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NFTs have made a little more sense to me since reading a comment on here or reddit effectively claiming that crypto is easy to get into, but hard to get your mo

NFTs have made a little more sense to me since reading a comment on here or reddit effectively claiming that crypto is easy to get into, but hard to get your money out of. Especially depending on your age or where you live. As a result there's a lot of money floating around the space that people can't effectively extract, so instead they just speculate wildly on whatever they think will increase their virtual hoard. It's just a big game.

golergka 5y ago
NFTs of jpegs are scams. NFTs that are linked to real-world assets (through intermediaries that you have to trust, yes — unlike everybody else on the blockchain) like stock, real estate or anything else are not.
- cj 5y ago
  Can the people downvoting this explain why this comment is not valuable?
  - colinmhayes 5y ago
    Despite originally being called deeds, I have never seen an NFT used to show ownership of a physical asset. Not really sure how well that would work anyway, since usually courts are the final judge of ownership, and when they figure out they can't order NFTs to be transferred they'll just say they don't actually show ownership.
  - thot_experiment 5y ago
    Sure, there's no difference between an NFT of something in the real world and a contract that you write on paper and mutually agree to. If you had the NFT of a jet nationalized by Putin well, you'd still be screwed.
  - SahAssar 5y ago
    Because real world assets already have frameworks governing their ownership, and those frameworks generally do not take NFTs into account. If the NFT actually grants you ownership of something tangible (like stock, IP, real estate, etc.) then to make that legally enforceable you need to also sign a traditional contract which makes the NFT pretty pointless. If I bought your house and in addition to all the legal paperwork you also gave me a handwritten note saying "house is yours now, promise!" do you think I'll care about the handwritten note? If you only gave me the note and not all the normally required paperwork do you think I'd pay you?
    - eric_cc 5y ago
      But in theory, a decentralized framework consisting of smart contracts and NFT’s could work. In such a framework, the NFT would be providing real utility (unlike scammy JPEG NFT’s)
      - SahAssar 5y ago
        In such a framework how would you solve repossession? inheritance? seizure? How would any state authority be able to handle any case where the person supposed to hold the keys either is unwilling or unable to authorize a transaction that should legally go through? If I lost the keys (as in the keys to my blockchain wallet) to the NFT for my house should that plot of land just be abandoned forever? If a company gets hacked and their keys for all their assets (or stock) gets deleted should that company just close down forever even though nothing tangible actually changed? You cannot impose the rules of the blockchain on tangible assets. If your counter argument is to give some institutions the power to rewrite or add unauthorized transactions to the blockchain then you have simply reinvented the state, and lost all of the properties of a blockchain that make them interesting/valuable.
        eric_cc 5y ago
        You raise great points and I don’t have all the answers. But I don’t believe it’s impossible to achieve such a framework given the time to work out issues like those you’ve described. > you have simply reinvented the state If you could reinvent the state so that it is predictable, testable, and not subject to human corruption then I’d say it’s a good thing! And also quite the experiment haha
  - czzr 5y ago
    Hard to say since it’s a short comment, but an NFT of a stock is worthless without some other mechanism to enforce ownership, at which point why do you need the NFT?
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > NFTs that are linked to real-world assets (through intermediaries that you have to trust, yes — unlike everybody else on the blockchain) like stock, real estate or anything else are not. Do those actually exist, or are they just a fairy tale to hype NFTs? Also, even if they do exist, they probably demonstrate a particular kind of confusion that's often used to hype cryptocurrency-type things: there may be a link to the crypto-space, but it's entirely superfluous and all the real work is being done by a traditional non-crypto mechanisms.
- kerkeslager 5y ago
  I agree with you in principle, but if you're trusting an intermediary, then I struggle to see what doing this on the blockchain adds. If I'm going to trust a centralized entity to buy and hold land for me, then it seems like I'd want to go with a trustworthy centralized entity, rather than some new organization that was created to operate on the blockchain. I think a better use-case for NFTs for now is as as keys, i.e. early investors to a project are granted a limited number of NFTs, which then allow them preferential access to later high-APR investments or whatever. This is a somewhat niche use case, but at least it's all on-chain and trustless.
- SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
  > NFTs that are linked to real-world assets (through intermediaries that you have to trust That makes the NFT redundant.
  - golergka 5y ago
    The point is interacting with them via smart contracts and other blockchain tools. Done correctly, NFTs are simply an API from real world to the blockchain.
    - SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
      What's the relevant value of putting your house on the blockchain?
  - silverlake 5y ago
    I paid intermediaries $10k to transfer a house title to me. Took a few weeks and many contracts. I agree NFTs are silly, but real world systems need to improve quickly.
    - SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
      But is applying a blockchain the answer? What happens if someone steals your wallet or you lose it or the password to it? What happens if someone dies without giving someone access to their wallet? Do those lots now sit vacant? Sure, there's some legal cruft around this, but much of that cruft is actually there for a reason.
    - tablespoon 5y ago
      > I paid intermediaries $10k to transfer a house title to me. Took a few weeks and many contracts. I'm pretty sure you didn't pay that for the transfer of the house title. Most of that was for other stuff that happened around the same time, like getting a mortgage and having your lender make sure they're not going to be left holding the bag. https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/mortgages/closing-costs-mortgage-fees-explained https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/mortgages/closing-costs-m...

golergka 5y ago

NFTs of jpegs are scams. NFTs that are linked to real-world assets (through intermediaries that you have to trust, yes — unlike everybody else on the blockchain) like stock, real estate or anything else are not.

cj 5y ago
Can the people downvoting this explain why this comment is not valuable?
- colinmhayes 5y ago
  Despite originally being called deeds, I have never seen an NFT used to show ownership of a physical asset. Not really sure how well that would work anyway, since usually courts are the final judge of ownership, and when they figure out they can't order NFTs to be transferred they'll just say they don't actually show ownership.
- thot_experiment 5y ago
  Sure, there's no difference between an NFT of something in the real world and a contract that you write on paper and mutually agree to. If you had the NFT of a jet nationalized by Putin well, you'd still be screwed.
- SahAssar 5y ago
  Because real world assets already have frameworks governing their ownership, and those frameworks generally do not take NFTs into account. If the NFT actually grants you ownership of something tangible (like stock, IP, real estate, etc.) then to make that legally enforceable you need to also sign a traditional contract which makes the NFT pretty pointless. If I bought your house and in addition to all the legal paperwork you also gave me a handwritten note saying "house is yours now, promise!" do you think I'll care about the handwritten note? If you only gave me the note and not all the normally required paperwork do you think I'd pay you?
  - eric_cc 5y ago
    But in theory, a decentralized framework consisting of smart contracts and NFT’s could work. In such a framework, the NFT would be providing real utility (unlike scammy JPEG NFT’s)
    - SahAssar 5y ago
      In such a framework how would you solve repossession? inheritance? seizure? How would any state authority be able to handle any case where the person supposed to hold the keys either is unwilling or unable to authorize a transaction that should legally go through? If I lost the keys (as in the keys to my blockchain wallet) to the NFT for my house should that plot of land just be abandoned forever? If a company gets hacked and their keys for all their assets (or stock) gets deleted should that company just close down forever even though nothing tangible actually changed? You cannot impose the rules of the blockchain on tangible assets. If your counter argument is to give some institutions the power to rewrite or add unauthorized transactions to the blockchain then you have simply reinvented the state, and lost all of the properties of a blockchain that make them interesting/valuable.
      - eric_cc 5y ago
        You raise great points and I don’t have all the answers. But I don’t believe it’s impossible to achieve such a framework given the time to work out issues like those you’ve described. > you have simply reinvented the state If you could reinvent the state so that it is predictable, testable, and not subject to human corruption then I’d say it’s a good thing! And also quite the experiment haha
- czzr 5y ago
  Hard to say since it’s a short comment, but an NFT of a stock is worthless without some other mechanism to enforce ownership, at which point why do you need the NFT?
tablespoon 5y ago
> NFTs that are linked to real-world assets (through intermediaries that you have to trust, yes — unlike everybody else on the blockchain) like stock, real estate or anything else are not. Do those actually exist, or are they just a fairy tale to hype NFTs? Also, even if they do exist, they probably demonstrate a particular kind of confusion that's often used to hype cryptocurrency-type things: there may be a link to the crypto-space, but it's entirely superfluous and all the real work is being done by a traditional non-crypto mechanisms.
kerkeslager 5y ago
I agree with you in principle, but if you're trusting an intermediary, then I struggle to see what doing this on the blockchain adds. If I'm going to trust a centralized entity to buy and hold land for me, then it seems like I'd want to go with a trustworthy centralized entity, rather than some new organization that was created to operate on the blockchain. I think a better use-case for NFTs for now is as as keys, i.e. early investors to a project are granted a limited number of NFTs, which then allow them preferential access to later high-APR investments or whatever. This is a somewhat niche use case, but at least it's all on-chain and trustless.
SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
> NFTs that are linked to real-world assets (through intermediaries that you have to trust That makes the NFT redundant.
- golergka 5y ago
  The point is interacting with them via smart contracts and other blockchain tools. Done correctly, NFTs are simply an API from real world to the blockchain.
  - SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
    What's the relevant value of putting your house on the blockchain?
- silverlake 5y ago
  I paid intermediaries $10k to transfer a house title to me. Took a few weeks and many contracts. I agree NFTs are silly, but real world systems need to improve quickly.
  - SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
    But is applying a blockchain the answer? What happens if someone steals your wallet or you lose it or the password to it? What happens if someone dies without giving someone access to their wallet? Do those lots now sit vacant? Sure, there's some legal cruft around this, but much of that cruft is actually there for a reason.
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > I paid intermediaries $10k to transfer a house title to me. Took a few weeks and many contracts. I'm pretty sure you didn't pay that for the transfer of the house title. Most of that was for other stuff that happened around the same time, like getting a mortgage and having your lender make sure they're not going to be left holding the bag. https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/mortgages/closing-costs-mortgage-fees-explained https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/mortgages/closing-costs-m...