7 ms·

NFT: even more deceiving

56 points by p4bl0 5y ago

superdisk 5y ago
The point of NFTs is to demonstrate that you have 30k to blow on something trivial. How many more articles do we need breathlessly trying to explain how they're technically stupid? I swear half of my Twitter feed is people that don't understand why they're popular and feel like if they can just use enough logic and condescension, then everyone will snap awake and the NFT craze will stop.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- advisedwang 5y ago
  It's not true that NFTs are only a status symbol. Firstly they are often pitched as an investment - something that will grow in value. Some folks are going to lose their shirts "investing" in NFTs, and I think that alone is reason enough to highlight issues with NFTs. Secondly there are other use cases already in use, such as Etherium Name Service, using NFTs as a DNS replacement. (although the criticism of this article apply less to how ENS is using NFTs). Finally, there are even more significant NFTs use cases pitched such as real estate deeds. This is where the article's points become really important.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - 8note 5y ago
    ENS sounds like it adds a weird requirement that your IP can only change when gas prices are low. If your IP gets issues and some new crypto dad is going, you've gotta wait to get your DNS working again, or pay through the roof to the folks who run ethereum. Does needing to change you IP correlate closely with ethereum transactions being cheap that day or something?
- qnsi 5y ago
  exactly. NFTs are one of the hacks for status. Somehow tech people would feel weird posting a photo on a yacht, but buying a jpg makes you cool.
kreas 5y ago
"What is stored on the blockchain is most often a link to a web page[6] that itself points to the associated object. Here again, we have lost all idea of decentralization" No where in the article did the author mention IPFS (https://ipfs.io/ https://ipfs.io/). The trend with NFTs is that the digital assets are stored on IPFS, typically through a pinning service like Pinata (https://www.pinata.cloud/ https://www.pinata.cloud/). With the asset being content addressable and not location based, and the address being a permanent part of the blockchain, how can the above statement be true?
- p4bl0 5y ago
  It is very rare I wouldn't call it a "trend" yet. Also, I agree that using IPFS links addresses the problem of content integrity, but the link can still rot, and having to pay a centralized service to pin your data (even in a decentralized network like IPFS) does not solve the decentralization and disintermediation problems.
  - kreas 5y ago
    Link rot is definitely a fair point. I'm curious if there is a longterm way of solving this problem. Filecoin looks promising but I feel like that's just adding more complexity.
    - galaxyyy 5y ago
      The surviving NFT projects that will require no active maintenance in the next 10 years will be the ones who fully dedicated to on-chain only (cryptopunks, chainrunners, etc). Unless there is an active community that maintains its strength during market cycles (like BAYC), current NFT project death will be 95% over the next 10 years, just like a start-up.
  - Dma54rhs 5y ago
    Why these platforms don't use hash of a file inside blockchain as bare minimum. Shouldn't be too expensive to store that data? Hash would represent the "original" no matter where is it hosted on the future.
user249 5y ago
People are misunderstanding decentralization. Sure we can talk about decentralized technology like IFPS, but we should also talk about moving away from centralized governments, banks and legal systems. Decentralization in this context means we can form our own social group, say a commune in the desert or a virtual group online that skirts the old school central organizations and sets up our own. We could conduct our buniness on the blockchain and implement our own enforcement methods. An extreme example of this might be a drug cartel conducting it's transactions on a blockchain and if you don't honor what's on the chain then you get killed.
- p4bl0 5y ago
  You are kind of proving the point against which you are arguing here. > If you don't honor what's on chain then you get killed. This is exactly the kind of necessary third-party that I'm talking about in my blogpost. You ar not building a decentralized system. You just reinvented a worse centralized system and poorly used supposedly decentralized technology to achieve that.
- 8note 5y ago
  I don't see why the cartel would stay on the chain if somebody scams them on it. It's easier to kill the scammer and ignore the chain
- peoplefromibiza 5y ago
  > and if you don't honor what's on the chain then you get killed. since the chain itself can't enforce anything, I'd say that for that particular business you only need enough gunpower to decide what "honor" means the blockchain is completely useless
riptheworld 5y ago
I agree that the current NFT ecosystem is a house of cards, e.g., the susceptibility of NFTs to link rot. That being said, I think the ecosystem will evolve to a having a more robust way of handling these things as it matures. For example, rather than only storing a URL that points to the content, perhaps the token could also include a cryptographic hash of the original content? In the case of link rot, the owner could still provide evidence of ownership on the original content by proving that it hashes to the stored value. There are probably better solutions as well (others have mentioned IPFS).
- xg15 5y ago
  This might have the opposite problem: Suppose you own an NFT of your favourite monkey JPEG. At some point however, browsers drop support for the JPEG image format because it is outdated and has long since been replaced by better formats. Of course you could easily convert the ape JPEG into an ape PNG, except the hash would still only be valid for the JPEG. Suddenly, it starts getting unclear what kind of "ownership" the token really represents: Ownership of the bytes of the JPEG file? The pixels on the screen? The "concept" of an ape with that particular outfit (whatever that should mean)? or just an URL? Maybe you could solve this partially by defining some sort of "transform" operation which is documented on-chain? Something like "If I own token X then I can call external service Y to transform the token - after which, X will be destroyed and I'll own a new, different token Z instead" (i.e. one with the hash of the PNG instead of the JPEG) That still wouldn't solve OP's problem though as that transformation would have to happen off-chain.
  - vmception 5y ago
    There are upgradeable contracts (All NFTs are the self-executing code called smart contracts) and the admin key to cause an upgrade can be community governed, even more nuanced approaches such as some variables available to be governed. So upgrading the image data and format could be possible. They typically use a getImage() method, as part of the NFT standards, a setImage() method could be added with the method being set to OnlyOwner, which is just a member level designation seen in other programming languages like JVMs. In EVMs, OnlyOwner can be a collective or its own smart contract controlled by a collective. Depending on the format and size of the image or transformation operation, the transformation could occur onchain. Nodes in a blockchain are just compute instances. I don't see how it matters if such thing occurred onchain or offchain though, as long as the output was written to the setImage method and that fixes the NFT. This is the kind of stuff developers do everyday in other stacks, I get a feeling many developers (who are a big audience on this forum) just haven't looked at the crypto space on the development side because these conversations make little sense.
kderbyma 5y ago
I agree with everything in this article. I do think is a solution though. It's a framing problem and a control problem, but I think there a way to solve a lot of these criticisms. I see one such obvious way
bingbongbing0x 5y ago
The global warming argument is pretty tired. I don't see the same commentators applying their concern for global warming over wasteful pointless """""AI"""" or virtually any other kind of computer work. This essay also reeks of producing a surface level argument without diving in further to actual use cases. Many criticized the early internet for its original uses without seeing the bigger picture. You can sit back on twitter and laugh at people who by all means seem to be having a lot of fun and call them stupid for investing in NFTs but part of the price they are paying is inclusion. Similar to people that blow large amounts of money no beanie babies, magic cards, hello kitty goods and whatever else.
- p4bl0 5y ago
  Have you read the article? It doesn't even mention global warming.
musicale 5y ago
stamp - potentially usable as postage tulip bulb - can grow a flower with it beanie baby - plush toy painting - you can hang it on your wall pokémon card - can play game with it NFT - grants you a hexagonal profile picture on Twitter

56 points by p4bl0 5y ago

The point of NFTs is to demonstrate that you have 30k to blow on something trivial. How many more articles do we need breathlessly trying to explain how they're technically stupid? I swear half of my Twitter feed is people that don't understand why they're popular and feel like if they can just use enough logic and condescension, then everyone will snap awake and the NFT craze will stop.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
advisedwang 5y ago
It's not true that NFTs are only a status symbol. Firstly they are often pitched as an investment - something that will grow in value. Some folks are going to lose their shirts "investing" in NFTs, and I think that alone is reason enough to highlight issues with NFTs. Secondly there are other use cases already in use, such as Etherium Name Service, using NFTs as a DNS replacement. (although the criticism of this article apply less to how ENS is using NFTs). Finally, there are even more significant NFTs use cases pitched such as real estate deeds. This is where the article's points become really important.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- 8note 5y ago
  ENS sounds like it adds a weird requirement that your IP can only change when gas prices are low. If your IP gets issues and some new crypto dad is going, you've gotta wait to get your DNS working again, or pay through the roof to the folks who run ethereum. Does needing to change you IP correlate closely with ethereum transactions being cheap that day or something?
qnsi 5y ago
exactly. NFTs are one of the hacks for status. Somehow tech people would feel weird posting a photo on a yacht, but buying a jpg makes you cool.

kreas 5y ago

"What is stored on the blockchain is most often a link to a web page[6] that itself points to the associated object. Here again, we have lost all idea of decentralization" No where in the article did the author mention IPFS (https://ipfs.io/ https://ipfs.io/). The trend with NFTs is that the digital assets are stored on IPFS, typically through a pinning service like Pinata (https://www.pinata.cloud/ https://www.pinata.cloud/). With the asset being content addressable and not location based, and the address being a permanent part of the blockchain, how can the above statement be true?

p4bl0 5y ago
It is very rare I wouldn't call it a "trend" yet. Also, I agree that using IPFS links addresses the problem of content integrity, but the link can still rot, and having to pay a centralized service to pin your data (even in a decentralized network like IPFS) does not solve the decentralization and disintermediation problems.
- kreas 5y ago
  Link rot is definitely a fair point. I'm curious if there is a longterm way of solving this problem. Filecoin looks promising but I feel like that's just adding more complexity.
  - galaxyyy 5y ago
    The surviving NFT projects that will require no active maintenance in the next 10 years will be the ones who fully dedicated to on-chain only (cryptopunks, chainrunners, etc). Unless there is an active community that maintains its strength during market cycles (like BAYC), current NFT project death will be 95% over the next 10 years, just like a start-up.
- Dma54rhs 5y ago
  Why these platforms don't use hash of a file inside blockchain as bare minimum. Shouldn't be too expensive to store that data? Hash would represent the "original" no matter where is it hosted on the future.

user249 5y ago

People are misunderstanding decentralization. Sure we can talk about decentralized technology like IFPS, but we should also talk about moving away from centralized governments, banks and legal systems. Decentralization in this context means we can form our own social group, say a commune in the desert or a virtual group online that skirts the old school central organizations and sets up our own. We could conduct our buniness on the blockchain and implement our own enforcement methods. An extreme example of this might be a drug cartel conducting it's transactions on a blockchain and if you don't honor what's on the chain then you get killed.

p4bl0 5y ago
You are kind of proving the point against which you are arguing here. > If you don't honor what's on chain then you get killed. This is exactly the kind of necessary third-party that I'm talking about in my blogpost. You ar not building a decentralized system. You just reinvented a worse centralized system and poorly used supposedly decentralized technology to achieve that.
8note 5y ago
I don't see why the cartel would stay on the chain if somebody scams them on it. It's easier to kill the scammer and ignore the chain
peoplefromibiza 5y ago
> and if you don't honor what's on the chain then you get killed. since the chain itself can't enforce anything, I'd say that for that particular business you only need enough gunpower to decide what "honor" means the blockchain is completely useless

riptheworld 5y ago

I agree that the current NFT ecosystem is a house of cards, e.g., the susceptibility of NFTs to link rot. That being said, I think the ecosystem will evolve to a having a more robust way of handling these things as it matures. For example, rather than only storing a URL that points to the content, perhaps the token could also include a cryptographic hash of the original content? In the case of link rot, the owner could still provide evidence of ownership on the original content by proving that it hashes to the stored value. There are probably better solutions as well (others have mentioned IPFS).

xg15 5y ago
This might have the opposite problem: Suppose you own an NFT of your favourite monkey JPEG. At some point however, browsers drop support for the JPEG image format because it is outdated and has long since been replaced by better formats. Of course you could easily convert the ape JPEG into an ape PNG, except the hash would still only be valid for the JPEG. Suddenly, it starts getting unclear what kind of "ownership" the token really represents: Ownership of the bytes of the JPEG file? The pixels on the screen? The "concept" of an ape with that particular outfit (whatever that should mean)? or just an URL? Maybe you could solve this partially by defining some sort of "transform" operation which is documented on-chain? Something like "If I own token X then I can call external service Y to transform the token - after which, X will be destroyed and I'll own a new, different token Z instead" (i.e. one with the hash of the PNG instead of the JPEG) That still wouldn't solve OP's problem though as that transformation would have to happen off-chain.
- vmception 5y ago
  There are upgradeable contracts (All NFTs are the self-executing code called smart contracts) and the admin key to cause an upgrade can be community governed, even more nuanced approaches such as some variables available to be governed. So upgrading the image data and format could be possible. They typically use a getImage() method, as part of the NFT standards, a setImage() method could be added with the method being set to OnlyOwner, which is just a member level designation seen in other programming languages like JVMs. In EVMs, OnlyOwner can be a collective or its own smart contract controlled by a collective. Depending on the format and size of the image or transformation operation, the transformation could occur onchain. Nodes in a blockchain are just compute instances. I don't see how it matters if such thing occurred onchain or offchain though, as long as the output was written to the setImage method and that fixes the NFT. This is the kind of stuff developers do everyday in other stacks, I get a feeling many developers (who are a big audience on this forum) just haven't looked at the crypto space on the development side because these conversations make little sense.

kderbyma 5y ago

I agree with everything in this article. I do think is a solution though. It's a framing problem and a control problem, but I think there a way to solve a lot of these criticisms. I see one such obvious way

bingbongbing0x 5y ago

The global warming argument is pretty tired. I don't see the same commentators applying their concern for global warming over wasteful pointless """""AI"""" or virtually any other kind of computer work. This essay also reeks of producing a surface level argument without diving in further to actual use cases. Many criticized the early internet for its original uses without seeing the bigger picture. You can sit back on twitter and laugh at people who by all means seem to be having a lot of fun and call them stupid for investing in NFTs but part of the price they are paying is inclusion. Similar to people that blow large amounts of money no beanie babies, magic cards, hello kitty goods and whatever else.

p4bl0 5y ago
Have you read the article? It doesn't even mention global warming.

musicale 5y ago

stamp - potentially usable as postage tulip bulb - can grow a flower with it beanie baby - plush toy painting - you can hang it on your wall pokémon card - can play game with it NFT - grants you a hexagonal profile picture on Twitter