4 ms·

I think NFTs are foul. But are you implying that awful collector’s items (no matter how speculative and distasteful) should be regulated as securities? What is

I think NFTs are foul. But are you implying that awful collector’s items (no matter how speculative and distasteful) should be regulated as securities? What is the principle there that separates them from physical artworks?

TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
Physical artworks have cultural as well as financial value, as well as intrinsic rarity. There's a unique physical object. At the high end it's likely to be famous and instantly recognisable. If you buy it you get full property rights. You can hide it, show it, sell images of it, or burn it. It's yours in an absolute sense, and you can do whatever you like with it. NFTs sell the right to speculate. The works themselves are not rare or unusual, and NFT owners don't own the work itself. They can't sell copy/use rights in the way a stock photo or clipart library does. All they have is a bet their NFT can be sold to someone else at a profit. So while real art is often used for tax dodges, money laundering, and speculation, the artworks are not usually created for those ends. Nor are other collectibles. NFTs are created solely for speculation. They have no other purpose. The art itself is a thin and not very convincing cover story.
- flappyeagle 4y ago
  These days most fine art is purchased, if not created solely for speculation. Most art by artists famous and obscure sits in dedicated climate controlled warehouses never to be seen by human eyes. It's traded and re-traded without physically moving. They could have been set on fire and no one would know the difference. NFTs are one of the actual reasonable uses of crytpo because it maps so closely to how the art market actually works.
- syntheweave 4y ago
  This critique falls on the line of scapegoating NFTs because there are many examples of physical goods that have varied use, valuation and trade properties. To name two, I can't make derivatives of a Funko Pop collection, and I can buy counterfeit watches. On the end of the artist, real art and NFT art are sold for the same reason: someone wants to buy an idea. The tangibility of the art isn't a clear point for utility, because valuable art comes with complex considerations for its preservation and delivery, and in some cases stays vaulted and traded with certificates, which provides a definite negative utility - nobody sees it, yet you have a whole institution around trading it. Arguments against NFT trade ultimately come from positioning the trade network beneath the state and its regulated mechanisms for speculation, when its existence clearly expresses the opposite: the state exists at the network's convenience. Every prison economy knows this dynamic - horses are traded, abuses are not total.

TheOtherHobbes 4y ago

Physical artworks have cultural as well as financial value, as well as intrinsic rarity. There's a unique physical object. At the high end it's likely to be famous and instantly recognisable. If you buy it you get full property rights. You can hide it, show it, sell images of it, or burn it. It's yours in an absolute sense, and you can do whatever you like with it. NFTs sell the right to speculate. The works themselves are not rare or unusual, and NFT owners don't own the work itself. They can't sell copy/use rights in the way a stock photo or clipart library does. All they have is a bet their NFT can be sold to someone else at a profit. So while real art is often used for tax dodges, money laundering, and speculation, the artworks are not usually created for those ends. Nor are other collectibles. NFTs are created solely for speculation. They have no other purpose. The art itself is a thin and not very convincing cover story.

flappyeagle 4y ago
These days most fine art is purchased, if not created solely for speculation. Most art by artists famous and obscure sits in dedicated climate controlled warehouses never to be seen by human eyes. It's traded and re-traded without physically moving. They could have been set on fire and no one would know the difference. NFTs are one of the actual reasonable uses of crytpo because it maps so closely to how the art market actually works.
syntheweave 4y ago
This critique falls on the line of scapegoating NFTs because there are many examples of physical goods that have varied use, valuation and trade properties. To name two, I can't make derivatives of a Funko Pop collection, and I can buy counterfeit watches. On the end of the artist, real art and NFT art are sold for the same reason: someone wants to buy an idea. The tangibility of the art isn't a clear point for utility, because valuable art comes with complex considerations for its preservation and delivery, and in some cases stays vaulted and traded with certificates, which provides a definite negative utility - nobody sees it, yet you have a whole institution around trading it. Arguments against NFT trade ultimately come from positioning the trade network beneath the state and its regulated mechanisms for speculation, when its existence clearly expresses the opposite: the state exists at the network's convenience. Every prison economy knows this dynamic - horses are traded, abuses are not total.