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How would people validate ownership of an NFT when there could be hundreds of blockchains in the future? Would I have to go and verify each one of them to make

How would people validate ownership of an NFT when there could be hundreds of blockchains in the future? Would I have to go and verify each one of them to make sure my NFT hasn't been sold multiple times already?

doopy1 5y ago
I think each chain is its own economy when it comes to NFTs.
edent 5y ago
We'll have to create a centralised registry of all tokens on all chains‽
- CharlesW 5y ago
  And even though there may be tens of thousands of these search engines/registries built in the next two years, Google (for example, pick your poison) can step in any time and own this if NFTs turn into something more than pet rocks.
- Zamicol 5y ago
  Just as there's a central ledger of all the various citizens of the word's countries? A few trusted ledgers is all that's needed.
- kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
  It’s the circle of liiiiiiiiiife!
thesuperbigfrog 5y ago
Artificial scarcity is artificial. Nothing prevents someone from making copies and selling each "unique" one. Since it is decentralized, there is no centralized authority to take down the copies (that is, a DMCA-style take down). The "no one can censor you" upsides of decentralization are not without downsides: you cannot censor or take down others, even in cases of copyright breach.
SavantIdiot 5y ago
Ding ding ding. These people have literally no idea what they are doing. You think the average tech VC is a clueless about NFTs? Wait to you talk to people in the art world.
dqpb 5y ago
NFTs only make sense within the context of a system (or ecosystem) that has a protocol for recognizing it. For example, if an NFT represented a game asset, then the game (or potentially a whole ecosystem of games) would be the system that recognizes it, and the NFT would have value within the context of that game.
- mindwok 5y ago
  I really don't understand the use case of NFTs for in game assets. How is using a block chain to trade assets an improvement over the in game marketplaces we already have for games like TF2, DotA2, etc?
  - duskwuff 5y ago
    The usual answer is that representing those assets as NFTs will somehow make them portable to other games. This is, of course, a pipe dream. First of all, there's no business reason for any game to implement this feature -- they'd be undercutting their own sales of cosmetic items by honoring sales of items by their competitors. Second, actually porting assets between games is nontrivial; even if two games are built on the same engine, there are significant barriers to transferring assets between them (like differences in physical scale, art style, or game mechanics).
    - kobasa 5y ago
      It's a growth/marketing tool for new games to leech specific types of people from other games. You can target a very specific demographic of people (say whales, or hardcore grinders) and reward only those people.
  - conanbatt 5y ago
    That you can have cross-game assets and universes between different games and developers. Your special Dota skin works as a skin World of warcraft (?) or it might work in ancillary services around the game: could be used as a feature unlock or even log-in for services around the core game. It can setup a marketplace of unique items without the game founders having to create anything at all, or users recurring to unsafe selling and buying mechanisms. Game applications are definitely interesting to explore and experiment with.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
For major artworks, people would simply Google the piece and see that it sold for however much money in some headlines previously. The real issue is proving that a specific sale was the “true” one. There have already been incidents of people trying to sell other people’s artwork as NFTs. If you buy an NFT and the artist later comes out and declares that your NFT wasn’t authorized or licensed or whatever, the value would presumably drop. The artist could then sell the “real” NFT. Of course, none of this real-world authorization or provenance is actually encoded in the blockchain, nor can it be. The value lies entirely in the off-chain perception of what an NFT represents and whether or not it’s real / authentic / authorized / legitimate. The blockchain hype has led to a misconception that blockchain solves everything, but they’re all still limited to whatever we all agree the on-chain data represents what we want it to represent.
baby 5y ago
The NFT you’re buying is like a tuple (cryptocurrency, address, tokenID) So you already know what blockchain you’re using. It’s like saying “what facebook are you using? The ftp one or the http one or the https one?”
qqii 5y ago
As it stands, yes. For such a difficult problem it is not suprising NFTs don't provide any mechanisms against this. Unlike previously, if you do find an older copy on a blockchain you're given stronger guarentees that it actually is older. If digital artworks move towards proof via hash on blockchains for timestamping I'd imagine this problem would become easier to solve in future!

doopy1 5y ago

I think each chain is its own economy when it comes to NFTs.

edent 5y ago

We'll have to create a centralised registry of all tokens on all chains‽

CharlesW 5y ago
And even though there may be tens of thousands of these search engines/registries built in the next two years, Google (for example, pick your poison) can step in any time and own this if NFTs turn into something more than pet rocks.
Zamicol 5y ago
Just as there's a central ledger of all the various citizens of the word's countries? A few trusted ledgers is all that's needed.
kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
It’s the circle of liiiiiiiiiife!

thesuperbigfrog 5y ago

Artificial scarcity is artificial. Nothing prevents someone from making copies and selling each "unique" one. Since it is decentralized, there is no centralized authority to take down the copies (that is, a DMCA-style take down). The "no one can censor you" upsides of decentralization are not without downsides: you cannot censor or take down others, even in cases of copyright breach.

SavantIdiot 5y ago

Ding ding ding. These people have literally no idea what they are doing. You think the average tech VC is a clueless about NFTs? Wait to you talk to people in the art world.

dqpb 5y ago

NFTs only make sense within the context of a system (or ecosystem) that has a protocol for recognizing it. For example, if an NFT represented a game asset, then the game (or potentially a whole ecosystem of games) would be the system that recognizes it, and the NFT would have value within the context of that game.

mindwok 5y ago
I really don't understand the use case of NFTs for in game assets. How is using a block chain to trade assets an improvement over the in game marketplaces we already have for games like TF2, DotA2, etc?
- duskwuff 5y ago
  The usual answer is that representing those assets as NFTs will somehow make them portable to other games. This is, of course, a pipe dream. First of all, there's no business reason for any game to implement this feature -- they'd be undercutting their own sales of cosmetic items by honoring sales of items by their competitors. Second, actually porting assets between games is nontrivial; even if two games are built on the same engine, there are significant barriers to transferring assets between them (like differences in physical scale, art style, or game mechanics).
  - kobasa 5y ago
    It's a growth/marketing tool for new games to leech specific types of people from other games. You can target a very specific demographic of people (say whales, or hardcore grinders) and reward only those people.
- conanbatt 5y ago
  That you can have cross-game assets and universes between different games and developers. Your special Dota skin works as a skin World of warcraft (?) or it might work in ancillary services around the game: could be used as a feature unlock or even log-in for services around the core game. It can setup a marketplace of unique items without the game founders having to create anything at all, or users recurring to unsafe selling and buying mechanisms. Game applications are definitely interesting to explore and experiment with.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

For major artworks, people would simply Google the piece and see that it sold for however much money in some headlines previously. The real issue is proving that a specific sale was the “true” one. There have already been incidents of people trying to sell other people’s artwork as NFTs. If you buy an NFT and the artist later comes out and declares that your NFT wasn’t authorized or licensed or whatever, the value would presumably drop. The artist could then sell the “real” NFT. Of course, none of this real-world authorization or provenance is actually encoded in the blockchain, nor can it be. The value lies entirely in the off-chain perception of what an NFT represents and whether or not it’s real / authentic / authorized / legitimate. The blockchain hype has led to a misconception that blockchain solves everything, but they’re all still limited to whatever we all agree the on-chain data represents what we want it to represent.

baby 5y ago

The NFT you’re buying is like a tuple (cryptocurrency, address, tokenID) So you already know what blockchain you’re using. It’s like saying “what facebook are you using? The ftp one or the http one or the https one?”

qqii 5y ago

As it stands, yes. For such a difficult problem it is not suprising NFTs don't provide any mechanisms against this. Unlike previously, if you do find an older copy on a blockchain you're given stronger guarentees that it actually is older. If digital artworks move towards proof via hash on blockchains for timestamping I'd imagine this problem would become easier to solve in future!