by PSA will generally make it much more valuable than an ungraded version of the same card. However, if someone send me a card in the mail and I grade it a 10 and send it back, that means nothing because nobody cares about my opinion on cards. Similarity, if PSA were to issue NFTs, they would have value specifically because it was PSA who authored the NFTs. I could take the exact same data and author an NFT myself, but nobody would care because they specifically want the one that was created by PSA, and that is something that is verifiable and that I cannot duplicate. They don't want it for any real tangible reason, they want it so they can say "I own an NFT from PSA".

tshaddox 5y ago

It all comes down to technology. If we had the technology to create an atom-by-atom replica of a painting, then this justification would need to change. People would probably say “but these atoms are still the original ones.” Of course the only way to verify that at this point would be to have evidence of a chain of custody, which would likely be very difficult to establish with any confidence. So paintings just “lucked out” and already had a convenient scarce item that interested parties could agree represents the “original act of creation of the work of art,” because the technology to create an exact copy doesn’t exist, and it’s extremely expensive and difficult to create a convincing forgery.

lottin 5y ago

An NFT cannot be a certificate of authenticity, because the content is hosted by a third party. The third party can replace the supposedly original content with a non-original copy at any time.

nybble41 5y ago
> … the content is hosted by a third party. The third party can replace the supposedly original content with a non-original copy at any time. Generally the content is hosted in IPFS and identified by a content hash which was recorded as part of the transaction which minted the NFT in a blockchain, which makes it somewhere between "difficult" and "impossible" for any third party (or first or second party, for that matter) to replace the content.
DSMan195276 5y ago
I'm not saying they are a certificate of authenticity, I'm saying the value it creates is similar in concept. A certificate of authenticity has value based on the issuer of the certificate of authenticity - if the issuer is some random person it doesn't create any value because anybody can create such a thing, but if it is someone important/relevant in that field then it can be very meaningful. In a similar way an NFT has value based on particular details about the NFT such as the author and database it is in, not just the bytes themselves. You can certainly create the same NFT with a new author, or on a new database, or etc. but it's no longer the same NFT at that point, it's a replica and can be distinguished from the original. And while an NFT published by the author of the art might be a interesting thing to own/control, the same NFT published by a random John Doe doesn't carry the same relevance. And fundamentally you still can't change the properties of the original NFT in the original database.
- lottin 5y ago
  I don't think that certificates of authenticity work like that. A certificate of authenticity has value in as much as it certifies authenticity, not because someone important has signed it. That would be an autograph.
  - DSMan195276 5y ago
    > A certificate of authenticity has value in as much as it certifies authenticity, not because someone important has signed it. I think you missed the point, someone has issued the certificate and it only matters if you value that person's or entity's opinion. If you don't then it's just a meaningless piece of paper. For example, PSA grades playing cards. A rare card that is graded highly by PSA will generally make it much more valuable than an ungraded version of the same card. However, if someone send me a card in the mail and I grade it a 10 and send it back, that means nothing because nobody cares about my opinion on cards. Similarity, if PSA were to issue NFTs, they would have value specifically because it was PSA who authored the NFTs. I could take the exact same data and author an NFT myself, but nobody would care because they specifically want the one that was created by PSA, and that is something that is verifiable and that I cannot duplicate. They don't want it for any real tangible reason, they want it so they can say "I own an NFT from PSA".