Maybe this is too "get off my lawn", but can someone explain how owning an expensive NFT is any different than owning pets.com, etoys.com or any other of the dot com bubble domains? There's...
Maybe this is too "get off my lawn", but can someone explain how owning an expensive NFT is any different than owning pets.com, etoys.com or any other of the dot com bubble domains?
There's nothing non-fungible about the underlying asset of an NFT -- the only thing you're banking on is that somehow in the future people will care about the one that has been tokenized on X blockchain. I guess that's conceivable, but not to the extent of which some of these are selling for.
Same question goes for any "original" of easily reproduced art: certain photographic prints, sculptures or installations that are actually sold in the form of instructions for the gallery (e.g. a...
Same question goes for any "original" of easily reproduced art: certain photographic prints, sculptures or installations that are actually sold in the form of instructions for the gallery (e.g. a banana stuck to the wall), even fine art paintings that can't necessarily be separated from high quality counterfeits.
NFTs are just another way of stamping that piece of art as authentic, and they happen to be the first I'm aware of that work with purely digital work. It's less caring about the specific blockchain, more caring that the artist cared about the specific blockchain. I don't see this as any different to a signature, or an agreement to only produce one print run, or Banksy's torn-in-half banknotes.
Of course, the question of what authenticity means in the art world, and how that impacts price, is a whole other thing that I have trouble getting my head around at the best of times.
I'm guessing that it shows you have money to burn (bragging rights), but actually the money goes to support the artist. Not that this artist needs more support. Exactly which gimmick is involved...
I'm guessing that it shows you have money to burn (bragging rights), but actually the money goes to support the artist. Not that this artist needs more support.
Exactly which gimmick is involved probably doesn't matter too much?
There's a bit of a wrinkle now where bots are now crawling Twitter to make an NFT of posted art that are being sold without the artist's input. Is this theft since it's a unique item? Copyright...
There's a bit of a wrinkle now where bots are now crawling Twitter to make an NFT of posted art that are being sold without the artist's input. Is this theft since it's a unique item? Copyright infringement as it's digitally automated? Or just a gold rush on declaring things valuable, thingmaker be dammed?
Looks like John Cleese is selling the Brooklyn Bridge too. Double-spend fail. https://opensea.io/assets/0x9201a886740d193e315f1f1b2b193321d6701d07/1021
Beeple NFT Sells For $69.3 Million, Becoming Most-Expensive Ever This is getting more ridiculous. The last sale for ~$6 million was believed to be a money laundering scheme to transfer value out...
This is getting more ridiculous. The last sale for ~$6 million was believed to be a money laundering scheme to transfer value out of the bitcoin bubble. This latest sale seems to be riding the hype train of NFTs, but also calls into question whether these are truly a store of value.
Beeple creates art for free every day for the past 13 years, so what is the true value of his art? Is art just an investment vehicle for the rich?
What is the true value of Rhein II? It's available to us all for free at that link. I can order a high quality print for a few dollars, but the original sold for $4.3m. I'm not being facetious - I...
Beeple creates art for free every day for the past 13 years, so what is the true value of his art?
What is the true value of Rhein II? It's available to us all for free at that link. I can order a high quality print for a few dollars, but the original sold for $4.3m.
I'm not being facetious - I seriously struggle with the concept of value in situations like this - but if there's extra value in a copy printed by the artist compared to a copy printed by the museum gift shop, then surely there's the same value disparity between an NFT minted by the artist and a copy I downloaded from Twitter. I'd be genuinely interested to hear opinions to the contrary!
I think this is going to come down to the extremely old argument of value vs worth (and their variations) and the constant use of both interchangeably despite them being different.
I think this is going to come down to the extremely old argument of value vs worth (and their variations) and the constant use of both interchangeably despite them being different.
I think you're right, and I kind of hope it does come down to an old argument: that would be another bit of reinforcement for the idea that NFTs aren't something fundamentally new and different,...
I think you're right, and I kind of hope it does come down to an old argument: that would be another bit of reinforcement for the idea that NFTs aren't something fundamentally new and different, they're just bringing old physical concepts into the digital world.
I own a limited print of this serigraph valued at over $1,200. However, I came into possession of this artwork because someone in NYC abandoned it in my building lobby as they moved out of their...
I own a limited print of this serigraph valued at over $1,200. However, I came into possession of this artwork because someone in NYC abandoned it in my building lobby as they moved out of their apartment (they didn't want to take it with them).
My version does not come with a certificate of authenticity, but you can see the handwritten autograph of the artist and print number, so I don't have reason to believe it's a forgery (it doesn't seem worth the trouble). After market sales for similar works by the artist go for ~$400-500. My old roommate and I had to make an auction between ourselves on who would keep it long term as well.
So how much is my copy worth? The market price it sells for with a certificate of authenticity? The after market price? What my roommate and I auctioned it at? Whatever anyone is willing to buy it for? Nothing? It was abandoned, after all...
If the certificate of authenticity is essentially an NFT in this scenario, it seems the art has inherit value, but an NFT should only be a modest multiplyer of that value (not the extreme orders of magnitude difference we're seeing on these digital art pieces).
I think it's an interesting subject, and the movie Certified Copy (2010) meditates on the intrinsic value of art and what it means to be authentic, for those who wish to explore this idea more.
It's an interesting one, isn't it? I'll have to check out that film, I haven't come across it before and I do enjoy the philosophical strangeness of this kind of thing. As for the multiplier, I'd...
It's an interesting one, isn't it? I'll have to check out that film, I haven't come across it before and I do enjoy the philosophical strangeness of this kind of thing.
As for the multiplier, I'd be looking at the difference between a common poster print vs an original "touched" by the artist. It gets even fuzzier when there are details beyond the NFT (or CoA) that can authenticate a piece, like a signature or even the physical details of the medium, because then you're deciding between definitely original and probably original, rather than definitely original and definitely not. (All subject to the kind of generally accepted understanding of originality!)
Certified Copy is one of my favorites. It also delves into relationships, love, and who we project ourselves to be. Are we the thoughts inside us, or the way we express ourselves to others? Does...
Certified Copy is one of my favorites. It also delves into relationships, love, and who we project ourselves to be. Are we the thoughts inside us, or the way we express ourselves to others? Does it matter? Lots of good philosophy to chew on.
There’s another movie, The Square (2017), that delves more into the question of what is art? If art’s purpose is to evoke emotion in the viewer, what separates art from reality? Does life imitate art, or the other way around? In the film a museum director grapples with post-modernism and the search for meaning in both art and life. Very meta, and tongue-in-cheek.
A suspicious person might wonder if Beeple is somehow collaborating with anonymous crypto people to drive prices up and thereby promote NFT. That is, maybe he quietly gives some of the money back?...
A suspicious person might wonder if Beeple is somehow collaborating with anonymous crypto people to drive prices up and thereby promote NFT. That is, maybe he quietly gives some of the money back? Since payment is in ETH it seems like it wouldn’t be that hard to do?
Maybe this is too "get off my lawn", but can someone explain how owning an expensive NFT is any different than owning pets.com, etoys.com or any other of the dot com bubble domains?
There's nothing non-fungible about the underlying asset of an NFT -- the only thing you're banking on is that somehow in the future people will care about the one that has been tokenized on X blockchain. I guess that's conceivable, but not to the extent of which some of these are selling for.
Same question goes for any "original" of easily reproduced art: certain photographic prints, sculptures or installations that are actually sold in the form of instructions for the gallery (e.g. a banana stuck to the wall), even fine art paintings that can't necessarily be separated from high quality counterfeits.
NFTs are just another way of stamping that piece of art as authentic, and they happen to be the first I'm aware of that work with purely digital work. It's less caring about the specific blockchain, more caring that the artist cared about the specific blockchain. I don't see this as any different to a signature, or an agreement to only produce one print run, or Banksy's torn-in-half banknotes.
Of course, the question of what authenticity means in the art world, and how that impacts price, is a whole other thing that I have trouble getting my head around at the best of times.
I'm guessing that it shows you have money to burn (bragging rights), but actually the money goes to support the artist. Not that this artist needs more support.
Exactly which gimmick is involved probably doesn't matter too much?
There's a bit of a wrinkle now where bots are now crawling Twitter to make an NFT of posted art that are being sold without the artist's input. Is this theft since it's a unique item? Copyright infringement as it's digitally automated? Or just a gold rush on declaring things valuable, thingmaker be dammed?
Grifters hopping on a trend that has meme potential. Is there an NFT for the Brooklyn Bridge yet?
Apparently there is. (Via Matt Levine.)
Looks like John Cleese is selling the Brooklyn Bridge too. Double-spend fail.
https://opensea.io/assets/0x9201a886740d193e315f1f1b2b193321d6701d07/1021
Beeple NFT Sells For $69.3 Million, Becoming Most-Expensive Ever
This is getting more ridiculous. The last sale for ~$6 million was believed to be a money laundering scheme to transfer value out of the bitcoin bubble. This latest sale seems to be riding the hype train of NFTs, but also calls into question whether these are truly a store of value.
Beeple creates art for free every day for the past 13 years, so what is the true value of his art? Is art just an investment vehicle for the rich?
What is the true value of Rhein II? It's available to us all for free at that link. I can order a high quality print for a few dollars, but the original sold for $4.3m.
I'm not being facetious - I seriously struggle with the concept of value in situations like this - but if there's extra value in a copy printed by the artist compared to a copy printed by the museum gift shop, then surely there's the same value disparity between an NFT minted by the artist and a copy I downloaded from Twitter. I'd be genuinely interested to hear opinions to the contrary!
I think this is going to come down to the extremely old argument of value vs worth (and their variations) and the constant use of both interchangeably despite them being different.
I think you're right, and I kind of hope it does come down to an old argument: that would be another bit of reinforcement for the idea that NFTs aren't something fundamentally new and different, they're just bringing old physical concepts into the digital world.
I own a limited print of this serigraph valued at over $1,200. However, I came into possession of this artwork because someone in NYC abandoned it in my building lobby as they moved out of their apartment (they didn't want to take it with them).
My version does not come with a certificate of authenticity, but you can see the handwritten autograph of the artist and print number, so I don't have reason to believe it's a forgery (it doesn't seem worth the trouble). After market sales for similar works by the artist go for ~$400-500. My old roommate and I had to make an auction between ourselves on who would keep it long term as well.
So how much is my copy worth? The market price it sells for with a certificate of authenticity? The after market price? What my roommate and I auctioned it at? Whatever anyone is willing to buy it for? Nothing? It was abandoned, after all...
If the certificate of authenticity is essentially an NFT in this scenario, it seems the art has inherit value, but an NFT should only be a modest multiplyer of that value (not the extreme orders of magnitude difference we're seeing on these digital art pieces).
I think it's an interesting subject, and the movie Certified Copy (2010) meditates on the intrinsic value of art and what it means to be authentic, for those who wish to explore this idea more.
It's an interesting one, isn't it? I'll have to check out that film, I haven't come across it before and I do enjoy the philosophical strangeness of this kind of thing.
As for the multiplier, I'd be looking at the difference between a common poster print vs an original "touched" by the artist. It gets even fuzzier when there are details beyond the NFT (or CoA) that can authenticate a piece, like a signature or even the physical details of the medium, because then you're deciding between definitely original and probably original, rather than definitely original and definitely not. (All subject to the kind of generally accepted understanding of originality!)
Certified Copy is one of my favorites. It also delves into relationships, love, and who we project ourselves to be. Are we the thoughts inside us, or the way we express ourselves to others? Does it matter? Lots of good philosophy to chew on.
There’s another movie, The Square (2017), that delves more into the question of what is art? If art’s purpose is to evoke emotion in the viewer, what separates art from reality? Does life imitate art, or the other way around? In the film a museum director grapples with post-modernism and the search for meaning in both art and life. Very meta, and tongue-in-cheek.
A suspicious person might wonder if Beeple is somehow collaborating with anonymous crypto people to drive prices up and thereby promote NFT. That is, maybe he quietly gives some of the money back? Since payment is in ETH it seems like it wouldn’t be that hard to do?