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I'm not an expert on the technology, but I've seen this same argument from friends of mine who are into a blockchain they claim will allow people to carry their

I'm not an expert on the technology, but I've seen this same argument from friends of mine who are into a blockchain they claim will allow people to carry their Universities degrees / Academic qualifications with them. Similar to your "wallet" idea I guess. So, by dint of being tokens, accreditation, land deeds, car papers, game items etc etc etc must all be able to be transferred right? Which means they can also be stolen or attributed to the wrong people right? So, if you get hacked and your car registration token gets stolen, or if someone steals your degree and starts walking around pretending to be a doctor using your token, what do you do? In fact, what happens if the University accidentally gives your degree to someone with the same surname as you, and you get a Diploma in Basket Weaving instead of your medical degree and they refuse to give it back? Because these things will happen endlessly. Well, as always, you'll go to the DMV or the cops or the Uni and they'll.....what exactly? The answer, necessarily, will be to check their master records to see who should have what, and then change it. Which totally obliviates the purpose of the decentralised blockchain. You can see this in action with that dope who had his cartoon ape NFT stolen. What did he do? Immediately appealed to the closest thing to a centralised authority there is, Twitter and the ape community, and begged them not to buy "his" NFTs. Then contacted the exchanges and begged them not to sell. Then contacted the cops. Then, in a move with a jaw-dropping lack of self awareness said it "didn't matter" that the NFT had been stolen, because he "still owned those apes". So in the space of about ten minutes, he firebombed every core tenet of NFTs, and that was over a cartoon ape in the first moments of NFTs even being a "thing". What's your solution for the guy who gets his house token stolen?

oblio 5y ago
The solution? ... crickets ... :-)
gaganyaan 5y ago
I think a house token is an interesting idea, once you accept the inevitability of having to interface with the real world. If you had one and it got stolen, you'd file a court case with your state or local authority. They would then add a record saying that the ownership is disputed. If you won the case, they'd add a new record saying that the house still belongs to you. It turns it from "I'm screwed" to "Ugh, a legal hassle", the exact same as if your paper deed got stolen. You'll probably say "but why bother then?" The main reason is standardization. I have no idea how to check housing records for other states, let alone other countries. Some shitty broken website created by a lowest bidder contractor? Request a copy by mail that probably costs money because someone has to physically print out a copy themselves? Instead, everybody everywhere can use the same software stack instead of reinventing the wheel N times. Checking the current state of things becomes trivial. It's also trivial to do private house sales then. One transaction signed by both parties, and you're done.
- TheProbes 5y ago
  That's not a solution. Most places have computerised land records, and maybe they aren't so great, but that is an argument for a new modern database, not a worse one (blockchain).
csallen 5y ago
I don't fully understand your logic. Are you saying that theft will prevent the adoption of this technology? People get shit stolen in the real world, and in the current implementation of the internet all the time. What happens when your Google account gets fished and someone steals tens of millions of dollars from your company? Do we shut down the internet and call it a day? No, not really. It has no effect on adoption. The fact is that when you invent the ship, you invent the shipwreck. So it goes with all new technologies, and so it always has. Have we ever simply said, "Welp, there are costs to go along with the benefits of this new tech. Let's just give up here!" Not to my recollection. We simply make the ships more crash-resistant. The problems with new tech are almost always obvious early on, but the solutions require creativity and frequently result in hugely successful businesses. Consider early criticisms[0] of the internet from 1995: > "Every voice can be heard cheaply and instantly. The result? Every voice is heard. The cacophany more closely resembles citizens band radio, complete with handles, harrasment, and anonymous threats. When most everyone shouts, few listen." True enough. There's a cacophony. So what? The internet survives. Algorithms rank posts and tweets and surface the best insights. > "How about electronic publishing? Try reading a book on disc. At best, it's an unpleasant chore: the myopic glow of a clunky computer replaces the friendly pages of a book. And you can't tote that laptop to the beach." True enough. So what? We got Kindles, and smart phones, and higher-res screens, and people bring laptops to cafes instead of beaches. > "…the Internet is one big ocean of unedited data, without any pretense of completeness. Lacking editors, reviewers or critics, the Internet has become a wasteland of unfiltered data. You don't know what to ignore and what's worth reading. Logged onto the World Wide Web, I hunt for the date of the Battle of Trafalgar. Hundreds of files show up, and it takes 15 minutes to unravel them…" True enough. So what? A few years later this problem was largely solved by Google, which is now worth a trillion dollars. > "…who'd prefer cybersex to the real thing?"* Hundreds of millions of people are addicted to porn. Not saying it's a great result, but the fact remains that problems don't stop adoption. And do you remember how much credit card fraud there was in 90s e-commerce, when security was trash and almost nobody was used to regularly checking their digital bank statements, so it would take weeks or months for people to even notice? Hell, there's still a lot of fraud today. E-commerce still reigns supreme. Sure, people will get their NFT good stolen. It will happen frequently. It already has happened many times. This will not hurt NFT adoption. It will simply spur innovation in security and defense, which it already has if you actually look into early solutions (e.g. custodians, insurance). At best, you're simply pointing out problems that people will innovate to solve. [0] https://www.newsweek.com/clifford-stoll-why-web-wont-be-nirvana-185306 https://www.newsweek.com/clifford-stoll-why-web-wont-be-nirv...

oblio 5y ago

The solution? ... crickets ... :-)

gaganyaan 5y ago

I think a house token is an interesting idea, once you accept the inevitability of having to interface with the real world. If you had one and it got stolen, you'd file a court case with your state or local authority. They would then add a record saying that the ownership is disputed. If you won the case, they'd add a new record saying that the house still belongs to you. It turns it from "I'm screwed" to "Ugh, a legal hassle", the exact same as if your paper deed got stolen. You'll probably say "but why bother then?" The main reason is standardization. I have no idea how to check housing records for other states, let alone other countries. Some shitty broken website created by a lowest bidder contractor? Request a copy by mail that probably costs money because someone has to physically print out a copy themselves? Instead, everybody everywhere can use the same software stack instead of reinventing the wheel N times. Checking the current state of things becomes trivial. It's also trivial to do private house sales then. One transaction signed by both parties, and you're done.

TheProbes 5y ago
That's not a solution. Most places have computerised land records, and maybe they aren't so great, but that is an argument for a new modern database, not a worse one (blockchain).

csallen 5y ago

I don't fully understand your logic. Are you saying that theft will prevent the adoption of this technology? People get shit stolen in the real world, and in the current implementation of the internet all the time. What happens when your Google account gets fished and someone steals tens of millions of dollars from your company? Do we shut down the internet and call it a day? No, not really. It has no effect on adoption. The fact is that when you invent the ship, you invent the shipwreck. So it goes with all new technologies, and so it always has. Have we ever simply said, "Welp, there are costs to go along with the benefits of this new tech. Let's just give up here!" Not to my recollection. We simply make the ships more crash-resistant. The problems with new tech are almost always obvious early on, but the solutions require creativity and frequently result in hugely successful businesses. Consider early criticisms[0] of the internet from 1995: > "Every voice can be heard cheaply and instantly. The result? Every voice is heard. The cacophany more closely resembles citizens band radio, complete with handles, harrasment, and anonymous threats. When most everyone shouts, few listen." True enough. There's a cacophony. So what? The internet survives. Algorithms rank posts and tweets and surface the best insights. > "How about electronic publishing? Try reading a book on disc. At best, it's an unpleasant chore: the myopic glow of a clunky computer replaces the friendly pages of a book. And you can't tote that laptop to the beach." True enough. So what? We got Kindles, and smart phones, and higher-res screens, and people bring laptops to cafes instead of beaches. > "…the Internet is one big ocean of unedited data, without any pretense of completeness. Lacking editors, reviewers or critics, the Internet has become a wasteland of unfiltered data. You don't know what to ignore and what's worth reading. Logged onto the World Wide Web, I hunt for the date of the Battle of Trafalgar. Hundreds of files show up, and it takes 15 minutes to unravel them…" True enough. So what? A few years later this problem was largely solved by Google, which is now worth a trillion dollars. > "…who'd prefer cybersex to the real thing?"* Hundreds of millions of people are addicted to porn. Not saying it's a great result, but the fact remains that problems don't stop adoption. And do you remember how much credit card fraud there was in 90s e-commerce, when security was trash and almost nobody was used to regularly checking their digital bank statements, so it would take weeks or months for people to even notice? Hell, there's still a lot of fraud today. E-commerce still reigns supreme. Sure, people will get their NFT good stolen. It will happen frequently. It already has happened many times. This will not hurt NFT adoption. It will simply spur innovation in security and defense, which it already has if you actually look into early solutions (e.g. custodians, insurance). At best, you're simply pointing out problems that people will innovate to solve. [0] https://www.newsweek.com/clifford-stoll-why-web-wont-be-nirvana-185306 https://www.newsweek.com/clifford-stoll-why-web-wont-be-nirv...