7 ms·

The satirical Non-Fungible Olive Gardens sold more than $130k in volume

60 points by iskander 5y ago

vmception 5y ago
Keep the NFT threads coming guys! Someone exploiting themselves at an adtech conglomerate needs to know there are options
- yob28 5y ago
quadrifoliate 5y ago
"Own a piece of a local Olive Garden by paying us money!" is usually treated as financial fraud, not satire – unless there's a reasonable actual contract that allows me to at least theoretically own something if unlimited breadsticks and "Italian" food are suddenly a hit in my area. Can anyone explain to me how what the projected value proposition of this is?
- aufhebung 5y ago
  It's satirical. The whole point is that there is no value proposition. The project is not in any way associated with Olive Garden.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - quadrifoliate 5y ago
    Again, satire ceases to be such when there is mention of an actual corporate entity that exchanges real money for real unlimited breadsticks. Or at least, you have to be very careful. I don't understand how this is not tantamount to someone selling pieces of the local Olive Garden franchise for $100. That person could equivalently claim satire, because there's no way that could happen in real life.
    - jjulius 5y ago
      >Again, satire ceases to be such when there is mention of an actual corporate entity that exchanges real money for real unlimited breadsticks. Satire doesn't stop being satire just because you used the name of a business. >Or at least, you have to be very careful. Check out the FAQ on the website for that bit[1]. [1] https://nonfungibleolivegardens.com/ https://nonfungibleolivegardens.com/
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - quadrifoliate 5y ago
        Not helping. The website says: > For too long, ownership of Olive Garden franchises has been dominated by the capricious whims of the fiat system. That’s why we’re enabling anyone to trustlessly mint a nonfungible token representing 1 of 880 real Olive Garden franchises in the United States. Again, they are falsely promising "ownership of a franchise" and "representation of a franchise" right there in the website. Nowhere does it say that the actual ownership will be of an image. I suppose a skilled lawyer could make the case that they are obviously joking because all NFTs are worthless images, but that would be a bit of an uphill battle in my opinion given the deceptive wording here.
        throwhauser 5y ago
        I'm also not a lawyer, but yeah, it sure feels like using the word "own" and having real money, real trades, and a trademarked name in the mix could be problematic.
        pessimizer 5y ago
        > Again, they are falsely promising "ownership of a franchise" and "representation of a franchise" right there in the website. Nowhere does it say that the actual ownership will be of an image. The first sentence is simply untrue. The second sentence is accurate on your part and on the creators' parts: you don't own the picture.
- AlexandrB 5y ago
  The joke is that this is exactly like any other NFT. All you own is the NFT, not the art or Olive Garden the NFT points to.
  - quadrifoliate 5y ago
    I don't know if Olive Garden corporate will get the joke. I suppose OpenSea better hope that they do.
    - scarby2 5y ago
      There's nothing for olive garden corporate not to get. They made it clear that all you got was a token that limited in supply to one per olive garden and had a picture of said olive garden with a dynamically generated background. That the token did not imply ownership of the chain or any of the IP. I Could sell tokens based off streets in a town or literally anything it's just a token.
      - quadrifoliate 5y ago
        > They made it clear that all you got was a token that limited in supply to one per olive garden and had a picture of said olive garden with a dynamically generated background. That is not what the opening tagline of "Own an Olive Garden on the blockchain!" conveys. I'm not a lawyer (and I'm guessing you aren't one either, but willing to be pleasantly surprised), but I find it hard to believe that they can argue that "Own an Olive Garden" for x.xx ETH without any mention of the word "picture" or "image" reasonably conveys an intention to sell a picture or image.
        munk-a 5y ago
        As long as we're all not lawyers here - I would mention that the site is quite obviously satirical in a number of ways and publishing a document that is generally satirical makes the argument easier for any individual components. That all said most of the parody is directed at NFTs and the Olive Garden seems to be picked as an example mostly arbitrarily. The OG might be able to argue that the site isn't deserving of any parody fair use exemptions for the OG specifically.
- pnathan 5y ago
  I understood as a joke. Like.... it might be satire might one day convert it something real, but it's unclear to me how a sober analysis by a conventional semi-educated investor (me), would suggest that this actually leads to anything material, at all. A particularly unwise investor might buy into this, but, then, they might also buy high and sell low. A certain level of sophistication, even for the lay investor, is presumed.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  > "Own a piece of a local Olive Garden by paying us money!" Who exactly are you quoting here? The site promised that you would own a token associated with a picture of an Olive Garden set within a frame of Olive Garden food. They have promised, however, that when enough money has been generated to buy the company and buy out all of its franchisees that those tokens would be converted to full ownership of the pictured location. I have no reason to believe they'll default on any of this.
  - quadrifoliate 5y ago
    > Who exactly are you quoting here? The site. It says "Own an Olive Garden on the blockchain! We are a community of Olive Garden fans invested in both trustless future economies and delicious, reasonably-priced Italian fare." Searching for "image" or "picture" yields no hits on the page. > They have promised, however, that when enough money has been generated to buy the company and buy out all of its franchisees that those tokens would be converted to full ownership of the pictured location. This just seems more and more like a case of fraud based on its intersection with the real world to me. I'm actually okay if something decides to drop $xx,xxx on an image of an ape, but once you start asking people to invest in convoluted financial schemes to buy out Olive Garden franchises, it's time for regulatory agencies to start taking a look.
    - jjulius 5y ago
      >Searching for "image" or "picture" yields no hits on the page. You've misrepresented what is on that website a few times in this thread now. Ctrl+F for "image" returns 4 results, and 1 result for "picture".
      - quadrifoliate 5y ago
        > You've misrepresented what is on that website a few times in this thread now. Ctrl+F for "image" returns 4 results, and 1 result for "picture". I think the conversation is a bit confused about what website we are referring to here. Ctrl+F for "image" or "picture" yields zero results at https://opensea.io/collection/non-fungible-olive-gardens?tab=activity https://opensea.io/collection/non-fungible-olive-gardens?tab..., which is the website that this HN post links to, and where a potential consumer would buy the NFTs. Do you disagree? It seems to yield the results you mention at https://nonfungibleolivegardens.com/ https://nonfungibleolivegardens.com/, which is a separate website linked by you and someone else elsewhere in thread that purports to provide information about these NFTs. As far as I can tell, it is not linked anywhere from the OpenSea page; and moreover is not the website that this HN post links to.
labster 5y ago
Tulips are sure expensive this year.
- thathndude 5y ago
  I can hold a tulip bulb and plant it. It might be insanely overpriced, but at least it’s not completely valueless. These little bits of code on the other hand . . .
  - MBCook 5y ago
    Oh but you don’t understand. I’ve been assured that cryptocurrency can be turned back into electricity. After all, it was generated from electricity. So clearly it must have some value.
    - thathndude 5y ago
      Ohhh. Now I get it. Thanks for clarifying liquidates life savings
- pnathan 5y ago
  Yeah, but next year, they will be even more expensive, so I'm sure to be able to sell them and turn a profit.
- exdsq 5y ago
  The tulip bubble lasted weeks
  - RantyDave 5y ago
    I was all set to decry this as bullshit, but apparently not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania#/media/File:Tulip_price_index1.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania#/media/File:Tulip_...
    - exdsq 5y ago
giantg2 5y ago
I should probably start using my time to come up with bogus scams like this instead of working a job I hate (and making less).
- thathndude 5y ago
  I feel this so hard. Can’t wait to hear the tortured justifications of crypto-enthusiasts for this one.
  - beambot 5y ago
    Hijinks & satire akin to Cards Against Humanity in the non-crypto world?
    - bozhark 5y ago
      let's just make a new deck of bullshit cards and sell each cardNFT for 1ETH.
      - angryasian 5y ago
        not a bad idea
  - AceJohnny2 5y ago
    Any bubble offers the opportunity to make a profit if you get lucky and time it right? (I'm not a crypto-enthusiast, at all)
  - nexuist 5y ago
    Any bubble that lasts long enough is a legitimate investment strategy
  - iskander 5y ago
    This NFT was created partly as a satirical critique of the valuelessness of NFTs. I think people in the NFT scene find it funny to drive up the value of that critique and make it a financially valuable asset. There's no justification of actual real world utility, just a continuation of the joke by a small online community.
londons_explore 5y ago
As always... There is no way to know it isn't the same person buying and selling all these NFT's to make it look like there is interest in them. Then as soon as just one person thinks it might be nice to try buying the NFT, all the other people buying and selling go away...
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
To clarify, $130K didn't go straight to the creators. This is trade volume, including people selling these things to each other. If someone sells it to themselves (wash trade to fake interest) it would also show up in this number.
- thathndude 5y ago
  And that’s a lot of the trick. Folks sell it amongst themselves to create the illusion of demand. Some sucker comes along and buys it, and the trap is sprung. I wish I was a more unethical person. I feel like I could do really well in this space.
  - iskander 5y ago
    People looking from the outside of NFTs seem to believe this kind of wash trading is a dominant source of volume. In my experience, it's pretty rare and there's a lot of organic demand around each new "hot" NFT. A better way to think of these is each successful NFT series is a mini-bubble, people inside the scene develop an instinct for features might make an NFT desirable but no one can accurately guess the top. So they play hot potato with each other, where buying earlier increases chances of a successful exit.
    - seoaeu 5y ago
      > In my experience, it's pretty rare How could you possibly know this? Basically the entire blockchain ecosystem is set up to prevent distinguishing whether wash trading is prevalent or not. Edit: And even if you can establish that there's multiple people involved, they still might be colluding among themselves to create the illusion of demand.
      - iskander 5y ago
        Participation in discords and NFT trading telegrams. You can see what people buy and that often the hot potato ladder involves multiple verifiably distinct persons.
throwaway2331 5y ago
All of the Olive Gardens were minted inside an "inner circle" over a few days, before the first news article was published (a few hours after there were none left). Then the value was pumped up by demand to be part of the meme. Tale as old as time -- and an easy side hustle.
DebtDeflation 5y ago
How much of this "volume" is simply people buying the NFTs from themselves to launder money?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

60 points by iskander 5y ago

Keep the NFT threads coming guys! Someone exploiting themselves at an adtech conglomerate needs to know there are options

yob28 5y ago

quadrifoliate 5y ago

"Own a piece of a local Olive Garden by paying us money!" is usually treated as financial fraud, not satire – unless there's a reasonable actual contract that allows me to at least theoretically own something if unlimited breadsticks and "Italian" food are suddenly a hit in my area. Can anyone explain to me how what the projected value proposition of this is?

aufhebung 5y ago
It's satirical. The whole point is that there is no value proposition. The project is not in any way associated with Olive Garden.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- quadrifoliate 5y ago
  Again, satire ceases to be such when there is mention of an actual corporate entity that exchanges real money for real unlimited breadsticks. Or at least, you have to be very careful. I don't understand how this is not tantamount to someone selling pieces of the local Olive Garden franchise for $100. That person could equivalently claim satire, because there's no way that could happen in real life.
  - jjulius 5y ago
    >Again, satire ceases to be such when there is mention of an actual corporate entity that exchanges real money for real unlimited breadsticks. Satire doesn't stop being satire just because you used the name of a business. >Or at least, you have to be very careful. Check out the FAQ on the website for that bit[1]. [1] https://nonfungibleolivegardens.com/ https://nonfungibleolivegardens.com/
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - quadrifoliate 5y ago
      Not helping. The website says: > For too long, ownership of Olive Garden franchises has been dominated by the capricious whims of the fiat system. That’s why we’re enabling anyone to trustlessly mint a nonfungible token representing 1 of 880 real Olive Garden franchises in the United States. Again, they are falsely promising "ownership of a franchise" and "representation of a franchise" right there in the website. Nowhere does it say that the actual ownership will be of an image. I suppose a skilled lawyer could make the case that they are obviously joking because all NFTs are worthless images, but that would be a bit of an uphill battle in my opinion given the deceptive wording here.
      - throwhauser 5y ago
        I'm also not a lawyer, but yeah, it sure feels like using the word "own" and having real money, real trades, and a trademarked name in the mix could be problematic.
      - pessimizer 5y ago
        > Again, they are falsely promising "ownership of a franchise" and "representation of a franchise" right there in the website. Nowhere does it say that the actual ownership will be of an image. The first sentence is simply untrue. The second sentence is accurate on your part and on the creators' parts: you don't own the picture.
AlexandrB 5y ago
The joke is that this is exactly like any other NFT. All you own is the NFT, not the art or Olive Garden the NFT points to.
- quadrifoliate 5y ago
  I don't know if Olive Garden corporate will get the joke. I suppose OpenSea better hope that they do.
  - scarby2 5y ago
    There's nothing for olive garden corporate not to get. They made it clear that all you got was a token that limited in supply to one per olive garden and had a picture of said olive garden with a dynamically generated background. That the token did not imply ownership of the chain or any of the IP. I Could sell tokens based off streets in a town or literally anything it's just a token.
    - quadrifoliate 5y ago
      > They made it clear that all you got was a token that limited in supply to one per olive garden and had a picture of said olive garden with a dynamically generated background. That is not what the opening tagline of "Own an Olive Garden on the blockchain!" conveys. I'm not a lawyer (and I'm guessing you aren't one either, but willing to be pleasantly surprised), but I find it hard to believe that they can argue that "Own an Olive Garden" for x.xx ETH without any mention of the word "picture" or "image" reasonably conveys an intention to sell a picture or image.
      - munk-a 5y ago
        As long as we're all not lawyers here - I would mention that the site is quite obviously satirical in a number of ways and publishing a document that is generally satirical makes the argument easier for any individual components. That all said most of the parody is directed at NFTs and the Olive Garden seems to be picked as an example mostly arbitrarily. The OG might be able to argue that the site isn't deserving of any parody fair use exemptions for the OG specifically.
pnathan 5y ago
I understood as a joke. Like.... it might be satire might one day convert it something real, but it's unclear to me how a sober analysis by a conventional semi-educated investor (me), would suggest that this actually leads to anything material, at all. A particularly unwise investor might buy into this, but, then, they might also buy high and sell low. A certain level of sophistication, even for the lay investor, is presumed.
pessimizer 5y ago
> "Own a piece of a local Olive Garden by paying us money!" Who exactly are you quoting here? The site promised that you would own a token associated with a picture of an Olive Garden set within a frame of Olive Garden food. They have promised, however, that when enough money has been generated to buy the company and buy out all of its franchisees that those tokens would be converted to full ownership of the pictured location. I have no reason to believe they'll default on any of this.
- quadrifoliate 5y ago
  > Who exactly are you quoting here? The site. It says "Own an Olive Garden on the blockchain! We are a community of Olive Garden fans invested in both trustless future economies and delicious, reasonably-priced Italian fare." Searching for "image" or "picture" yields no hits on the page. > They have promised, however, that when enough money has been generated to buy the company and buy out all of its franchisees that those tokens would be converted to full ownership of the pictured location. This just seems more and more like a case of fraud based on its intersection with the real world to me. I'm actually okay if something decides to drop $xx,xxx on an image of an ape, but once you start asking people to invest in convoluted financial schemes to buy out Olive Garden franchises, it's time for regulatory agencies to start taking a look.
  - jjulius 5y ago
    >Searching for "image" or "picture" yields no hits on the page. You've misrepresented what is on that website a few times in this thread now. Ctrl+F for "image" returns 4 results, and 1 result for "picture".
    - quadrifoliate 5y ago
      > You've misrepresented what is on that website a few times in this thread now. Ctrl+F for "image" returns 4 results, and 1 result for "picture". I think the conversation is a bit confused about what website we are referring to here. Ctrl+F for "image" or "picture" yields zero results at https://opensea.io/collection/non-fungible-olive-gardens?tab=activity https://opensea.io/collection/non-fungible-olive-gardens?tab..., which is the website that this HN post links to, and where a potential consumer would buy the NFTs. Do you disagree? It seems to yield the results you mention at https://nonfungibleolivegardens.com/ https://nonfungibleolivegardens.com/, which is a separate website linked by you and someone else elsewhere in thread that purports to provide information about these NFTs. As far as I can tell, it is not linked anywhere from the OpenSea page; and moreover is not the website that this HN post links to.

labster 5y ago

Tulips are sure expensive this year.

thathndude 5y ago
I can hold a tulip bulb and plant it. It might be insanely overpriced, but at least it’s not completely valueless. These little bits of code on the other hand . . .
- MBCook 5y ago
  Oh but you don’t understand. I’ve been assured that cryptocurrency can be turned back into electricity. After all, it was generated from electricity. So clearly it must have some value.
  - thathndude 5y ago
    Ohhh. Now I get it. Thanks for clarifying liquidates life savings
pnathan 5y ago
Yeah, but next year, they will be even more expensive, so I'm sure to be able to sell them and turn a profit.
exdsq 5y ago
The tulip bubble lasted weeks
- RantyDave 5y ago
  I was all set to decry this as bullshit, but apparently not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania#/media/File:Tulip_price_index1.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania#/media/File:Tulip_...
  - exdsq 5y ago

giantg2 5y ago

I should probably start using my time to come up with bogus scams like this instead of working a job I hate (and making less).

thathndude 5y ago
I feel this so hard. Can’t wait to hear the tortured justifications of crypto-enthusiasts for this one.
- beambot 5y ago
  Hijinks & satire akin to Cards Against Humanity in the non-crypto world?
  - bozhark 5y ago
    let's just make a new deck of bullshit cards and sell each cardNFT for 1ETH.
    - angryasian 5y ago
      not a bad idea
- AceJohnny2 5y ago
  Any bubble offers the opportunity to make a profit if you get lucky and time it right? (I'm not a crypto-enthusiast, at all)
- nexuist 5y ago
  Any bubble that lasts long enough is a legitimate investment strategy
- iskander 5y ago
  This NFT was created partly as a satirical critique of the valuelessness of NFTs. I think people in the NFT scene find it funny to drive up the value of that critique and make it a financially valuable asset. There's no justification of actual real world utility, just a continuation of the joke by a small online community.

londons_explore 5y ago

As always... There is no way to know it isn't the same person buying and selling all these NFT's to make it look like there is interest in them. Then as soon as just one person thinks it might be nice to try buying the NFT, all the other people buying and selling go away...

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

To clarify, $130K didn't go straight to the creators. This is trade volume, including people selling these things to each other. If someone sells it to themselves (wash trade to fake interest) it would also show up in this number.

thathndude 5y ago
And that’s a lot of the trick. Folks sell it amongst themselves to create the illusion of demand. Some sucker comes along and buys it, and the trap is sprung. I wish I was a more unethical person. I feel like I could do really well in this space.
- iskander 5y ago
  People looking from the outside of NFTs seem to believe this kind of wash trading is a dominant source of volume. In my experience, it's pretty rare and there's a lot of organic demand around each new "hot" NFT. A better way to think of these is each successful NFT series is a mini-bubble, people inside the scene develop an instinct for features might make an NFT desirable but no one can accurately guess the top. So they play hot potato with each other, where buying earlier increases chances of a successful exit.
  - seoaeu 5y ago
    > In my experience, it's pretty rare How could you possibly know this? Basically the entire blockchain ecosystem is set up to prevent distinguishing whether wash trading is prevalent or not. Edit: And even if you can establish that there's multiple people involved, they still might be colluding among themselves to create the illusion of demand.
    - iskander 5y ago
      Participation in discords and NFT trading telegrams. You can see what people buy and that often the hot potato ladder involves multiple verifiably distinct persons.

throwaway2331 5y ago

All of the Olive Gardens were minted inside an "inner circle" over a few days, before the first news article was published (a few hours after there were none left). Then the value was pumped up by demand to be part of the meme. Tale as old as time -- and an easy side hustle.

DebtDeflation 5y ago

How much of this "volume" is simply people buying the NFTs from themselves to launder money?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]