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The Worrisome Rise of NFTs

74 points by zwieback 5y ago

pphysch 5y ago
don't worry, "web3" nonsense will be among the first bubbles to pop as US monetary policy tightens over the next couple years
- UncleOxidant 5y ago
  I'd replace the 'as' with 'if' above. I'm not convinced the Fed has the guts to significantly tighten monetary policy at this point. It's not just the NFT market that would crash, it's stocks and real estate as well - followed by a pretty significant recession.
  - pphysch 5y ago
    Yeah it will set off a major financial correction and temporary crisis in the markets, but the alternative, letting the status quo of negative interest rates drive further inflation, will lead to a historic economic crisis. SME failures and a general breakdown of social order. Worst case scenario, they wait too long to raise rates and only do it as a knee-jerk reaction to an unfolding economic crisis that threatens to destabilize the entire USA. Then we get a full-spectrum crisis.
  - betterunix2 5y ago
    It is easy to forget that the Fed was already tightening monetary policy over a period of years prior to the COVID crash, and only loosened policy in response to the economic impact of COVID. The Fed has historically not been shy about triggering corrections, crashes, and recessions if that is what it takes to achieve their targets, and I am not sure why anyone would think they will behave any differently this time around. Certainly the bond markets have reacted in a way that suggests that participants there take the Fed at their word that interest rate hikes are coming over the next 12 months.
echelon 5y ago
When the GAP is getting into NFTs, you know the bubble has already burst. Pogs3.
- randomdata 5y ago
  People have been buying "high end" artwork as a tax shelter for a 100 years. Proving ownership through digital means instead of paperwork is insignificant to the practice.
  - Hasu 5y ago
    NFTs do not confer, imply, or prove ownership of artwork.
    - echelon 5y ago
      You own this URL to the thing until someone else buys the domain name.
legutierr 5y ago
> Blockchain technology is purposefully burdensome and computationally distributed, making it notoriously energy intensive. Estimates put the energy used to create and trade a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin on a par with the total consumption of a country like Sweden. And that’s without accounting for the environmental footprint of the physical computer hardware. Another critic who is willing to criticize without updating their knowledge as to the current state of the technology. Blockchain is not the same as proof-of-work. Yes, Bitcoin is energy-intensive, but other consensus algorithms do not use energy at nearly the same scale.
- Sebb767 5y ago
  > Blockchain is not the same as proof-of-stake. While this is also true, I'm pretty sure this should have been proof-of-work. PoS is actually one of the less energy intensive alternatives.
  - legutierr 5y ago
    Of course, yes. Corrected.
- ghaff 5y ago
  I think you probably mean proof-of-work which is the most energy intensive.
  - legutierr 5y ago
    Of course. Thank you.
- fabian2k 5y ago
  I think it is fair to criticize this technology on the current state, any future improvements first have to prove themselves.
  - legutierr 5y ago
    Among the most popular blockchain networks right now, only Bitcoin and Ethereum and their forks (including code forks like Dogecoin and Litecoin) are still using proof-of-work. And Ethereum is moving away from it. After Ethereum migrates to proof-of-stake, of the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market cap, only Bitcoin, Dogecoin and Tether (which is a multi-chain stablecoin) will operate on proof-of-work networks. https://coinmarketcap.com/ https://coinmarketcap.com/ Alternatives to proof-of-work are no longer "future" tech.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
EGreg 5y ago
The company Ethereum (that supports cryptocurrency as well as NFTs) has indicated it aims to cut energy use by more than 99 percent by changing its core methodology. Interesting, Ethereum is referred to as a company by these authors?
- JaimeThompson 5y ago
  Possibly this meaning? 3. An assemblage or association of persons, either permanent or transient. [1913 Webster]
- delabay 5y ago
  This typo/oversight/error/whatever shows the depth of misunderstanding the author has about the subject he or she writes. People of hacker news will still love the content, but nobody outside of this bubble will view this as an honest criticism. If you want a truly great critique from a person who REALLY understands, read Moxie Marlinspike: https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html
  - EGreg 5y ago
    I liked it a lot! I wrote a very substantive rebuttal that I hope you like as well: https://community.intercoin.org/t/web3-moxie-signal-telegram-and-why-decentralization-matters/ https://community.intercoin.org/t/web3-moxie-signal-telegram...
strict9 5y ago
>NFTs are comically bereft of anything we would associate with social or cultural value. This subjective opinion is frequently trotted out to describe digital items that people pay money for. The arguments used in this piece can just as easily apply to video games or anything else. There isn't anything new presented here, just one person railing against something they do not like using familiar arguments. IMO not the type of thought provoking content that people come to HN for.
- OJFord 5y ago
  I assume you mean in-game trinkets and costumes etc. rather than video games themselves? The latter seems like a massive stretch, and I don't know why it wouldn't include films too.
- vultour 5y ago
  This video game comparison is super incorrect. If you own an item in a game it’s very often to show it off because others can’t use it, it’s only for you. The closed source nature of games enables this. Nobody would buy them if they were easily used by anyone but you had a super legit receipt saying “mhm this guy actually paid for it”. NFTs of dumb copy pasted JPEGs are completely useless.
  - strict9 5y ago
    You misunderstood my argument. I'm not comparing NFTs to video games for ownership purposes, but it's "contribution to society." The statement that NFTs "have no societal or cultural value" has been historically attributed to video games and other forms of leisurely/fun activity. It's a bad argument.
    - danaris 5y ago
      The fact that a specific argument has been used in bad faith in the past does not mean it cannot be used in good faith. Games are demonstrably something valuable: they are art, they are entertainment, they are a product. NFTs are none of those things. They're just a new way to try to milk money out of people, who gain nothing meaningful in return.
WriterGuy2021 5y ago
"An astrobiologist says non-fungible tokens do not bode well for our species’s future. " This is a historical subhead.
- ccamrobertson 5y ago
  And the article doesn't fail to live up to it -- "...because of the potential [of blockchain] to outpace any efforts to transition to zero-carbon energy production." I think that even the most craven cryptocurrency and NFT buyers have yet to envision such exponential scenarios that 'blockchain' consumes resources at a clip that subsumes other greenhouse-gas activities like, flying, driving, HVAC, etc. "There is of course another solution: We stop reinventing things like currency or certification until we have a proper plan [...] until humanity has figured out a way to generate all our energy cleanly, from solar, nuclear, and so on, would make more sense." "There is of course another solution: We cease all human behaviors [...]".
labrador 5y ago
I'm as concerned as the next person about energy use, but I did read some counterpoints in an article published yesterday [1] The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee is reportedly going to investigate cryptocurrency’s effect on the environment... But the meme that bitcoin or cryptocurrency uses as much power as one country or another, promoted by The New York Times last September, for example, deserves a bit of pushback on a couple of fronts. [1] https://www.aei.org/technology-and-innovation/no-hearing-on-bitcoins-energy-use-is-complete-without-nic-carter/ https://www.aei.org/technology-and-innovation/no-hearing-on-... Edit: and then someone pushes back on Nic Carter today: https://jpkoning.blogspot.com/2022/01/the-fallacy-of-bitcoin-and-renewables.html https://jpkoning.blogspot.com/2022/01/the-fallacy-of-bitcoin...
- quickthrowman 5y ago
  This piece argues that we should listen to a VC partner that is invested in cryptocurrency about the energy usage of cryptocurrency. This is like listening to an oil company giving advice about fighting climate change. You’ll have to do better than this. I’m not sure why I expected any better from a partisan think tank. They pushed back on Nic Carter (I’m guessing here) because he has a financial incentive to make crypto look good. This is not hard to understand.
  - skybrian 5y ago
    This is reason for suspicion but not for blanket dismissal. If you dismiss every self-interested argument you miss a lot.
- Zamicol 5y ago
  NTF's aren't on Bitcoin. They're on Ethereum which is switching over to PoS.
  - dralley 5y ago
    >They're on Ethereum which is switching over to PoS. It's been switching over to PoS for years. I distinctly remember articles in 2019 about how they'd switch by the end of 2020, articles in 2020 about how they'd switch by the end of 2021, and here we are in 2022. The point holds until they actually do make the switch.
e67f70028a46fba 5y ago
if, by “worrisome”, you mean “hilarious”
api 5y ago
I checked out OpenSea a few days ago to see what was selling. I went in with low expectations but I was still shocked. The hottest NFTs are all trash. It's a bunch of dumb ape doodles and piles of variations on the same few templates. Some of them are algorithmically generated. It's just shockingly dumb, yet I have smart people I follow on Twitter and elsewhere who are convinced this is all world changing. I keep asking for people to point me to the evidence and it's never there. I've been asking for years.
- nikanj 5y ago
  Yet people keep putting their life savings into it - and coming out significantly richer. It’s rather frustrating how well the market has been rewarding bad decisions
  - api 5y ago
    It's all built on historically low (or even effectively negative) interest rates. We've been in a crazy low rate environment since 2008 and COVID pushed the money printing into overdrive. When inflation eventually forces interest rates to be raised a lot of these crazy bubbles are going to pop almost instantly. The alternative, a deflationary depression, would probably have been a lot more painful and destructive. Instead of mass defaults and cascades of bankruptcies we get million dollar ape doodles.
    - mandmandam 5y ago
      Mass defaults and bankruptcies and worse are still coming, I promise you. You can't funnel money upward this hard for decades and not pay a price.
- hnuser847 5y ago
  It's not dumb, it's gambling. You buy a stupid monkey doodle for $100k and hope to sell it to somebody else for $200k. Nobody wants the monkey doodle. The NFT craze has nothing whatsoever to do with art, novel technology, decentralized ownership, or any of the other high-minded concepts people keep bringing up in these discussions. It's about gambling. CrytoKitties did it back in 2017. NFTs are not new and there were flurry of articles back then along the lines of "How I Made $100k Trading CryptoKitties in My Free Time". https://hackernoon.com/how-we-made-100k-trading-cryptokitties-2d69aebe715b https://hackernoon.com/how-we-made-100k-trading-cryptokittie...
dvt 5y ago
At this point, articles on NFTs are the same as articles on vaccines or articles on Jan 6, or Trump, or anything controversial. It's purely done to drive clicks and serves no real dialectic purpose (there are, of course, some thoughtful writers, but the vast majority is drivel).
gringoDan 5y ago
This is a lazy argument that could apply to any art or leisure activity. Counterpoint (and shameless plug) – NFTs are one of the best bundles ever created. They combine: 1. A display of wealth. 2. An elite social network. 3. A signal of good taste. 4. A limited collectible. 5. The excitement of roulette. https://paranoidenough.com/2021/12/21/The-Value-of-the-NFT-Bundle.html https://paranoidenough.com/2021/12/21/The-Value-of-the-NFT-B...
- AlexandrB 5y ago
  > 3. A signal of good taste. Or, given the current crop of popular NFTs, the lack thereof.
threeseed 5y ago
The worst thing is the constant and malicious lie being perpetuated. You do not own an NFT in any legal or moral sense. The ownership is not recognised in any country, by any court or international body. All you have is an entry in a logical database that says you own it. But unless you have signed a contract with the seller transferring or licensing copyright then it as meaningless as you buying a certificate saying you've named a planet.
- password1 5y ago
  The irony is that most NFT do not include any copyright or commercial rights. Only the "respectable" ones do, others are just a link to an image and a pinky promise that it won't be on another marketplace.
- ugjka 5y ago
  I remember one of my friends wanted to do an NFT of some sort and i jokingly remarked "I'll paypal you 10€ and I'll pretend I own something"
- chollida1 5y ago
  And most NFT's are just links that aren't embedded on the blockchain that could go away tomorrow or be switched to something else without any warning.
- daenz 5y ago
  Possession is nine-tenths of the law. If nobody can take it from you, you "own" it, and everything else follows from that. "It" being: your crypto identity bound to some metadata.
  - threeseed 5y ago
    No the artist owns it. They have the copyright. So the funny part is that if you buy an NFT not only can I legally copy it but I can approach the artist, buy the copyright and then sue you for copyright infringement.
    - 5y ago
golemotron 5y ago
> It’s possible to see a purpose for cryptocurrencies, but NFTs are (for now) almost comically bereft of anything most of us would associate with social or cultural value. They incentivize energy production and research into better energy production. That isn't trivial.
- AlexandrB 5y ago
  Unless you believe that NFTs are useful in and of themselves, this is a classic example of the Broken Window Fallacy[1]. For example, we could "incentivize energy production" just as well by phasing out LED light bulbs and replacing them with incandescent ones. So why don't we? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
  - golemotron 5y ago
    Broken windows conflates general economic growth with specific incentives.
- quickthrowman 5y ago
  Jevons’ Paradox implies any energy efficiency gains from cryptocurrency will be used by .. cryptocurrency. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
rvz 5y ago
Here we go again. 'NFTs is a scam', 'web3 is a bubble', 'This is a going to crash', etc. They already know it is a scam, ponzi and a bubble which is why everyone is cashing in on the hype before it collapses. 90% - 98% of these NFTs will not survive and will be worthless, so let us ignore this common form of NFTs (images, videos, etc) and look at NFTs that have utility and value like blockchain domain names like ENS, which at least that is useful. The fact you cannot store the NFT image, video or audio on the blockchain tells you alone it is a scam anyway. Even if you could do that, how would you totally remove the image, video or audio if criminals and terrorists also use it for storing illegal content? So, if you think it is going to collapse, just ignore it. Otherwise we will all be back to complain about NFTs in another thread once again.
- runarberg 5y ago
  > So, if you think it is going to collapse, just ignore it. Otherwise we will all be back to complain about NFTs in another thread once again. I don’t think this is fair. Thousands of people will be scammed out of their savings. Peta joules of energy will be wasted. Hundreds of art pieces will be stolen. This is entirely preventable with legislation and enforcement, and while we wait for that, this damage can be minimized by informing the public. Just ignoring NFTs until the bubble bursts is allowing unnecessary harm to continue. That is not a very humane course of action.
  - rvz 5y ago
    > This is entirely preventable with legislation and enforcement, and while we wait for that, this damage can be minimized by informing the public. The reason why it is easy to ignore the hype is that eventually, regulations will eliminate 90% of all these NFTs that do not comply. Right now everyone knows it is a scam and they are scamming each other until the bubble bursts. (again). This has happened to the ICOs, so it will also happen to NFTs. > That is not a very humane course of action. If 2017 didn't teach them about the scams, hacks and immaturity of the unregulated nature of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, then they will learn the hard way again with NFTs. This is why the serious approach is for the businesses and users to wait for regulatory clarity first rather than jumping into a casino-laden pyramid ponzi scam and repeat the same mistakes of 2017. The regulators will do all the legislation required to bring the carnage 'under control', just like they did for regulating cryptocurrency exchanges. So we will see. But for now, the madness can be ignored, since it is doomed to collapse once regulations come for it.
hnuser847 5y ago
Professor of made up field writes an article bemoaning the existing of made up money. Oh, and how these made up tokens are going to literally end all human life.
delabay 5y ago
diogenesjunior 5y ago
One of my favorite rappers, Nas, is selling royalty rights to his songs as NFTs[0]. I think selling NFTs as if they were trading cards is silly, but what Nas is doing? I think that's actually pretty cool. Thoughts? 0: https://www.nme.com/news/music/nas-to-sell-royalty-rights-to-two-of-his-songs-as-nfts-3133351 https://www.nme.com/news/music/nas-to-sell-royalty-rights-to...
- quickthrowman 5y ago
  I only have one thing to say here: “Smarten up Nas” Jay-Z, Takeover, The Blueprint (2001)
  - diogenesjunior 5y ago
    How about a dash of Ether?
    - quickthrowman 5y ago
      I can’t think of a more perfect reply than this, nicely done! It even works on more than one level. Diogenes always had a clever retort, I should’ve seen it coming :) (Illmatic is better than anything Jay-Z ever released, imo)
      - diogenesjunior 5y ago
        Illmatic is A+ tier, but I like Stillmatic more. He recently dropped "Magic" would recommend if you enjoyed Illmatic.
- candiddevmike 5y ago
  What benefit does he have selling it via NFT vs something like ebay?
- julianz 5y ago
  The NFT has nothing to do with the transaction here. You're giving something of value to Nas in return for a slice of a revenue stream. Nas could choose to do that with a regular old fashioned contract. The NFT is just an extremely expensive way to print the receipt, and introduces a third party to the process that doesn't need to be there. What happens when they go out of business or pivot to something else in a couple of years - are you still going to get your royalties then?
kryogen1c 5y ago
i flagged this article. there is no new or intersting information. it is an opinion piece on a well-known subject both sides have thoroughly voiced their opinions on. regardless, the article itself is barely coherent and i dont even detect a running theme. im a crypto hater and id rather this not be here.
1970-01-01 5y ago
I have a bridge to sell you. It's an unbelievable deal for anyone, but I don't think you're ready for it.
daenz 5y ago
To me, NFTs reek of crypto FOMO. It's like a manifestation of all of those who missed out on the Bitcoin wave, and all of those who want a second version of the Bitcoin wave. The concentrated desire of those two groups create a reality distortion field around NFTs being cool and valuable.
golemotron 5y ago
> The much bigger question, though, has less to do with these emergent upstarts in our informational world and more to do with humanity’s overall trajectory. Any species that endlessly grows, and continually invents energy-hungry processes, may not be destined for a happy ending. Unless energy consumptive processes lead you off-world for more resources. I'm surprised that the author, an astrobiologist, doesn't see a more open ended future.
- hnbad 5y ago
  Too bad we don't live in sci-fi land. Crypto is burning resources here and now as we already face a climate catastrophe and drag our heels in replacing fossils with renewables. There's currently no pressure to drive anyone "off-world" for more resources. "Off-world" is not only completely speculative and untested but also prohibitively expensive. Even if we could solve all the technological problems overnight simply by thinking really hard and running simulations (and that's a ludicrous assumption for any time scale), it would still be extremely resource and labor intensive to build the necessary infrastructure to actually implement it. In other words it would require burning more resources, creating more pollution and damaging the climate even more during an ongoing climate disaster. And then what? Asteroid mining? This would solve resource scarcity but not actually help the climate. Sure, lithium and precious metals are cost factors when producing batteries but you still need to transport those resources back to Earth and refine them. All of this is still extremely energy and resource intensive and creates pollution. No, an astrobiologist with a good head on their shoulders probably isn't naively pursuing some speculative VC promises of a high-tech future with off-world carbon capture and space elevators. They're probably more concerned with the one world we have not totally going to shit in the next few decades.
  - golemotron 5y ago
    > There's currently no pressure to drive anyone "off-world" for more resources. "Off-world" is not only completely speculative and untested but also prohibitively expensive. Well, good thing people are making it cheaper now. The people who don't think it's possible will benefit from that eventually despite their grumbling. It's the way of the world. Endless cycles of laughing at Colombus and then enjoying imported tea.
friendlydog 5y ago
Commercial aviation makes up 918 million metric tons of carbon. Bitcoin mining makes up 22 million metric tons. I'm less worried about NFTs than I am air travel.
- mandmandam 5y ago
  22 million metric tons is 22 million metric fucking tons. And there's no reason for it. None. There are better cryptocurrencies: ones with no mining, that use a fraction of the energy. Nano, for example, uses six million times less energy per transaction, and is mining free. It's fully operational, putting every Bitcoin maxi lie to shame.
- hnbad 5y ago
  In other words: a single cryptocurrency is generating 1/42th the carbon as all commercial aviation. The carbon generated by the two things is only one order of magnitude apart. If you consider that one of the two is (prior to COVID) used by a significant number of citizens of Western countries for vacations, business trips or visiting family, whereas the other is primarily used for financial speculation, money laundering and grey/black market financial transactions, this should be even more appalling. I don't know what makes you think you can put these two numbers side by side and have Bitcoin's carbon emissions look like the reasonable one. Especially when aviation is an established industry and has been the target of ecological regulations for years.
- acdha 5y ago
  Commercial aviation is at least useful: every year many millions of people travel for business, school, family, and pleasure needs which would be non-trivial to replace and aviation cargo is a key part of the global supply chain. If Bitcoin turned off tomorrow, some speculators would be very upset and nobody else would notice because 13 years in it still hasn't found something it can do competitively with alternatives which are significantly cheaper, easier to use, and less polluting.
  - Zamicol 5y ago
    The current monetary system has absurd levels of hand wavy magic. Are you familiar with what is being done on these systems? Uniswap alone did $1 billion in fees last year, a distributed, permissionless, unstoppable exchange. Ethereum did $10 billion in fees last year. I know someone who bought their house with a loan from Dai, which is far less hand wavy magic than Wells Fargo. It took them 30 minutes and no permission for the powers that be was needed.
ourmandave 5y ago
NFTs are the blockchain version of the International Star Registry. At least those scammers send you a participation badge suitable for framing.
abetusk 5y ago
I would like to see an actual measured critique or discussion of NFTs and adjacent cryptocurrencies. I'm absolutely willing to hear that NFTs (and related cryptocurrencies) are bad for the environment, bad for society, have no "intrinsic" value, but I'd really like to hear some counterpoints. For example. * Which is worse in terms of environmental costs: ordering 100 T-shirts or minting an NFT [0]? * There will always be fads, regardless of NFTs. Beanie Babies were the fad in the 2000s that bootstrapped PayPal and EBay [1] * There is at least an argument, whether it's true or not, that cryptocurrency can/will bootstrap solar adoption [2] * Explorations of what it means to have "unique" art, especially as it pertains to the current ability to mass produce and copy maybe with real attempts at a critique against academic artists who believe in intrinsic value of fine art vs. digital art. Though I'm not sure if there's any concrete statistics, it's at least a well accepted hypothesis that fine art is used as a tax evasion and/or money laundering device. If anyone has references on this point, I would appreciate it. Again, maybe NFTs are an indication of societal decline, but I'd like to have a good faith discussion about it instead of incredulous dismissals. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20211112062740/https://twitter.com/Supernova_Style/status/1459045172420005888 https://web.archive.org/web/20211112062740/https://twitter.c... [1] https://morfene.com/021.pdf https://morfene.com/021.pdf (pg 43-44) [2] https://assets.ctfassets.net/2d5q1td6cyxq/5mRjc9X5LTXFFihIlTt7QK/e7bcba47217b60423a01a357e036105e/BCEI_White_Paper.pdf https://assets.ctfassets.net/2d5q1td6cyxq/5mRjc9X5LTXFFihIlT...
- betterunix2 5y ago
  Regarding cryptocurrency and solar power, the argument has some gaping holes in it. The premise is that solar (and wind) does not have the constant generation rate that fossil fuels or nuclear plants provide, so by having miners going online when there is an energy surplus (and thus it is cheaper) can help pay for solar installations (which must be over-built to supply energy off-peak). The most obvious problem with this line of reasoning is that miners make more money when they are constantly mining than when they only mine opportunistically. This has already been demonstrated in the real world, with miners generally clustering around energy that is cheap and always available. We have seen miners keep gas-burning plants that would have shut down online, bringing already shut-down coal plants back online, and clustering in countries and regions where coal/nuclear/etc. energy is cheap and abundant (China, a few former Soviet republics, etc.). Moreover, anything that consumes power and that does not need to run round the clock would have the same effect on solar deployment. Why not create a smart washing machine that waits for energy prices to fall before starting a load? Why not a steel mill? A basic flaw in the argument is the assumption that there is no better use of energy than Bitcoin mining or that Bitcoin is unique in its "flexible" energy needs. Neither assumption is true. There are alternatives with the same "flexibility" that have a clearer benefit for humanity, like direct conversion of atmospheric CO2 and water into gasoline (still a research topic, but prototype facilities are being tested at small scales right now) or any other energy storage technology (which in theory could be operated separately from generation). Finally, a basic economic point: energy spent on cryptocurrency mining is energy not available for anything else. Even if all Bitcoin mining was exclusively powered by solar, wind, and hydro power, Bitcoin would still be slowing the progress on phasing out fossil fuels by consuming so much energy. Electric cars need to be charged whether or not Bitcoin mining occurs, and if renewable sources are all being sunk into Bitcoin then cars will be charged using non-renewable sources. I know you asked for the other side, but sometimes there is no other side and this is one of those times. The idea that Bitcoin is actually good for the environment because it could, possibly, subsidize solar production is just a desperate attempt to work around the criticism that Bitcoin wastes energy. Yet that criticism of Bitcoin is very easy to demonstrate: divide the number of transactions processed in one second by the power consumption of Bitcoin, and compare the same estimate for Visa or whatever. Even if the estimated power consumption of Bitcoin is off by a factor of 100 you would still be better off with Visa, since Bitcoin processes 7 transactions per second while Visa processes about 1700 (and Visa's annual reports on the topic always show much lower power consumption figures than even the most generous estimates for Bitcoin -- several orders of magnitude lower). I'll give credit where it is due: people who reflexively shout "PoS" when these criticisms are raised are at least acknowledging that PoW is a problem that needs to be addressed. That is the only actual counterpoint to the complaints about energy consumption, a technical improvement that is ready for deployment (and is already partially used by Ethereum, with a full switch supposedly coming soon).
SMAAART 5y ago
"Worrisome"? New tech will always bring out fear and anxiety, and fear and anxiety secures eyeballs and votes. Blockchain is here to stay, and Art will always leverage new tech. Simialar arguments were made at the dawn of the internet, and at the dawn of photography as far as Art is concerned. NFTs are Art, that's for sure. The concept of ownership that is challenged might as well be part of the Art itself.
dexwiz 5y ago
Digital goods have proven to be viable goods that people will pay for, trade, and hold. Counter Strike Cosmetics, Fortnite Skins, and iTunes downloads are just a few examples of something that used to be a labeled as a gimmick, but are now big money makers. It's very easy to extends these to NFTs, a seemingly more generic digital good that is not tied to a specific company. But In Game Cosmetics have something that NFTs still seem to lack, a way to use them. Sure you can use an NFT in a Twitter Profile, but so can I with a simple copy/paste. Is anyone really going to surf a metamask wallet gallery to look at others' NFTs? Probably not. But that cool Counter Strike Knife skin can be used in an actual game that people actually play. Until NFTs can be used in a way that is not easily stolen, they will be relegated to speculation and money laundering vehicles like every other shitcoin out there. In theory games could plug into federated markets where an NFT could be used in multiple games, but where is the incentive to open a walled garden that prints money? The economic and energy arguments are just bikeshedding the real issue of finding an actual purpose for NFTs. 90% of people probably have never been to a museum to look existing art outside of school field trips, why will that change just because it's digital? Just because digital goods are viable, doesn't make NFTs viable by association.
joeman1000 5y ago
I’m honestly surprised that hysterics about NFTs have dragged on so long. People must be super bored to give a fuck about this or become upset. People just want to trade proof of ownership, as defined in their own sense. They aren’t really bothering anyone or causing any havoc. Why are people so bloody crazy about it? Just ignore it for fucks sake.
- cmgxyz 5y ago
  Because: Climate. Change. Is. A. Thing. In a world where we are (or should be) in a desperate race to decarbonise the essential industries that make 1st world standards of living possible (steel, concrete, travel, electricity), you're merrily burning a road-trip's worth of energy every time you want to trade a digital beanie baby.
- betterunix2 5y ago
  I would agree...except that mining operations are literally keeping carbon-emitting power plants online and even bringing already-shutdown plants back online to power mining. NFTs by and large still depend on these energy-inefficient mining operations despite years of promises that "proof of stake" and whatnot would solve that problem in general. Then there are the NFT scams that serve only to discredit the entire blockchain ecosystem, and the fact that NFT proponents have been going around promoting both scams and misinformation. So it is not too hard to see why people are taking the time to weigh in on it...
treycopeland 5y ago
If it's good enough for Radio Shack, then it's good enough for me!
brian_cloutier 5y ago
Astonishingly low quality article for a publication as wonderful as Nautilus. For now I just want to comment on one piece, this meme that NFTs are killing the planet through consumption of insane amounts of energy is silly and falls apart with a moment's thought. All estimates of per-txn energy usage take the total number of transactions and divide by the total energy usage of the chain. However... bitcoin (and other chains) happily consume a lot of energy even when no transactions are being processed. The more important question is: when you make a transaction how much more energy is consumed than in a counterfactual world where you did not make that transaction. This number is very difficult to estimate, but seems to be at most 10kwh, or as much as driving your tesla ~30 miles, or running your dishwasher 5 times, or running your air conditioner for 5 hours, or doing any of a number of other things which people happily do every day without thinking twice. It would be nice if energy consumption was much lower, this is a non-trivial amount of energy, and multiple chains are working toward lowering it, but popular articles all seem to believe your NFT could power Berlin for a day if only you weren't being so selfish.
- cmgxyz 5y ago
  > This number is very difficult to estimate, but seems to be on the order of 10kwh, or as much as driving your tesla ~30 miles, or running your dishwasher 5 times, or running your air conditioner for 5 hours, or doing any of a number of other things which people happily do every day without thinking twice. It would be nice if energy consumption was even lower, and multiple chains are working toward lowering it, but popular articles all seem to believe your NFT could power Berlin for a day if only you weren't being so selfish. Those are all astonishingly energy consumptive tasks for something that, I agree with the article author, is pretty much bereft of any value. By contrast, you could make... what, five hundred thousand credit card transactions with that same energy? That's f**king insane.
temp438 5y ago
What is really worrisome is a recent flood of cryptoposts in HR top about smth which doesn't matter at all. It starts to look like black PR already. "oh no, nfts!! Oh no, web3!! Oh no, a scam! Memcoins! Ponzi scheme!!" These money would've ended in some bullshit anyways. We are in the middle of economical crizis. Bitcoin, selfdriving cars, tesla, space tourism or whatever just create a false sense of activity in the market while everything is going down.

74 points by zwieback 5y ago

don't worry, "web3" nonsense will be among the first bubbles to pop as US monetary policy tightens over the next couple years

UncleOxidant 5y ago
I'd replace the 'as' with 'if' above. I'm not convinced the Fed has the guts to significantly tighten monetary policy at this point. It's not just the NFT market that would crash, it's stocks and real estate as well - followed by a pretty significant recession.
- pphysch 5y ago
  Yeah it will set off a major financial correction and temporary crisis in the markets, but the alternative, letting the status quo of negative interest rates drive further inflation, will lead to a historic economic crisis. SME failures and a general breakdown of social order. Worst case scenario, they wait too long to raise rates and only do it as a knee-jerk reaction to an unfolding economic crisis that threatens to destabilize the entire USA. Then we get a full-spectrum crisis.
- betterunix2 5y ago
  It is easy to forget that the Fed was already tightening monetary policy over a period of years prior to the COVID crash, and only loosened policy in response to the economic impact of COVID. The Fed has historically not been shy about triggering corrections, crashes, and recessions if that is what it takes to achieve their targets, and I am not sure why anyone would think they will behave any differently this time around. Certainly the bond markets have reacted in a way that suggests that participants there take the Fed at their word that interest rate hikes are coming over the next 12 months.

echelon 5y ago

When the GAP is getting into NFTs, you know the bubble has already burst. Pogs3.

randomdata 5y ago
People have been buying "high end" artwork as a tax shelter for a 100 years. Proving ownership through digital means instead of paperwork is insignificant to the practice.
- Hasu 5y ago
  NFTs do not confer, imply, or prove ownership of artwork.
  - echelon 5y ago
    You own this URL to the thing until someone else buys the domain name.

legutierr 5y ago

> Blockchain technology is purposefully burdensome and computationally distributed, making it notoriously energy intensive. Estimates put the energy used to create and trade a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin on a par with the total consumption of a country like Sweden. And that’s without accounting for the environmental footprint of the physical computer hardware. Another critic who is willing to criticize without updating their knowledge as to the current state of the technology. Blockchain is not the same as proof-of-work. Yes, Bitcoin is energy-intensive, but other consensus algorithms do not use energy at nearly the same scale.

Sebb767 5y ago
> Blockchain is not the same as proof-of-stake. While this is also true, I'm pretty sure this should have been proof-of-work. PoS is actually one of the less energy intensive alternatives.
- legutierr 5y ago
  Of course, yes. Corrected.
ghaff 5y ago
I think you probably mean proof-of-work which is the most energy intensive.
- legutierr 5y ago
  Of course. Thank you.
fabian2k 5y ago
I think it is fair to criticize this technology on the current state, any future improvements first have to prove themselves.
- legutierr 5y ago
  Among the most popular blockchain networks right now, only Bitcoin and Ethereum and their forks (including code forks like Dogecoin and Litecoin) are still using proof-of-work. And Ethereum is moving away from it. After Ethereum migrates to proof-of-stake, of the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market cap, only Bitcoin, Dogecoin and Tether (which is a multi-chain stablecoin) will operate on proof-of-work networks. https://coinmarketcap.com/ https://coinmarketcap.com/ Alternatives to proof-of-work are no longer "future" tech.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

EGreg 5y ago

The company Ethereum (that supports cryptocurrency as well as NFTs) has indicated it aims to cut energy use by more than 99 percent by changing its core methodology. Interesting, Ethereum is referred to as a company by these authors?

JaimeThompson 5y ago
Possibly this meaning? 3. An assemblage or association of persons, either permanent or transient. [1913 Webster]
delabay 5y ago
This typo/oversight/error/whatever shows the depth of misunderstanding the author has about the subject he or she writes. People of hacker news will still love the content, but nobody outside of this bubble will view this as an honest criticism. If you want a truly great critique from a person who REALLY understands, read Moxie Marlinspike: https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html
- EGreg 5y ago
  I liked it a lot! I wrote a very substantive rebuttal that I hope you like as well: https://community.intercoin.org/t/web3-moxie-signal-telegram-and-why-decentralization-matters/ https://community.intercoin.org/t/web3-moxie-signal-telegram...

strict9 5y ago

>NFTs are comically bereft of anything we would associate with social or cultural value. This subjective opinion is frequently trotted out to describe digital items that people pay money for. The arguments used in this piece can just as easily apply to video games or anything else. There isn't anything new presented here, just one person railing against something they do not like using familiar arguments. IMO not the type of thought provoking content that people come to HN for.

OJFord 5y ago
I assume you mean in-game trinkets and costumes etc. rather than video games themselves? The latter seems like a massive stretch, and I don't know why it wouldn't include films too.
vultour 5y ago
This video game comparison is super incorrect. If you own an item in a game it’s very often to show it off because others can’t use it, it’s only for you. The closed source nature of games enables this. Nobody would buy them if they were easily used by anyone but you had a super legit receipt saying “mhm this guy actually paid for it”. NFTs of dumb copy pasted JPEGs are completely useless.
- strict9 5y ago
  You misunderstood my argument. I'm not comparing NFTs to video games for ownership purposes, but it's "contribution to society." The statement that NFTs "have no societal or cultural value" has been historically attributed to video games and other forms of leisurely/fun activity. It's a bad argument.
  - danaris 5y ago
    The fact that a specific argument has been used in bad faith in the past does not mean it cannot be used in good faith. Games are demonstrably something valuable: they are art, they are entertainment, they are a product. NFTs are none of those things. They're just a new way to try to milk money out of people, who gain nothing meaningful in return.

WriterGuy2021 5y ago

"An astrobiologist says non-fungible tokens do not bode well for our species’s future. " This is a historical subhead.

ccamrobertson 5y ago
And the article doesn't fail to live up to it -- "...because of the potential [of blockchain] to outpace any efforts to transition to zero-carbon energy production." I think that even the most craven cryptocurrency and NFT buyers have yet to envision such exponential scenarios that 'blockchain' consumes resources at a clip that subsumes other greenhouse-gas activities like, flying, driving, HVAC, etc. "There is of course another solution: We stop reinventing things like currency or certification until we have a proper plan [...] until humanity has figured out a way to generate all our energy cleanly, from solar, nuclear, and so on, would make more sense." "There is of course another solution: We cease all human behaviors [...]".

labrador 5y ago

I'm as concerned as the next person about energy use, but I did read some counterpoints in an article published yesterday [1] The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee is reportedly going to investigate cryptocurrency’s effect on the environment... But the meme that bitcoin or cryptocurrency uses as much power as one country or another, promoted by The New York Times last September, for example, deserves a bit of pushback on a couple of fronts. [1] https://www.aei.org/technology-and-innovation/no-hearing-on-bitcoins-energy-use-is-complete-without-nic-carter/ https://www.aei.org/technology-and-innovation/no-hearing-on-... Edit: and then someone pushes back on Nic Carter today: https://jpkoning.blogspot.com/2022/01/the-fallacy-of-bitcoin-and-renewables.html https://jpkoning.blogspot.com/2022/01/the-fallacy-of-bitcoin...

quickthrowman 5y ago
This piece argues that we should listen to a VC partner that is invested in cryptocurrency about the energy usage of cryptocurrency. This is like listening to an oil company giving advice about fighting climate change. You’ll have to do better than this. I’m not sure why I expected any better from a partisan think tank. They pushed back on Nic Carter (I’m guessing here) because he has a financial incentive to make crypto look good. This is not hard to understand.
- skybrian 5y ago
  This is reason for suspicion but not for blanket dismissal. If you dismiss every self-interested argument you miss a lot.
Zamicol 5y ago
NTF's aren't on Bitcoin. They're on Ethereum which is switching over to PoS.
- dralley 5y ago
  >They're on Ethereum which is switching over to PoS. It's been switching over to PoS for years. I distinctly remember articles in 2019 about how they'd switch by the end of 2020, articles in 2020 about how they'd switch by the end of 2021, and here we are in 2022. The point holds until they actually do make the switch.

e67f70028a46fba 5y ago

if, by “worrisome”, you mean “hilarious”

api 5y ago

I checked out OpenSea a few days ago to see what was selling. I went in with low expectations but I was still shocked. The hottest NFTs are all trash. It's a bunch of dumb ape doodles and piles of variations on the same few templates. Some of them are algorithmically generated. It's just shockingly dumb, yet I have smart people I follow on Twitter and elsewhere who are convinced this is all world changing. I keep asking for people to point me to the evidence and it's never there. I've been asking for years.

nikanj 5y ago
Yet people keep putting their life savings into it - and coming out significantly richer. It’s rather frustrating how well the market has been rewarding bad decisions
- api 5y ago
  It's all built on historically low (or even effectively negative) interest rates. We've been in a crazy low rate environment since 2008 and COVID pushed the money printing into overdrive. When inflation eventually forces interest rates to be raised a lot of these crazy bubbles are going to pop almost instantly. The alternative, a deflationary depression, would probably have been a lot more painful and destructive. Instead of mass defaults and cascades of bankruptcies we get million dollar ape doodles.
  - mandmandam 5y ago
    Mass defaults and bankruptcies and worse are still coming, I promise you. You can't funnel money upward this hard for decades and not pay a price.
hnuser847 5y ago
It's not dumb, it's gambling. You buy a stupid monkey doodle for $100k and hope to sell it to somebody else for $200k. Nobody wants the monkey doodle. The NFT craze has nothing whatsoever to do with art, novel technology, decentralized ownership, or any of the other high-minded concepts people keep bringing up in these discussions. It's about gambling. CrytoKitties did it back in 2017. NFTs are not new and there were flurry of articles back then along the lines of "How I Made $100k Trading CryptoKitties in My Free Time". https://hackernoon.com/how-we-made-100k-trading-cryptokitties-2d69aebe715b https://hackernoon.com/how-we-made-100k-trading-cryptokittie...

dvt 5y ago

At this point, articles on NFTs are the same as articles on vaccines or articles on Jan 6, or Trump, or anything controversial. It's purely done to drive clicks and serves no real dialectic purpose (there are, of course, some thoughtful writers, but the vast majority is drivel).

gringoDan 5y ago

This is a lazy argument that could apply to any art or leisure activity. Counterpoint (and shameless plug) – NFTs are one of the best bundles ever created. They combine: 1. A display of wealth. 2. An elite social network. 3. A signal of good taste. 4. A limited collectible. 5. The excitement of roulette. https://paranoidenough.com/2021/12/21/The-Value-of-the-NFT-Bundle.html https://paranoidenough.com/2021/12/21/The-Value-of-the-NFT-B...

AlexandrB 5y ago
> 3. A signal of good taste. Or, given the current crop of popular NFTs, the lack thereof.

threeseed 5y ago

The worst thing is the constant and malicious lie being perpetuated. You do not own an NFT in any legal or moral sense. The ownership is not recognised in any country, by any court or international body. All you have is an entry in a logical database that says you own it. But unless you have signed a contract with the seller transferring or licensing copyright then it as meaningless as you buying a certificate saying you've named a planet.

password1 5y ago
The irony is that most NFT do not include any copyright or commercial rights. Only the "respectable" ones do, others are just a link to an image and a pinky promise that it won't be on another marketplace.
ugjka 5y ago
I remember one of my friends wanted to do an NFT of some sort and i jokingly remarked "I'll paypal you 10€ and I'll pretend I own something"
chollida1 5y ago
And most NFT's are just links that aren't embedded on the blockchain that could go away tomorrow or be switched to something else without any warning.
daenz 5y ago
Possession is nine-tenths of the law. If nobody can take it from you, you "own" it, and everything else follows from that. "It" being: your crypto identity bound to some metadata.
- threeseed 5y ago
  No the artist owns it. They have the copyright. So the funny part is that if you buy an NFT not only can I legally copy it but I can approach the artist, buy the copyright and then sue you for copyright infringement.
  - 5y ago

golemotron 5y ago

> It’s possible to see a purpose for cryptocurrencies, but NFTs are (for now) almost comically bereft of anything most of us would associate with social or cultural value. They incentivize energy production and research into better energy production. That isn't trivial.

AlexandrB 5y ago
Unless you believe that NFTs are useful in and of themselves, this is a classic example of the Broken Window Fallacy[1]. For example, we could "incentivize energy production" just as well by phasing out LED light bulbs and replacing them with incandescent ones. So why don't we? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
- golemotron 5y ago
  Broken windows conflates general economic growth with specific incentives.
quickthrowman 5y ago
Jevons’ Paradox implies any energy efficiency gains from cryptocurrency will be used by .. cryptocurrency. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

rvz 5y ago

Here we go again. 'NFTs is a scam', 'web3 is a bubble', 'This is a going to crash', etc. They already know it is a scam, ponzi and a bubble which is why everyone is cashing in on the hype before it collapses. 90% - 98% of these NFTs will not survive and will be worthless, so let us ignore this common form of NFTs (images, videos, etc) and look at NFTs that have utility and value like blockchain domain names like ENS, which at least that is useful. The fact you cannot store the NFT image, video or audio on the blockchain tells you alone it is a scam anyway. Even if you could do that, how would you totally remove the image, video or audio if criminals and terrorists also use it for storing illegal content? So, if you think it is going to collapse, just ignore it. Otherwise we will all be back to complain about NFTs in another thread once again.

runarberg 5y ago
> So, if you think it is going to collapse, just ignore it. Otherwise we will all be back to complain about NFTs in another thread once again. I don’t think this is fair. Thousands of people will be scammed out of their savings. Peta joules of energy will be wasted. Hundreds of art pieces will be stolen. This is entirely preventable with legislation and enforcement, and while we wait for that, this damage can be minimized by informing the public. Just ignoring NFTs until the bubble bursts is allowing unnecessary harm to continue. That is not a very humane course of action.
- rvz 5y ago
  > This is entirely preventable with legislation and enforcement, and while we wait for that, this damage can be minimized by informing the public. The reason why it is easy to ignore the hype is that eventually, regulations will eliminate 90% of all these NFTs that do not comply. Right now everyone knows it is a scam and they are scamming each other until the bubble bursts. (again). This has happened to the ICOs, so it will also happen to NFTs. > That is not a very humane course of action. If 2017 didn't teach them about the scams, hacks and immaturity of the unregulated nature of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, then they will learn the hard way again with NFTs. This is why the serious approach is for the businesses and users to wait for regulatory clarity first rather than jumping into a casino-laden pyramid ponzi scam and repeat the same mistakes of 2017. The regulators will do all the legislation required to bring the carnage 'under control', just like they did for regulating cryptocurrency exchanges. So we will see. But for now, the madness can be ignored, since it is doomed to collapse once regulations come for it.

hnuser847 5y ago

Professor of made up field writes an article bemoaning the existing of made up money. Oh, and how these made up tokens are going to literally end all human life.

delabay 5y ago

diogenesjunior 5y ago

One of my favorite rappers, Nas, is selling royalty rights to his songs as NFTs[0]. I think selling NFTs as if they were trading cards is silly, but what Nas is doing? I think that's actually pretty cool. Thoughts? 0: https://www.nme.com/news/music/nas-to-sell-royalty-rights-to-two-of-his-songs-as-nfts-3133351 https://www.nme.com/news/music/nas-to-sell-royalty-rights-to...

quickthrowman 5y ago
I only have one thing to say here: “Smarten up Nas” Jay-Z, Takeover, The Blueprint (2001)
- diogenesjunior 5y ago
  How about a dash of Ether?
  - quickthrowman 5y ago
    I can’t think of a more perfect reply than this, nicely done! It even works on more than one level. Diogenes always had a clever retort, I should’ve seen it coming :) (Illmatic is better than anything Jay-Z ever released, imo)
    - diogenesjunior 5y ago
      Illmatic is A+ tier, but I like Stillmatic more. He recently dropped "Magic" would recommend if you enjoyed Illmatic.
candiddevmike 5y ago
What benefit does he have selling it via NFT vs something like ebay?
julianz 5y ago
The NFT has nothing to do with the transaction here. You're giving something of value to Nas in return for a slice of a revenue stream. Nas could choose to do that with a regular old fashioned contract. The NFT is just an extremely expensive way to print the receipt, and introduces a third party to the process that doesn't need to be there. What happens when they go out of business or pivot to something else in a couple of years - are you still going to get your royalties then?

kryogen1c 5y ago

i flagged this article. there is no new or intersting information. it is an opinion piece on a well-known subject both sides have thoroughly voiced their opinions on. regardless, the article itself is barely coherent and i dont even detect a running theme. im a crypto hater and id rather this not be here.

1970-01-01 5y ago

I have a bridge to sell you. It's an unbelievable deal for anyone, but I don't think you're ready for it.

daenz 5y ago

To me, NFTs reek of crypto FOMO. It's like a manifestation of all of those who missed out on the Bitcoin wave, and all of those who want a second version of the Bitcoin wave. The concentrated desire of those two groups create a reality distortion field around NFTs being cool and valuable.

golemotron 5y ago

> The much bigger question, though, has less to do with these emergent upstarts in our informational world and more to do with humanity’s overall trajectory. Any species that endlessly grows, and continually invents energy-hungry processes, may not be destined for a happy ending. Unless energy consumptive processes lead you off-world for more resources. I'm surprised that the author, an astrobiologist, doesn't see a more open ended future.

hnbad 5y ago
Too bad we don't live in sci-fi land. Crypto is burning resources here and now as we already face a climate catastrophe and drag our heels in replacing fossils with renewables. There's currently no pressure to drive anyone "off-world" for more resources. "Off-world" is not only completely speculative and untested but also prohibitively expensive. Even if we could solve all the technological problems overnight simply by thinking really hard and running simulations (and that's a ludicrous assumption for any time scale), it would still be extremely resource and labor intensive to build the necessary infrastructure to actually implement it. In other words it would require burning more resources, creating more pollution and damaging the climate even more during an ongoing climate disaster. And then what? Asteroid mining? This would solve resource scarcity but not actually help the climate. Sure, lithium and precious metals are cost factors when producing batteries but you still need to transport those resources back to Earth and refine them. All of this is still extremely energy and resource intensive and creates pollution. No, an astrobiologist with a good head on their shoulders probably isn't naively pursuing some speculative VC promises of a high-tech future with off-world carbon capture and space elevators. They're probably more concerned with the one world we have not totally going to shit in the next few decades.
- golemotron 5y ago
  > There's currently no pressure to drive anyone "off-world" for more resources. "Off-world" is not only completely speculative and untested but also prohibitively expensive. Well, good thing people are making it cheaper now. The people who don't think it's possible will benefit from that eventually despite their grumbling. It's the way of the world. Endless cycles of laughing at Colombus and then enjoying imported tea.

friendlydog 5y ago

Commercial aviation makes up 918 million metric tons of carbon. Bitcoin mining makes up 22 million metric tons. I'm less worried about NFTs than I am air travel.

mandmandam 5y ago
22 million metric tons is 22 million metric fucking tons. And there's no reason for it. None. There are better cryptocurrencies: ones with no mining, that use a fraction of the energy. Nano, for example, uses six million times less energy per transaction, and is mining free. It's fully operational, putting every Bitcoin maxi lie to shame.
hnbad 5y ago
In other words: a single cryptocurrency is generating 1/42th the carbon as all commercial aviation. The carbon generated by the two things is only one order of magnitude apart. If you consider that one of the two is (prior to COVID) used by a significant number of citizens of Western countries for vacations, business trips or visiting family, whereas the other is primarily used for financial speculation, money laundering and grey/black market financial transactions, this should be even more appalling. I don't know what makes you think you can put these two numbers side by side and have Bitcoin's carbon emissions look like the reasonable one. Especially when aviation is an established industry and has been the target of ecological regulations for years.
acdha 5y ago
Commercial aviation is at least useful: every year many millions of people travel for business, school, family, and pleasure needs which would be non-trivial to replace and aviation cargo is a key part of the global supply chain. If Bitcoin turned off tomorrow, some speculators would be very upset and nobody else would notice because 13 years in it still hasn't found something it can do competitively with alternatives which are significantly cheaper, easier to use, and less polluting.
- Zamicol 5y ago
  The current monetary system has absurd levels of hand wavy magic. Are you familiar with what is being done on these systems? Uniswap alone did $1 billion in fees last year, a distributed, permissionless, unstoppable exchange. Ethereum did $10 billion in fees last year. I know someone who bought their house with a loan from Dai, which is far less hand wavy magic than Wells Fargo. It took them 30 minutes and no permission for the powers that be was needed.

ourmandave 5y ago

NFTs are the blockchain version of the International Star Registry. At least those scammers send you a participation badge suitable for framing.

abetusk 5y ago

I would like to see an actual measured critique or discussion of NFTs and adjacent cryptocurrencies. I'm absolutely willing to hear that NFTs (and related cryptocurrencies) are bad for the environment, bad for society, have no "intrinsic" value, but I'd really like to hear some counterpoints. For example. * Which is worse in terms of environmental costs: ordering 100 T-shirts or minting an NFT [0]? * There will always be fads, regardless of NFTs. Beanie Babies were the fad in the 2000s that bootstrapped PayPal and EBay [1] * There is at least an argument, whether it's true or not, that cryptocurrency can/will bootstrap solar adoption [2] * Explorations of what it means to have "unique" art, especially as it pertains to the current ability to mass produce and copy maybe with real attempts at a critique against academic artists who believe in intrinsic value of fine art vs. digital art. Though I'm not sure if there's any concrete statistics, it's at least a well accepted hypothesis that fine art is used as a tax evasion and/or money laundering device. If anyone has references on this point, I would appreciate it. Again, maybe NFTs are an indication of societal decline, but I'd like to have a good faith discussion about it instead of incredulous dismissals. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20211112062740/https://twitter.com/Supernova_Style/status/1459045172420005888 https://web.archive.org/web/20211112062740/https://twitter.c... [1] https://morfene.com/021.pdf https://morfene.com/021.pdf (pg 43-44) [2] https://assets.ctfassets.net/2d5q1td6cyxq/5mRjc9X5LTXFFihIlTt7QK/e7bcba47217b60423a01a357e036105e/BCEI_White_Paper.pdf https://assets.ctfassets.net/2d5q1td6cyxq/5mRjc9X5LTXFFihIlT...

betterunix2 5y ago
Regarding cryptocurrency and solar power, the argument has some gaping holes in it. The premise is that solar (and wind) does not have the constant generation rate that fossil fuels or nuclear plants provide, so by having miners going online when there is an energy surplus (and thus it is cheaper) can help pay for solar installations (which must be over-built to supply energy off-peak). The most obvious problem with this line of reasoning is that miners make more money when they are constantly mining than when they only mine opportunistically. This has already been demonstrated in the real world, with miners generally clustering around energy that is cheap and always available. We have seen miners keep gas-burning plants that would have shut down online, bringing already shut-down coal plants back online, and clustering in countries and regions where coal/nuclear/etc. energy is cheap and abundant (China, a few former Soviet republics, etc.). Moreover, anything that consumes power and that does not need to run round the clock would have the same effect on solar deployment. Why not create a smart washing machine that waits for energy prices to fall before starting a load? Why not a steel mill? A basic flaw in the argument is the assumption that there is no better use of energy than Bitcoin mining or that Bitcoin is unique in its "flexible" energy needs. Neither assumption is true. There are alternatives with the same "flexibility" that have a clearer benefit for humanity, like direct conversion of atmospheric CO2 and water into gasoline (still a research topic, but prototype facilities are being tested at small scales right now) or any other energy storage technology (which in theory could be operated separately from generation). Finally, a basic economic point: energy spent on cryptocurrency mining is energy not available for anything else. Even if all Bitcoin mining was exclusively powered by solar, wind, and hydro power, Bitcoin would still be slowing the progress on phasing out fossil fuels by consuming so much energy. Electric cars need to be charged whether or not Bitcoin mining occurs, and if renewable sources are all being sunk into Bitcoin then cars will be charged using non-renewable sources. I know you asked for the other side, but sometimes there is no other side and this is one of those times. The idea that Bitcoin is actually good for the environment because it could, possibly, subsidize solar production is just a desperate attempt to work around the criticism that Bitcoin wastes energy. Yet that criticism of Bitcoin is very easy to demonstrate: divide the number of transactions processed in one second by the power consumption of Bitcoin, and compare the same estimate for Visa or whatever. Even if the estimated power consumption of Bitcoin is off by a factor of 100 you would still be better off with Visa, since Bitcoin processes 7 transactions per second while Visa processes about 1700 (and Visa's annual reports on the topic always show much lower power consumption figures than even the most generous estimates for Bitcoin -- several orders of magnitude lower). I'll give credit where it is due: people who reflexively shout "PoS" when these criticisms are raised are at least acknowledging that PoW is a problem that needs to be addressed. That is the only actual counterpoint to the complaints about energy consumption, a technical improvement that is ready for deployment (and is already partially used by Ethereum, with a full switch supposedly coming soon).

SMAAART 5y ago

"Worrisome"? New tech will always bring out fear and anxiety, and fear and anxiety secures eyeballs and votes. Blockchain is here to stay, and Art will always leverage new tech. Simialar arguments were made at the dawn of the internet, and at the dawn of photography as far as Art is concerned. NFTs are Art, that's for sure. The concept of ownership that is challenged might as well be part of the Art itself.

dexwiz 5y ago

Digital goods have proven to be viable goods that people will pay for, trade, and hold. Counter Strike Cosmetics, Fortnite Skins, and iTunes downloads are just a few examples of something that used to be a labeled as a gimmick, but are now big money makers. It's very easy to extends these to NFTs, a seemingly more generic digital good that is not tied to a specific company. But In Game Cosmetics have something that NFTs still seem to lack, a way to use them. Sure you can use an NFT in a Twitter Profile, but so can I with a simple copy/paste. Is anyone really going to surf a metamask wallet gallery to look at others' NFTs? Probably not. But that cool Counter Strike Knife skin can be used in an actual game that people actually play. Until NFTs can be used in a way that is not easily stolen, they will be relegated to speculation and money laundering vehicles like every other shitcoin out there. In theory games could plug into federated markets where an NFT could be used in multiple games, but where is the incentive to open a walled garden that prints money? The economic and energy arguments are just bikeshedding the real issue of finding an actual purpose for NFTs. 90% of people probably have never been to a museum to look existing art outside of school field trips, why will that change just because it's digital? Just because digital goods are viable, doesn't make NFTs viable by association.

joeman1000 5y ago

I’m honestly surprised that hysterics about NFTs have dragged on so long. People must be super bored to give a fuck about this or become upset. People just want to trade proof of ownership, as defined in their own sense. They aren’t really bothering anyone or causing any havoc. Why are people so bloody crazy about it? Just ignore it for fucks sake.

cmgxyz 5y ago
Because: Climate. Change. Is. A. Thing. In a world where we are (or should be) in a desperate race to decarbonise the essential industries that make 1st world standards of living possible (steel, concrete, travel, electricity), you're merrily burning a road-trip's worth of energy every time you want to trade a digital beanie baby.
betterunix2 5y ago
I would agree...except that mining operations are literally keeping carbon-emitting power plants online and even bringing already-shutdown plants back online to power mining. NFTs by and large still depend on these energy-inefficient mining operations despite years of promises that "proof of stake" and whatnot would solve that problem in general. Then there are the NFT scams that serve only to discredit the entire blockchain ecosystem, and the fact that NFT proponents have been going around promoting both scams and misinformation. So it is not too hard to see why people are taking the time to weigh in on it...

treycopeland 5y ago

If it's good enough for Radio Shack, then it's good enough for me!

brian_cloutier 5y ago

Astonishingly low quality article for a publication as wonderful as Nautilus. For now I just want to comment on one piece, this meme that NFTs are killing the planet through consumption of insane amounts of energy is silly and falls apart with a moment's thought. All estimates of per-txn energy usage take the total number of transactions and divide by the total energy usage of the chain. However... bitcoin (and other chains) happily consume a lot of energy even when no transactions are being processed. The more important question is: when you make a transaction how much more energy is consumed than in a counterfactual world where you did not make that transaction. This number is very difficult to estimate, but seems to be at most 10kwh, or as much as driving your tesla ~30 miles, or running your dishwasher 5 times, or running your air conditioner for 5 hours, or doing any of a number of other things which people happily do every day without thinking twice. It would be nice if energy consumption was much lower, this is a non-trivial amount of energy, and multiple chains are working toward lowering it, but popular articles all seem to believe your NFT could power Berlin for a day if only you weren't being so selfish.

cmgxyz 5y ago
> This number is very difficult to estimate, but seems to be on the order of 10kwh, or as much as driving your tesla ~30 miles, or running your dishwasher 5 times, or running your air conditioner for 5 hours, or doing any of a number of other things which people happily do every day without thinking twice. It would be nice if energy consumption was even lower, and multiple chains are working toward lowering it, but popular articles all seem to believe your NFT could power Berlin for a day if only you weren't being so selfish. Those are all astonishingly energy consumptive tasks for something that, I agree with the article author, is pretty much bereft of any value. By contrast, you could make... what, five hundred thousand credit card transactions with that same energy? That's f**king insane.

temp438 5y ago

What is really worrisome is a recent flood of cryptoposts in HR top about smth which doesn't matter at all. It starts to look like black PR already. "oh no, nfts!! Oh no, web3!! Oh no, a scam! Memcoins! Ponzi scheme!!" These money would've ended in some bullshit anyways. We are in the middle of economical crizis. Bitcoin, selfdriving cars, tesla, space tourism or whatever just create a false sense of activity in the market while everything is going down.