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Considering they still make up a significant portion of Ethereum’s daily activity, I would say pretty well! The NFTs are “here to stay” as long as Ethereum cont

Considering they still make up a significant portion of Ethereum’s daily activity, I would say pretty well! The NFTs are “here to stay” as long as Ethereum continues to fill blocks, which might be years or decades.

semiquaver 4y ago
FWIW, “a significant portion of Ethereum’s daily activity” doesn’t sound nearly as impressive to people outside the crypto bubble as you seem to think it does, especially those who are aware of the extent to which unregulated wash trading dominates NFT markets, rendering most of this activity imaginary at best and fraudulent at worst. This is a very common trend I see when speaking with cryptocurrency advocates. When asked to point to success stories or real world use cases, 9/10 times the answer is related to some other cryptocurrency scheme: a swaps smart contract or a decentralized market maker, wallet software, etc. It seems like most of the use cases for cryptocurrencies are just more examples of the snake eating its own tail.
- randomran01234 4y ago
  If you view all crypto activity as only imaginary or fraudulent, I doubt either of us will be able to change each other’s minds. The NFTs that artists minted in the boom in early 2021 are still being traded across different platforms, curated in physical exhibitions, indexed and hosted by multiple competing companies, and talked about in online magazines and podcasts. Sales on OpenSea and other platforms continue to pay royalties back to creators and sometimes non profit charities that they set in splits. Hundred-year-old art auction houses are now in competition with open source platforms that take nearly a hundred percent less commission on sales, have a lower barrier to entry, and provide higher artist royalties. Blockchain hasn’t given us flying cars or replaced corporations or whatever boosters say, but it has given us some new tools to imagine transactions and ownership differently than just whatever Stripe is doing.
- CapricornNoble 4y ago
  >>>especially those who are aware of the extent to which unregulated wash trading dominates NFT markets, rendering most of this activity imaginary at best and fraudulent at worst. NFTs are basically a digital variation of the physical art market....with all that that implies, such as money laundering and wash trading: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/29/business/art-money-laundering-sanctions-senate/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/29/business/art-money-launde... While some view the art world with scorn on HN, I don't think it attracts anywhere near as much derision as crypto and NFTs. >>>When asked to point to success stories or real world use cases I use crypto to make micro-loans to a friend in the Philippines, who occasionally runs into cashflow problems with her small used goods business.
  - semiquaver 4y ago
    Thank you for your response. I agree that the art market deserves much more scorn than it receives. Regarding your friend, I’m curious to know how competitive crypto is for your use case. Western union charges about 2% to transfer $5000 from the US to the Philippines and can deposit directly in a bank account. I understand that international wire transfers are comparable. Services like remitly appear to be even cheaper. How does crypto compare in price and convenience?
    - CapricornNoble 4y ago
      >>>Western union charges about 2% to transfer $5000 That is absolute extortion. I sent ~0.05 BTC in May and the transaction fee was 0.067%. Eyeballing the transaction screenshot she sent, she wasn't getting hammered on the exchange rate to pesos either (via coins.ph). There was some KYC involved (sender name/address required to release the funds on her end) that slowed us down a little. It wasn't a requirement several years ago. I bet we could have fed the form fake info but didn't want to risk the funds being frozen, she needed cash in hand in less than 24hrs to purchase new inventory.

semiquaver 4y ago

FWIW, “a significant portion of Ethereum’s daily activity” doesn’t sound nearly as impressive to people outside the crypto bubble as you seem to think it does, especially those who are aware of the extent to which unregulated wash trading dominates NFT markets, rendering most of this activity imaginary at best and fraudulent at worst. This is a very common trend I see when speaking with cryptocurrency advocates. When asked to point to success stories or real world use cases, 9/10 times the answer is related to some other cryptocurrency scheme: a swaps smart contract or a decentralized market maker, wallet software, etc. It seems like most of the use cases for cryptocurrencies are just more examples of the snake eating its own tail.

randomran01234 4y ago
If you view all crypto activity as only imaginary or fraudulent, I doubt either of us will be able to change each other’s minds. The NFTs that artists minted in the boom in early 2021 are still being traded across different platforms, curated in physical exhibitions, indexed and hosted by multiple competing companies, and talked about in online magazines and podcasts. Sales on OpenSea and other platforms continue to pay royalties back to creators and sometimes non profit charities that they set in splits. Hundred-year-old art auction houses are now in competition with open source platforms that take nearly a hundred percent less commission on sales, have a lower barrier to entry, and provide higher artist royalties. Blockchain hasn’t given us flying cars or replaced corporations or whatever boosters say, but it has given us some new tools to imagine transactions and ownership differently than just whatever Stripe is doing.
CapricornNoble 4y ago
>>>especially those who are aware of the extent to which unregulated wash trading dominates NFT markets, rendering most of this activity imaginary at best and fraudulent at worst. NFTs are basically a digital variation of the physical art market....with all that that implies, such as money laundering and wash trading: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/29/business/art-money-laundering-sanctions-senate/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/29/business/art-money-launde... While some view the art world with scorn on HN, I don't think it attracts anywhere near as much derision as crypto and NFTs. >>>When asked to point to success stories or real world use cases I use crypto to make micro-loans to a friend in the Philippines, who occasionally runs into cashflow problems with her small used goods business.
- semiquaver 4y ago
  Thank you for your response. I agree that the art market deserves much more scorn than it receives. Regarding your friend, I’m curious to know how competitive crypto is for your use case. Western union charges about 2% to transfer $5000 from the US to the Philippines and can deposit directly in a bank account. I understand that international wire transfers are comparable. Services like remitly appear to be even cheaper. How does crypto compare in price and convenience?
  - CapricornNoble 4y ago
    >>>Western union charges about 2% to transfer $5000 That is absolute extortion. I sent ~0.05 BTC in May and the transaction fee was 0.067%. Eyeballing the transaction screenshot she sent, she wasn't getting hammered on the exchange rate to pesos either (via coins.ph). There was some KYC involved (sender name/address required to release the funds on her end) that slowed us down a little. It wasn't a requirement several years ago. I bet we could have fed the form fake info but didn't want to risk the funds being frozen, she needed cash in hand in less than 24hrs to purchase new inventory.