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Nah, man. I work in the space and I was there. NFTs were the second attempt on an earlier idea that had already been discarded as pointless: supply chain manage
by fluoridation 1y ago
Nah, man. I work in the space and I was there. NFTs were the second attempt on an earlier idea that had already been discarded as pointless: supply chain management. The problem with NFTs was the same as with supply chains; there's no link between the blockchain and IRL, so the blockchain doesn't really add anything, just makes things more complicated. NFTs were therefore a tool to part fools from their money right from the start, because they couldn't be anything else.
- UltraSane 1y agoNFTs make more sense as digital signatures.
- SchemaLoad 1y agoThey don't even make sense there. Since you can digitally sign things without blockchains or NFTs.
- UltraSane 1y agoThe blockchain acts like timestamp proving the digital data existed prior to when the block with the hash was mined.
- SchemaLoad 1y agoSure, it does do that. But I can't think of many scenarios where proving something was signed at least at a certain date is particularly useful. Usually when you are signing something you have two parties involved so you can just write the date on the document and if you lie the other party will call it out. NFTs seem like a solution to a non existent problem. Or a problem you have to search really really hard to find.
- ted_dunning 1y agoDigital signatures make a lot more sense as digital signatures. And you can counter-sign the time if you need to prove that.
- blitzar 1y agopgp keys already took care of that 35 years ago
- gonzobonzo 1y agoI remember IBM making huge claims about using the blockchain for supply chain management. For instance[1]: > A recent pilot by KPMG, Merck, Walmart and IBM using blockchain injects new trust into the system by reducing the time it takes to trace prescription drugs from 16 weeks to just two seconds. It was impressive how many people uncritically took these claims as facts. [1] https://www.ibm.com/solutions/blockchain-supply-chain https://www.ibm.com/solutions/blockchain-supply-chain
- dreamcompiler 1y agoA blockchain is the world's slowest database. The idea that a blockchain could speed up anything is laughable.
- fluoridation 1y agoTheoretically, if there could be a 1:1 relationship between events in the real world and events on the blockchain, the idea makes sense. If you had two pieces of a machine represented by objects on the blockchain, and when you combined them into a new component that automatically, cryptographically, created a new object on the blockchain, you could track provenance precisely just by having the final assembled product. The problem is that that relationship doesn't exist and is impossible. If someone wants to tamper with a supply chain, all they need to do is tamper with the real world without letting that reflect on the ledger. And that destroys the entire point of the concept.
- dreamcompiler 1y agoNot to mention companies don't like sharing their supply chain data because they consider it a competitive advantage. Even if they're required to share it by law, many companies are highly motivated to do the tampering you describe.
- wbnns 1y ago> A blockchain is the world's slowest database. It's dependent on how performant the underlying protocol is, not all blockchains are the same.