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I Don't Understand NFTs
Hi! I think I'm missing something about NFTs. I don't understand what's great about them in general. Honestly, I feel like my father when he saw for first time a smartphone. Can you point me to a resource or explain me if you think they are revolutionary, why they are? Thank you.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- johng 5y agoI don't get it either. I think most of the "expensive" ones that get the media attention are faked with wash through purchases. Other ones are simply people trying to get in and hope that it "goes up"
- adabaed 5y agoI never thought so many people was interested in art.
- wrycoder 5y agoI just posted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29668054 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29668054 That's a good introduction.
- COAGULOPATH 5y agoWhat's your level of knowledge about other things in this space? Do you know what a blockchain is, for example?
- adabaed 5y agoYes. I don't understand the need to create an NFT. What problem does this resolve.
- swalsh 5y agoRead the documentation for creating one, it might answer some questions. https://docs.openzeppelin.com/contracts/4.x/erc721 https://docs.openzeppelin.com/contracts/4.x/erc721
- adabaed 5y agoThat's not the problem, but thanks!
- slmjkdbtl 5y agoHere's my take on a short answer: It satisfies the desire of vanity for the consumers. When you purchase an NFT it means people will acknowledge (backed by the blockchain) you're the only person in the world to "own" this particular item. The need to create NFT is to get money from whatever you created, if there's anyone find it interesting and wants to "own" it.
- adabaed 5y agoIsn't more effective to use standard copyright protection?
- bern4444 5y agoyes, and I think NFTs and copyright are very similar but anyone can buy an NFT very easily - you just pay for it. To get copyright protection on something you may need to hire a lawyer, file some papers etc. Maybe NFTs are more similar to a combination of letters of authenticity and a deed when you buy a painting or something at auction stating that the thing you have is real and that you are the owner.
- LinuxBender 5y agoSomeone posted this video recently [1] and it's the best explanation I have seen thus far. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_noey_NmZV0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_noey_NmZV0
- adabaed 5y agoThank you! I'm starting to get what's my problem with NFTs. Is a cool idea but poorly implemented IMO, as the video says is pointless to use NFTs on a digital file. However, the real breakthrough could be to add NFTivity (working on the name). For example, you take a real Picasso, 3D scan the paint (with all the imperfections real paints has), encode that and transform it to an NFT.
- adabaed 5y agoNope, we don't want our Picasso NFT to be selled without the physical paint. So yeah, I'm still confused hahahah.. Still could be nice to implement it on a different blockchain to been able to authenticate paints without the authenticator.
- scotty79 5y agoIt's quit simple. If you have something that is 'limited edition' that could potentially have higher resale value than purchase price people will be buying it because it ticks all the same boxes in human psyche as gambling. It doesn't matter if it's rare card, beanie babies, or just a handfulll of pretty meaningless data. If it's rare and associated with something cool, no matter how tenuously, people will buy it. And cryptocurrency backbone facilitates effortless resale.
- holowire 5y agoRight—and in the loose model that I use to make sense of it, crypto/web3/blockchain/whatever becomes the setting. You actually don't need to understand a whole lot about any of that stuff to get involved. So to generalize: Introducing a limited supply to the right early adopters creates perceived exclusivity and value. Perceived exclusivity and value draws attention. Attention increases engagement creates FOMO. FOMO attracts audience and grows community. Community stabilizes value, and with enough momentum spins off new projects where the cycle starts over again and the system expands. This is often where outsiders and newcomers begin to enter. Plug that flywheel into crypto where it not only facilitates effortless transactability, but the barriers to entry drop to the point where access is determined by who can get there first and the price of entry. This is a huge factor in the explosive and viral growth that many NFT projects have seen.
- scyclow 5y agoI think the valuation of most NFTs is insane, but underlying all that I think they just tap into the desire to collect things. Personally, I've collected much dumber things than NFTs in the past. I don't think collecting NFTs is any dumber than collecting bottle caps, baseball cards, conceptual art certificates of authenticity, or digital goods managed by centralized entities. The big difference is that NFTs are liquid and visible, so it's very easy for a culture to form around collecting weird shit.
- holowire 5y agoAgreed. And digging down to the social layer beneath it all, the network effects created by the community that coalesces around these projects is what drives everything.
- CasperDern 5y agoI recommend watching this interview with the creator of NFTbay, there are a lot of misconceptions on it's current usage. TL;DW: it's an immutable representation of some data (usually a hyperlink), put on to a public blockchain such that ownership of this representation can be verified. Not much different to a regular certificate just different trust assumptions (certificates use a trusted party, while NFTs use a "trusted" technology).
- CasperDern 5y agoThe talk: https://youtu.be/i_VsgT5gfMc https://youtu.be/i_VsgT5gfMc (Unable to edit the parent)
- adabaed 5y agoI know what it is, I don't understand the hype around it. Now I know more!
- adabaed 5y agoThank you for the talk link!
- kranke155 5y agoThat’s it I’ve decided I’m making a post about NFT myth busting. (Not this one but another one) Think about it like this It used to be that when you bought a painting, if you bought an original, you got a painting + signature showing it’s an original. NFTs are meant to be used for digital art, where the physical object doesn’t exist, and anyone can make their own copy. So think of NFTs as when we “decoupled” the art from the signature. So Before you bought Physical Art Print (limited) + Signature Now you buy Digital copy (one of infinite) + Signature Since the digital art is infinite, you’re mostly really paying for the signature. What you’re getting with an NFT is just the signature. The art, being digital and infinitely reproducible is still out there. Curiously, what we’ve found is that if you make just a Market for digital art, where you sell only the signatures, people will come and trade them and buy them. You might ask - well what the hell is the point of buying just signatures? To what I’ll reply that everyone has their own kink, and that it has solved a big problem for digital artists who can now make money for their art instead of having to shill for brands or make trash to fund what they really love. Think of it as a form of DRM for digital artists, in the actual meaningful form of the term - Rights Management being the operative words here. It used to be that in order to enforce DRM on “legitimate” copies of a film for instance, Netflix runs a bunch of servers, sells you the streaming and reliable delivery of pixels to your screen. But really they are just enforcing DRM over a bunch of pixels. Same thing with indie artists today. They can do something they couldn’t do before, which is to digitally sign X amounts of their artwork and sell it on an permissionless global market. IMO NFTs right now are little more than a good way to fund artists you like by buying digital signatures over their digital art.
- viraptor 5y ago> solved a big problem for digital artists who can now make money Digital artists made and sold art online for a long time. There's a new way to do it, but "can now make money" is a weird way to phrase it.
- chii 5y agothe digital "signature" may entice people who previously did not purchase digital art, thus expanding the market. It's indeed a "new" way to make money. You cannot "pirate " this signature. As for whether this signature is indeed worth the price being paid - only time will tell. My bet is that it's not worth anything, but it is possible that it's worth a lot more than i give it credit for.
- RichardHeart 5y agoUsually you pay for a serial number loosely related to a jpg which may or may not still be hosted on the internet. Great for the seller, perhaps not so great for the buyer.
- tsejerome97 5y agoI realize that most people here who ask what NFT is, actually is not asking what NFT is. They are referring to whether there is truly a market for it; and if it is web3, they have doubts whether the broad market is going to accept it. (I'm one of them :D)
- riclad 5y agoYou get the right to say I own this image, jpeg , your ownership is listed on a block chain, it s ridiculous since anyone can copy the image and download it since I can get a cd music disc and copy it and rip it there's no record of who buys music cds in a store It makes no sense to me in that it's just a line of code on a block chain But then digital games earn far more than people buying games on physical discs epic is earning billions selling emotes dance skins etc in fortnite If I buy a weapon skin in call of duty vanguard what use will it be to me in 4 years time when my console no longer works and I no longer play call of duty I can't display it or use it or sell it to anyone and its of no use outside the Xbox live network In theory if you buy a nft you could sell it to someone in a few years like people pay 1000s for an old game company's will probably set up a platform if you buy an image from ubisoft for example of some icon weapon etc you can sell it to anyone whether they play that game or not Yes it's good for digital artists but it's really bad for the environment as it takes megawatts of energy to make nfts and keep the blockchain updated equivalent to say burning or using barrels if oil But we are in a surreal world or a digital gold rush, If you say we are on the block chain selling nfts digital currency blah blah etc you, ll get interest from investors your stock might go up . news headlines on tech websites The potential return could be great and how much does it cost to make digital images put em on a private block chain etc not much A nft is simply an image jpeg etc with a digital record signature recorded on a block chain digital database that can be inspected is tamper proof as it's verified on many different computers, The mystery is why pay 1000s of dollars for a nft If you want to support an artist use patreon or pay a subscription or send them money or buy their merch You could buy weapon skins emotes costumes 5 years ago in games without the need to use blockkchain Your items are linked to your steam psn or Xbox live username Gaming company's already have databases of all the games and items you buy online
- jameslk 5y agoWhy would you buy a Gucci bag when any other bag can hold your belongings too? You're going to pay 10x more for a bag because it's constructed a little bit better? No. There's a reason they plaster their logos all over those things. It's so you can show others you're wealthy enough to afford Gucci. Think of NFTs like digital Gucci and Prada. They are used for social status signaling. This is very important to some to show elevated importance and wealth. For example Jay-Z bought a $120K CryptoPunk NFT and used it for his Twitter profile photo. Some NFTs can also get you into exclusive clubs and parties. Again, signaling. But now you get to hobnob with other high net worth individuals. This too has a lot of value for some. It's a tale as old as time, just in the digital world. Maybe it's just some fad that will fizzle out. Regardless, if so then those who can afford this will move on to buy something else to signal their wealth and eliteness. Besides all of this, they're used for speculation and money laundering. Source: someone I know who makes and sells NFTs
- adabaed 5y agoThank you. Yes, quite similar to modern art. We may be in a bubble now, but in the future some pieces will retain their value. I hope no one loses too much from this.
- danieltanfh95 5y agohttps://danieltfh.substack.com/p/blockchain-is-awkward-because-its https://danieltfh.substack.com/p/blockchain-is-awkward-becau... NFT is made for digital entities not humans.
- adabaed 5y agoBlockchain is a fancy linked list. I don't understand why this religion around a data structure. Atleast if you all want to spiritually devote to something consider the fact we are creating and mass producing logic gates with light and some chemicals.
- chii 5y agoit's not just a linked-list - it's an immutable linked list which has a consensus protocol that does not require a central trusted party to enforce this consensus. This has some value - one should not dismiss it by reduction to absurdio.
- adabaed 5y agoOf course it has value. Still a linked list. Stacks have more value, and I don't see anyone selling me systems cause they use stacks.