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After I learned that NFTs were essentially just signed git commits, I wrote them off as a hilarious grift. I feel bad for the people that were injured, so here'

After I learned that NFTs were essentially just signed git commits, I wrote them off as a hilarious grift. I feel bad for the people that were injured, so here's my advice: run away from NFTs and crypto. RUN AWAY!

Yadayadaaaa 3y ago
Hey! i mean you own that commit hash! and you can show it to others through an ipfs link! So basically ipfs won?! or lost?!
- yieldcrv 3y ago
  the worst were one that didn't even host on IPFS, they used their own domain names
yieldcrv 3y ago
essentially. a whole industry cropped up around hosting them, which mostly defeats the point there are a lot of NFTs that are better implementations, the primary improvement being that there is no external hosting and they build the visual data into the smart contract function for a renderer to interpret Ive done a lot with SVGs that way. others upload dependendies like three.js on the blockchain in other smart contracts, so when called they can return into yours and you have more sophisticated renders I think artblocks does something like that, not sure Most of the financial sector NFTs have an onchain svg too, like all the Uniswap liquidity pools first movers are often poorer implementations of the technology, its up to the consumers to discern and if they dont then there is no incentive to act differently
- LelouBil 3y ago
  This whole smart contract stuff looks very interesting. Do you have resources for someone that only know the basics of cryptocurrencies and blockchains ?
  - yieldcrv 3y ago
    build some EVM (ethereum virtual machine) scaffolding in a local environment at https://scaffoldeth.io/ https://scaffoldeth.io/
Akronymus 3y ago
Not even a signed git commit. But rather, a signed receipt that says you paid for the nft.
- simpsond 3y ago
  It’s actually a mapping between an unsigned integer and public key, stored on all nodes. It only requires a signature to persist the state change.
astrange 3y ago
A signed git commit is actually immutable. An NFT is generally the signed text of a URL, which kind of isn't.
- LelouBil 3y ago
  Wait what, I thought it was at least the hash of the image or something.
  - matteoraso 3y ago
    No, NFTs technically have nothing to do with images, or files at all. The way it works is that you write a random string and save it on a blockchain, which becomes the NFT. From there, you can use a lookup table to map the NFT to a URL that links to an image that's stored on the owner's server. NFTs are truly the worst of all grifts.
    - thrwy_918 3y ago
      AFAIK it is often perfectly possible to actually encode image data on-chain, it is just much more expensive (and much less common as a result)
      - TaylorAlexander 3y ago
        Perhaps but the standard NFT is a URL encoded in the chain. Yes this is as absurd as it sounds.
        wyldfire 3y ago
        It seems to me that cryptocoin adjacent things somehow attract well meaning people who just don't understand what parts of the technology are critical to its functionality. Maybe they understand one use case for a signature but don't really understand what signature is and more importantly what it isn't. And sadly enough - several cryptocoins themselves are also this way. I used to think cryptocoins were truly revolutionary. But the tech space is so rife with abuse, theft, scams that it doesn't feel worth it.
GuB-42 3y ago
Yep, git is essentially a blockchain. NFTs but also all cryptocurrency transactions are essentially git commits containing a digital signature from the owner (to prove ownership), what the owner is transacting, and the public key of the receiver. Sometimes it is a bit more complicated, there may be some instructions others than "I am A, send the X to B", but that's the idea. The big difference between git and a blockchain like Bitcoin and Ethereum is how you do "pull requests". On git, usually, there is a designated central repository that is controlled by project maintainers, and when you submit a pull request, they check it, merge it to central, and others get it back from here. With blockchains, there is no designated central repository, to merge a pull request, you have to win a sort of lottery, commonly by reversing a crypto hash (mining). The more invested you are into the system, the higher the odds. If you win, you show it to the the world, do the merge, and everyone pulls from you. By randomly selecting who does the pull among the most invested limits the chance of one bad actor ruining the system for everyone. In case of a conflict, the branch with the most commits wins, because that's the one with the most "lottery winners" and therefore the most likely to be the right one. To encourage others to merge that pull request, there is usually a reward for those who do (transaction fees). Technically, it is very sound, just like git is, in a sense. The "proof-of-work" lottery is wasteful in electricity though, and of course, what you do with it is another matter. Just like git can be used for good (ex: linux) or for bad (ex: developing malware).

Yadayadaaaa 3y ago

Hey! i mean you own that commit hash! and you can show it to others through an ipfs link! So basically ipfs won?! or lost?!

yieldcrv 3y ago
the worst were one that didn't even host on IPFS, they used their own domain names

yieldcrv 3y ago

essentially. a whole industry cropped up around hosting them, which mostly defeats the point there are a lot of NFTs that are better implementations, the primary improvement being that there is no external hosting and they build the visual data into the smart contract function for a renderer to interpret Ive done a lot with SVGs that way. others upload dependendies like three.js on the blockchain in other smart contracts, so when called they can return into yours and you have more sophisticated renders I think artblocks does something like that, not sure Most of the financial sector NFTs have an onchain svg too, like all the Uniswap liquidity pools first movers are often poorer implementations of the technology, its up to the consumers to discern and if they dont then there is no incentive to act differently

LelouBil 3y ago
This whole smart contract stuff looks very interesting. Do you have resources for someone that only know the basics of cryptocurrencies and blockchains ?
- yieldcrv 3y ago
  build some EVM (ethereum virtual machine) scaffolding in a local environment at https://scaffoldeth.io/ https://scaffoldeth.io/

Akronymus 3y ago

Not even a signed git commit. But rather, a signed receipt that says you paid for the nft.

simpsond 3y ago
It’s actually a mapping between an unsigned integer and public key, stored on all nodes. It only requires a signature to persist the state change.

astrange 3y ago

A signed git commit is actually immutable. An NFT is generally the signed text of a URL, which kind of isn't.

LelouBil 3y ago
Wait what, I thought it was at least the hash of the image or something.
- matteoraso 3y ago
  No, NFTs technically have nothing to do with images, or files at all. The way it works is that you write a random string and save it on a blockchain, which becomes the NFT. From there, you can use a lookup table to map the NFT to a URL that links to an image that's stored on the owner's server. NFTs are truly the worst of all grifts.
  - thrwy_918 3y ago
    AFAIK it is often perfectly possible to actually encode image data on-chain, it is just much more expensive (and much less common as a result)
    - TaylorAlexander 3y ago
      Perhaps but the standard NFT is a URL encoded in the chain. Yes this is as absurd as it sounds.
      - wyldfire 3y ago
        It seems to me that cryptocoin adjacent things somehow attract well meaning people who just don't understand what parts of the technology are critical to its functionality. Maybe they understand one use case for a signature but don't really understand what signature is and more importantly what it isn't. And sadly enough - several cryptocoins themselves are also this way. I used to think cryptocoins were truly revolutionary. But the tech space is so rife with abuse, theft, scams that it doesn't feel worth it.

GuB-42 3y ago

Yep, git is essentially a blockchain. NFTs but also all cryptocurrency transactions are essentially git commits containing a digital signature from the owner (to prove ownership), what the owner is transacting, and the public key of the receiver. Sometimes it is a bit more complicated, there may be some instructions others than "I am A, send the X to B", but that's the idea. The big difference between git and a blockchain like Bitcoin and Ethereum is how you do "pull requests". On git, usually, there is a designated central repository that is controlled by project maintainers, and when you submit a pull request, they check it, merge it to central, and others get it back from here. With blockchains, there is no designated central repository, to merge a pull request, you have to win a sort of lottery, commonly by reversing a crypto hash (mining). The more invested you are into the system, the higher the odds. If you win, you show it to the the world, do the merge, and everyone pulls from you. By randomly selecting who does the pull among the most invested limits the chance of one bad actor ruining the system for everyone. In case of a conflict, the branch with the most commits wins, because that's the one with the most "lottery winners" and therefore the most likely to be the right one. To encourage others to merge that pull request, there is usually a reward for those who do (transaction fees). Technically, it is very sound, just like git is, in a sense. The "proof-of-work" lottery is wasteful in electricity though, and of course, what you do with it is another matter. Just like git can be used for good (ex: linux) or for bad (ex: developing malware).