6 ms·

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.
  - astrange 3y ago
    People get upset when you do this because storing data on-chain is, possibly, infinitely expensive, since you can never get rid of it.
    - thrwy_918 3y ago
      >since you can never get rid of it if you're an actual believer in NFTs, isn't that kind of the point?
- codetrotter 3y ago
  > 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 The way which they are mapped to images vary from NFT to NFT. But let's look at Bored Ape Yacht Club specifically. Collection https://opensea.io/collection/boredapeyachtclub https://opensea.io/collection/boredapeyachtclub Pick a random bored ape. For example #1337. https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0xbc4ca0eda7647a8ab7c2061c2e118a18a936f13d/1337 https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0xbc4ca0eda7647a8ab7c2061... From there we can see the bored ape Ethereum "smart contract" https://etherscan.io/address/0xbc4ca0eda7647a8ab7c2061c2e118a18a936f13d https://etherscan.io/address/0xbc4ca0eda7647a8ab7c2061c2e118... This contract is responsible for minting all of the original Bored Ape NFTs Click on "contract". And then click "read contract". Scroll down. There is a method named "tokenURI". It takes an integer as parameter. Let's query it with value "1337" (the id of the bored ape we are interested in knowing about). Result: ipfs://QmeSjSinHpPnmXmspMjwiXyN6zS4E9zccariGR3jxcaWtq/1337 Let's visit that URL via an IPFS gateway. https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/QmeSjSinHpPnmXmspMjwiXyN6zS4E9zccariGR3jxcaWtq/1337 https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/QmeSjSinHpPnmXmspMjwiXyN6zS... It contains JSON data. {"image":"ipfs://QmWjXFUVNjavM4hDzXeQYGXGCXjV86mP7kPEaTeP5bohae","attributes":[{"trait_type":"Background","value":"Yellow"},{"trait_type":"Fur","value":"Dark Brown"},{"trait_type":"Clothes","value":"Bone Necklace"},{"trait_type":"Mouth","value":"Bored Unshaven"},{"trait_type":"Hat","value":"Horns"},{"trait_type":"Eyes","value":"Bloodshot"}]} We make note of the IPFS URL for the image from here. ipfs://QmWjXFUVNjavM4hDzXeQYGXGCXjV86mP7kPEaTeP5bohae And visit that one via our chosen IPFS gateway. https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/QmWjXFUVNjavM4hDzXeQYGXGCXjV86mP7kPEaTeP5bohae https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/QmWjXFUVNjavM4hDzXeQYGXGCXj... So there you have it. Via the Bored Ape smart contract we retrieved the JSON data and image file for Bored Ape #1337 from IPFS.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    {"trait_type":"Eyes","value":"Bloodshot"} is a particularly well-chosen example here.
  - qingcharles 3y ago
    Retrieving that image relies on someone continuing to pin the file indefinitely, though, right?
komali2 3y ago
Since finding this out a couple years back it's always my delight to see this realization happen for others. We knew NFTs were stupid... we just couldn't comprehend how incredibly stupid they actually are.
- gryn 3y ago
  What baffling is how did they get this popular ? Plenty of stupid things to go around, why this specific one? Who was the marketing genius that convinced a critical mass to buy something worse than sand in the middle of the desert.
  - anon84873628 3y ago
    At a first level, similar phenomenon to why trading cards or any other collectible fads have their periods of excitement. Is digital beanie babies at all surprising? Then there were also folks who wanted to use them as an open standard for, like, "metaverse assets" and whatnot. And while there are many different ways to solve that technically, you also have the blockchain proponents looking for any problem that blockchain can solve... So there is the added energy from that synergy as well. Then I believe there are fairly serious businesses looking at NFTs for things like digital albums sales (or other ways to cultivate and monetize parasocial relationships) while disintermediating the traditional platforms.
  - turok 3y ago
    My opinion, I am not an expert by any means, I have only read the bitcoin whitepaper and written some very trivial blockchains to further my own understanding: Blockchain and cryptocurrencies are impressive novel technology, they suit how they are used and work as a fungible token/currency. The underlying tech is impressive, like cryptography, and cannot (backdoors excepted) be broken for its intended purpose. Smart people who understand it recognized the potential and validity of the technology, and so it grew organically and became the phenomenon it is today. There is no technical gotcha, scams are another topic. The general public's exposure was much more surface level and occurred after the tech had grown organically among technical folks. Now you pay with your CC on a familiar looking website, to buy something everyone says has value. It seems normal, and although you don't understand the underlying tech, you trust it is valuable. Lots of people get rich, lots of people lose money, but BTC remains valuable and the market remains. My elderly mother who is not technically literate is asking me how to invest. After that, the general public has been conditioned to expect blockchain adjacent tech to be legitimate, they are feeling like they missed the gold rush but there is a new gold rush! NFTs! This time we skip the organic growth of a novel technology, adopted by smart people who understand the underlying tech. Now it is inorganic growth exploiting the crypto hype and pushed by hustlers. There is a legitimate use case for artists but that isn't what is driving the new mania. This time there are massive technical gotchas (you have a link to a .jpg hosted on a server or servers, you don't own the copyright to anything). People find this out after the hype and massive adoption, if BTC never worked for its purpose it wouldn't have grown organically. NFTs have skipped that. There are torrents with every NFT pulled from these servers to highlight the lack of ownership, of technical control, I can't torrent your Bitcoins but I can download your stoned apes. This is a long opinion, but it's why I think you see people find out after the fact just how flaky NFTs are.
quickthrower2 3y ago
It could be. I don't know about the ERC for NFTs and I can't be bothered to read it, but in theory just store the IPFS address for the image. In reality though it is an implementation detail. An NFT is just a coloured coin, and derives it's value from someone else thinking they can buy it and sell it on to someone else / OR some kind of bragging rights value, i.e. I can afford $100k on X useless thing (e.g. watch, gold plated iPhone etc.) so therefore I am rich.
- meepmorp 3y ago
  > I can afford $100k on X useless thing Pretty sure the X useless thing was $44 billion.
csomar 3y ago
No. You just own a number in a smart contract.

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.
- astrange 3y ago
  People get upset when you do this because storing data on-chain is, possibly, infinitely expensive, since you can never get rid of it.
  - thrwy_918 3y ago
    >since you can never get rid of it if you're an actual believer in NFTs, isn't that kind of the point?
codetrotter 3y ago
> 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 The way which they are mapped to images vary from NFT to NFT. But let's look at Bored Ape Yacht Club specifically. Collection https://opensea.io/collection/boredapeyachtclub https://opensea.io/collection/boredapeyachtclub Pick a random bored ape. For example #1337. https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0xbc4ca0eda7647a8ab7c2061c2e118a18a936f13d/1337 https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0xbc4ca0eda7647a8ab7c2061... From there we can see the bored ape Ethereum "smart contract" https://etherscan.io/address/0xbc4ca0eda7647a8ab7c2061c2e118a18a936f13d https://etherscan.io/address/0xbc4ca0eda7647a8ab7c2061c2e118... This contract is responsible for minting all of the original Bored Ape NFTs Click on "contract". And then click "read contract". Scroll down. There is a method named "tokenURI". It takes an integer as parameter. Let's query it with value "1337" (the id of the bored ape we are interested in knowing about). Result: ipfs://QmeSjSinHpPnmXmspMjwiXyN6zS4E9zccariGR3jxcaWtq/1337 Let's visit that URL via an IPFS gateway. https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/QmeSjSinHpPnmXmspMjwiXyN6zS4E9zccariGR3jxcaWtq/1337 https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/QmeSjSinHpPnmXmspMjwiXyN6zS... It contains JSON data. {"image":"ipfs://QmWjXFUVNjavM4hDzXeQYGXGCXjV86mP7kPEaTeP5bohae","attributes":[{"trait_type":"Background","value":"Yellow"},{"trait_type":"Fur","value":"Dark Brown"},{"trait_type":"Clothes","value":"Bone Necklace"},{"trait_type":"Mouth","value":"Bored Unshaven"},{"trait_type":"Hat","value":"Horns"},{"trait_type":"Eyes","value":"Bloodshot"}]} We make note of the IPFS URL for the image from here. ipfs://QmWjXFUVNjavM4hDzXeQYGXGCXjV86mP7kPEaTeP5bohae And visit that one via our chosen IPFS gateway. https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/QmWjXFUVNjavM4hDzXeQYGXGCXjV86mP7kPEaTeP5bohae https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/QmWjXFUVNjavM4hDzXeQYGXGCXj... So there you have it. Via the Bored Ape smart contract we retrieved the JSON data and image file for Bored Ape #1337 from IPFS.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  {"trait_type":"Eyes","value":"Bloodshot"} is a particularly well-chosen example here.
- qingcharles 3y ago
  Retrieving that image relies on someone continuing to pin the file indefinitely, though, right?

komali2 3y ago

Since finding this out a couple years back it's always my delight to see this realization happen for others. We knew NFTs were stupid... we just couldn't comprehend how incredibly stupid they actually are.

gryn 3y ago
What baffling is how did they get this popular ? Plenty of stupid things to go around, why this specific one? Who was the marketing genius that convinced a critical mass to buy something worse than sand in the middle of the desert.
- anon84873628 3y ago
  At a first level, similar phenomenon to why trading cards or any other collectible fads have their periods of excitement. Is digital beanie babies at all surprising? Then there were also folks who wanted to use them as an open standard for, like, "metaverse assets" and whatnot. And while there are many different ways to solve that technically, you also have the blockchain proponents looking for any problem that blockchain can solve... So there is the added energy from that synergy as well. Then I believe there are fairly serious businesses looking at NFTs for things like digital albums sales (or other ways to cultivate and monetize parasocial relationships) while disintermediating the traditional platforms.
- turok 3y ago
  My opinion, I am not an expert by any means, I have only read the bitcoin whitepaper and written some very trivial blockchains to further my own understanding: Blockchain and cryptocurrencies are impressive novel technology, they suit how they are used and work as a fungible token/currency. The underlying tech is impressive, like cryptography, and cannot (backdoors excepted) be broken for its intended purpose. Smart people who understand it recognized the potential and validity of the technology, and so it grew organically and became the phenomenon it is today. There is no technical gotcha, scams are another topic. The general public's exposure was much more surface level and occurred after the tech had grown organically among technical folks. Now you pay with your CC on a familiar looking website, to buy something everyone says has value. It seems normal, and although you don't understand the underlying tech, you trust it is valuable. Lots of people get rich, lots of people lose money, but BTC remains valuable and the market remains. My elderly mother who is not technically literate is asking me how to invest. After that, the general public has been conditioned to expect blockchain adjacent tech to be legitimate, they are feeling like they missed the gold rush but there is a new gold rush! NFTs! This time we skip the organic growth of a novel technology, adopted by smart people who understand the underlying tech. Now it is inorganic growth exploiting the crypto hype and pushed by hustlers. There is a legitimate use case for artists but that isn't what is driving the new mania. This time there are massive technical gotchas (you have a link to a .jpg hosted on a server or servers, you don't own the copyright to anything). People find this out after the hype and massive adoption, if BTC never worked for its purpose it wouldn't have grown organically. NFTs have skipped that. There are torrents with every NFT pulled from these servers to highlight the lack of ownership, of technical control, I can't torrent your Bitcoins but I can download your stoned apes. This is a long opinion, but it's why I think you see people find out after the fact just how flaky NFTs are.

quickthrower2 3y ago

It could be. I don't know about the ERC for NFTs and I can't be bothered to read it, but in theory just store the IPFS address for the image. In reality though it is an implementation detail. An NFT is just a coloured coin, and derives it's value from someone else thinking they can buy it and sell it on to someone else / OR some kind of bragging rights value, i.e. I can afford $100k on X useless thing (e.g. watch, gold plated iPhone etc.) so therefore I am rich.

meepmorp 3y ago
> I can afford $100k on X useless thing Pretty sure the X useless thing was $44 billion.

csomar 3y ago

No. You just own a number in a smart contract.