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This is a pretty weak piece. > Your wallet (MetaMask), marketplaces (OpenSea), APIs (Alchemy) are all central platforms. The whole point of the blockchain as

by nl 5y ago

This is a pretty weak piece. > Your wallet (MetaMask), marketplaces (OpenSea), APIs (Alchemy) are all central platforms. The whole point of the blockchain as a decentralized database idea is that people are free (in the "you don't need permission" sense) to build on it. Just because OpenSea is a popular interface for trading NFTs it doesn't mean you can't also trade those same NFTs elsewhere. And your wallet isn't "centralized" at all. Just because MetaMask happens to be implememented using a server doesn't mean you can't export your seed phrase and import it into (eg) TrustWallet and use that instead or as well. > And if Web3 is “decentralized”, then why can OpenSea take away your NFTs? Now the Moxie piece[1] on the other hand (which was linked here) is a _great_ criticism by someone who actually bothered to understand what he was doing. And if you actually _read_ the piece you'll notice that the NFT wasn't taken away at all: it was delisted on OpenSea, and their API stopped returning it. Moxie's criticisms of the dependency on APIs for performance are well balanced and completely valid here. But the original piece too away all the subtle of Moxie's piece and turned it into just another boring Web3 hit piece. [1] https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html

everfree 5y ago
> And your wallet isn't "centralized" at all. Just because MetaMask happens to be implememented using a server doesn't mean you can't export your seed phrase and import it into (eg) TrustWallet and use that instead or as well. It's not even that. Metamask defaults to using a particular server, but you can set it to anything you want to in Settings. The original post is just wrong. Aside from the default set for convenience, Metamask isagnostic to whether you want to plug it into a centralized or decentralized API service. If you choose to run a local Ethereum node, Metamask even has a default already set in the Networks dropdown list. This feels like yet another article trying to paint broad ideological strokes about Web3 without grasping any nuance.
- nl 5y ago
  > The original post is just wrong. Aside from the default set for convenience, Metamask isagnostic to whether you want to plug it into a centralized or decentralized API service. This is all true! But I think Metamask only uses the OpenSea API for displaying NFTs (at least I haven't been able to find a setting for it). That was raised in the Moxie piece, which explained a lot more about the design decisions that went into this: "What I found most interesting, though, is that after OpenSea removed my NFT, it also no longer appeared in any crypto wallet on my device.... MetaMask accomplishes this by making API calls... what other option do they have?" I think this is a valid criticism because it is balanced and nuanced. But you are right that the linked article missed all this.

by nl 5y ago

everfree 5y ago

> And your wallet isn't "centralized" at all. Just because MetaMask happens to be implememented using a server doesn't mean you can't export your seed phrase and import it into (eg) TrustWallet and use that instead or as well. It's not even that. Metamask defaults to using a particular server, but you can set it to anything you want to in Settings. The original post is just wrong. Aside from the default set for convenience, Metamask isagnostic to whether you want to plug it into a centralized or decentralized API service. If you choose to run a local Ethereum node, Metamask even has a default already set in the Networks dropdown list. This feels like yet another article trying to paint broad ideological strokes about Web3 without grasping any nuance.

nl 5y ago
> The original post is just wrong. Aside from the default set for convenience, Metamask isagnostic to whether you want to plug it into a centralized or decentralized API service. This is all true! But I think Metamask only uses the OpenSea API for displaying NFTs (at least I haven't been able to find a setting for it). That was raised in the Moxie piece, which explained a lot more about the design decisions that went into this: "What I found most interesting, though, is that after OpenSea removed my NFT, it also no longer appeared in any crypto wallet on my device.... MetaMask accomplishes this by making API calls... what other option do they have?" I think this is a valid criticism because it is balanced and nuanced. But you are right that the linked article missed all this.