I heavily agree. A marketplace being hacked is something you can't do anything about, but social media getting hacked? You just need to get the word out for people to be wary, the more people know...
I heavily agree. A marketplace being hacked is something you can't do anything about, but social media getting hacked? You just need to get the word out for people to be wary, the more people know the better. It's an important distinction.
Is there a reason why NFT isn't being used for copyright wrt blogs, recipes, articles, etc. Stored in a cold wallet, it seems like an excellent way to track these sorts of assets.
Is there a reason why NFT isn't being used for copyright wrt blogs, recipes, articles, etc. Stored in a cold wallet, it seems like an excellent way to track these sorts of assets.
some do, but I made a free joke one at mintable.app. It had to have a minimum value of $150. But really, why isn't it a $20/yr or whatever service where you can mint unlimited text based NFTs, not...
some do, but I made a free joke one at mintable.app. It had to have a minimum value of $150.
But really, why isn't it a $20/yr or whatever service where you can mint unlimited text based NFTs, not for resale, but purely as a record of ownership or, in the case of sale, transaction?
I'm speculating based on zero knowledge here, but if your blog gets plagiarised, is proving yourself as the original owner the hard part of that process? I imagine the hard part is tracking down...
I'm speculating based on zero knowledge here, but if your blog gets plagiarised, is proving yourself as the original owner the hard part of that process? I imagine the hard part is tracking down the copyright infringer to serve them the papers.
I also (again, speculating) don't see long-term recording as a big priority there. How often does a years-old article get stolen? I doubt the cost of minting on a blockchain is worth it if old content makes up (for example) 1% of all cases of theft.
I definitely wouldn’t describe myself as “pro”, but I do find them kind of fascinating for a few reasons (all links to previous threads): They’re a much more complex and flexible class of...
I definitely wouldn’t describe myself as “pro”, but I do find them kind of fascinating for a few reasons (all links to previous threads):
They’re a much more complex and flexible class of technology than the usual “overpriced jpeg” use would suggest
The fine art market is alreadyinsane, and buying jpegs is in no way fundamentally stranger
So yeah, bored apes are probably just environmentally damaging beanie babies, and maybe the whole industry will come to nothing - but the weird part isn’t new and the new part isn’t weird.
Each of the interesting parts (which I also find interesting) has the one caveat: The blockchain is just a distributed ledger, which tracks your ownership of the jpeg. I didn't think I was...
Each of the interesting parts (which I also find interesting) has the one caveat:
They’re a much more complex and flexible class of technology than the usual “overpriced jpeg” use would suggest
The blockchain is just a distributed ledger, which tracks your ownership of the jpeg.
They have some genuine potential for decentralised record keeping
I didn't think I was repeating myself, but the blockchain is just a distributed ledger
The fine art market is already insane, and buying jpegs is in no way fundamentally stranger
The art market is a horrible mess, and we've managed to make the digital equivalent, except using art that is not bound by physical scarcity. We've made the status of ownership more important than the piece, and it is definitely not about the art at this point.
I don't mean any of these as gotchas or owns, but insofar as I am interested in crypto and NFTs, I'm similarly interested, but I also don't think the originating technologies are the best use of these systems.
I don’t think I really follow why those are caveats? Maybe it’s that I’m too attached to thinking of NFTs in the semantic technical sense (a token that isn’t identical to other tokens) rather than...
I don’t think I really follow why those are caveats? Maybe it’s that I’m too attached to thinking of NFTs in the semantic technical sense (a token that isn’t identical to other tokens) rather than the more culturally loaded meaning that’s grown up around them.
To the first point, the fact that a given blockchain can be a ledger for many unique and interesting things, not to mention interactions with code and functionality, rather than just a ledger for total balances of identical coins (i.e. bitcoin) is facilitated by the fact that tokens can be made distinguishable. Identifiable (non fungible) tokens are part of what makes complex blockchain functionality possible, and saying “it’s just a ledger” wipes away the difference between a chain with NFTs and one without them.
Second point absolutely depends on NFT capability - you can’t store and trade property records if each one is identical, for example - so arguably a subset of the first point (although broadly ignoring the complex shit you can do with smart contracts, which is more where I was going in point one) but definitely specific to NFT capable chains rather than bitcoin derivatives.
Final point, yeah, agreed! I say it to underline that NFTs didn’t cause any of this, they just reflected what was already there.
The weird part (status, money, huge bubbles and giant crashes, highly conceptual and seemingly arbitrary assignment of value, “art” being a proxy for wealth and cachet) isn’t new, and the new part (infrastructure to store, trade, and interact with unique pieces of information in a truly persistent, cryptographically secure, and decentralised manner) isn’t weird.
Whether the new part is useful in comparison to a centralised database is a fair debate. In most cases it definitely isn’t, but the real test will be finding out if that’s “most” or “all”.
I may be accidentally coming at them from the culturally loaded perspective, but my approach is more a concern with their application and its effects. I see the value the technology provides, but...
Maybe it’s that I’m too attached to thinking of NFTs in the semantic technical sense (a token that isn’t identical to other tokens) rather than the more culturally loaded meaning that’s grown up around them.
I may be accidentally coming at them from the culturally loaded perspective, but my approach is more a concern with their application and its effects.
I see the value the technology provides, but it would only work on things that aren't infinitely replicable: Deeds to physical objects, for example.
Second point absolutely depends on NFT capability - you can’t store and trade property records if each one is identical, for example
Definitely. But the value is in the property the document is about, not the document itself. I may be too fixed on what's being done currently, which is the token itself being the valuable part. I guess in the real world if I had an NFT that confirmed my ownership of a house, that token would effectively be my right to the house, but the "digital images as blockchain-tracked assets" idea is pretty flawed IMO. I still can't see NFTs doing much more than acting as a verification, which they sort of already do using single distributed source of truth. I can also see sense in a freely searchable distributed ledger, because it would make it easier to stake your claim on a physical good, sort of a second proof to back up the deed.
I'll read but not respond to the thing I said about art because, frankly, I was kinda out of line on it. I will say that using NFTs and smart contracts to track ownership Van Gogh makes much more sense than trying to use them to give value to an ugly forum avatar, but we likely agree on that, and it was sort of my point, but I don't think I articulated it well.
Nobody wants that, near as I can tell, and I'm definitely not advocating for it. For a painting maybe, but you could have private blockchains as well. My bank can have a record of a house I own,...
Why would anyone prefer some unregulated entity to control these records? Not to mention the issues of having to change or update them over time.
Nobody wants that, near as I can tell, and I'm definitely not advocating for it. For a painting maybe, but you could have private blockchains as well. My bank can have a record of a house I own, for example, referenced via a hash in a blockchain that does not extend outside of its network . To verify I am the owner of the house, I give the bank my public key, which it uses to verify I own the hash, which it then uses internally to find the deed, which would not be stored on the blockchain.
This is basically 2FA with extra steps, which is to say I'm not entirely certain of any unique solutions blockchain technology provides as well. Company blockchains would also require many of the same industry-specific controls as the records themselves, I imagine.
I'm not an expert on blockchain technology by any means, but this kind of use come as close to a legitimate use for the tech that I have seen, but it still seems to be a solution in search of a...
My bank can have a record of a house I own, for example, referenced via a hash in a blockchain that does not extend outside of its network . To verify I am the owner of the house, I give the bank my public key, which it uses to verify I own the hash, which it then uses internally to find the deed, which would not be stored on the blockchain.
I'm not an expert on blockchain technology by any means, but this kind of use come as close to a legitimate use for the tech that I have seen, but it still seems to be a solution in search of a problem. If your deed is on a private blockchain that is only stored in your bank's network, then you don't really need a blockchain right? The main selling points of the tech are decentralization and trustlessness, neither of which is necessary if you have a single trusted entity maintaining the ledger, right?
I think you can have the cryptographic benefits of what you're describing without needing a blockchain, and most of the legitimate seeming uses that I've seen for blockchain tech have been similar, not really something that you need a blockchain for. I like this blog post that I've seen linked a bunch of times that breaks down why almost no applications actually need a blockchain.
You definitely could, and we do it for things like package signing that require key pairs for example. I was simply trying to explain potential business case and why they aren't strictly putting...
I think you can have the cryptographic benefits of what you're describing without needing a blockchain, and most of the legitimate seeming uses that I've seen for blockchain tech have been similar, not really something that you need a blockchain for.
You definitely could, and we do it for things like package signing that require key pairs for example. I was simply trying to explain potential business case and why they aren't strictly putting private data all over the public blockchain.
The main selling points of the tech are decentralization and trustlessness, neither of which is necessary if you have a single trusted entity maintaining the ledger, right?
Frankly, this is the major tradeoff for trust and practicality. You don't want credit card data or medical data, even just cryptographic hashes to access them, anywhere near the public, and any industry that could arguably reap the security benefits of a private blockchain already has its own standards in place. Adding another layer, even if it provides a security benefit, simply means one more layer needs to be checked for compliance.
I'm neither an expert or an evangelist here. I'm mildly interested in potential applications, but frankly haven't seen anything that isn't reinventing the wheel.
Yeah I think we're generally in agreement. I didn't think you were evangelizing for NFTs at all. Your example is just one that has occurred to me before as a scenario where NFTs might actually...
I'm neither an expert or an evangelist here. I'm mildly interested in potential applications, but frankly haven't seen anything that isn't reinventing the wheel.
Yeah I think we're generally in agreement. I didn't think you were evangelizing for NFTs at all. Your example is just one that has occurred to me before as a scenario where NFTs might actually make sense as a solution, but I think when you really examine it blockchain tech is still unnecessary in pretty much every application that I've seen proposed.
The house example does get into, I think, a good reason why in most cases it's not really decentralizing ownership. The mere idea of a token, that is distinct from others, is of course valuable,...
My bank can have a record of a house I own, for example, referenced via a hash in a blockchain that does not extend outside of its network . To verify I am the owner of the house, I give the bank my public key, which it uses to verify I own the hash, which it then uses internally to find the deed, which would not be stored on the blockchain.
The house example does get into, I think, a good reason why in most cases it's not really decentralizing ownership.
The mere idea of a token, that is distinct from others, is of course valuable, which I think some people have bulldozed over in attempts to argue against Ethereum or other crypto-based "NFTs" - the deed to your house can be thought of as an token that is non-fungible, so can your credit card, your bank account, ownership of a game on steam, and so forth.
However, record of ownership is just one half of the battle that is "owning" something. It's an important and necessary half, but the other half is enforcement.
If you have ownership of your house verifiable on a private blockchain, what are you going to do when someone squats in it? Call the police, of course. They will verify your ownership and kick the squater out. What if they don't? What if the courts and the local government just ignore it?
You have to trust the local government in this case to enforce ownership. So you may as well trust them with the whole record-keeping business.
Such is the case with many crypto NFTs - the NBA NFTs, for instance. If the NBA is running them, and all the interactivity is just running on their servers, and they even have a terms of service, then there is little difference between a block in Ethereum and a row in a sql database.
I think in general it's difficult to find cases where the "enforcement" aspect does not naturally lead to centralizing anyhow, and when the latter half is centralized, there's not much point in all the ceremony to get a decentralized record of ownership. It's all or nothing.
The biggest counterexample I can think of is company shares. It used to be that ownership was conferred by moving physical certificates around, followed by clearinghouses that held bulk quantities...
I think in general it's difficult to find cases where the "enforcement" aspect does not naturally lead to centralizing anyhow, and when the latter half is centralized, there's not much point in all the ceremony to get a decentralized record of ownership. It's all or nothing.
The biggest counterexample I can think of is company shares. It used to be that ownership was conferred by moving physical certificates around, followed by clearinghouses that held bulk quantities of those certificates and simply recorded their current owners, and finally the modern system where those records are kept by those same clearinghouses and the physical certificates have been done away with entirely.
Enforcement still happens through the government and the courts, but record keeping is separate.
I doubt most traders would want those transactions to be visible for analysis on a public chain, but it's at least an interesting example of record keeping being separated from enforcement in a major market.
I think there are probably a lot of examples of data being held by trusted third parties such as contractors, vendors, etc. I can think of a bunch just in the healthcare industry, and I'm sure...
I think there are probably a lot of examples of data being held by trusted third parties such as contractors, vendors, etc. I can think of a bunch just in the healthcare industry, and I'm sure it's the case in a lot of other areas. I suspect that US government doesn't actually do much of it's own IT in house at all, most of it is contracted out or they use COTS or bespoke solutions.
Mmm. Owners of significant shares of companies do report said ownership to the government. While the government doesn't do the day to day tracking of exact shares, they do get regular reports on...
Mmm. Owners of significant shares of companies do report said ownership to the government. While the government doesn't do the day to day tracking of exact shares, they do get regular reports on the matter.
I think it is, because producing an exact, indistinguishable copy of a jpeg is absolutely trivial. The only thing denoting an NFT jpeg as unique is the attached token, which has no intrinsic...
The fine art market is already insane, and buying jpegs is in no way fundamentally stranger
I think it is, because producing an exact, indistinguishable copy of a jpeg is absolutely trivial. The only thing denoting an NFT jpeg as unique is the attached token, which has no intrinsic value.
NFTs basically takes away one of the key things that makes digital works unique and exciting: The fact that they can be duplicated and shared with everyone for little or no cost. It feels like a bunch of libertarians trying to force their antiquated ideals of supply side economics into a space where supply is inherently unlimited.
The fine art market is a grotesque mess of scams and money laundering, so creating something like it with even less regulatory scrutiny seems like a horrible idea. We should be fixing the problems that currently exist with fine art, not duplicating them on an even bigger scale.
But then sometimes in the contemporary art world there is no physical work at all included with a purchase - you buy the abstract concept and it’s your gallery’s responsibility to actually create...
But then sometimes in the contemporary art world there is no physical work at all included with a purchase - you buy the abstract concept and it’s your gallery’s responsibility to actually create the display.
Anyone could create an equally valid version to the same spec, the original artist is involved in none of them and the supply is just as indistinguishable and unlimited as a digital work, but one is “real” because the artist sold the right to that gallery and the rest are not. If it’s sold on, the concept it sold, not the physical instance. To me that’s way weirder than tagging a digital image with a serial number, and at the very least comes with precisely equal downsides!
A niche example? For sure, but proof enough for me that they can and do reach the same heights of strangeness.
Not necessarily. Yes, the supply is artificially constrained by the artist exercising their IP rights, but it is also practically constrained by the need for physical space to set it up, and the...
the supply is just as indistinguishable and unlimited as a digital work
Not necessarily. Yes, the supply is artificially constrained by the artist exercising their IP rights, but it is also practically constrained by the need for physical space to set it up, and the knowledge and labor needed to recreate and maintain it.
Duplicating a JPEG on the other hand is a simple matter of drag and drop.
That's no different from buying a screenplay to shoot. You are buying instructions to produce a work of art, as well as the right to comercialize the result of those instructions. What would you...
But then sometimes in the contemporary art world there is no physical work at all included with a purchase - you buy the abstract concept and it’s your gallery’s responsibility to actually create the display
That's no different from buying a screenplay to shoot. You are buying instructions to produce a work of art, as well as the right to comercialize the result of those instructions.
What would you say if a company commission a project from a architect, and execute it without the architect's involvement?
I don't think that's crazy at all, and also see no relation to NFTs. What's happening in all these arguments is a conflation of NFTs and some inherently metaphysical (or abstract) aspects of reality.
Both of those examples depend heavily on the implementation and interpretation as well as the plan, though - the film, or the building, are complex derivative works whereas the artwork may be...
Both of those examples depend heavily on the implementation and interpretation as well as the plan, though - the film, or the building, are complex derivative works whereas the artwork may be totally trivial to make an identical replica of. This also touches on what @babypuncher said - my question there is what happens if a work is as easy to replicate as it is to drag-drop an image?
The right to commercialise the work is tied to copyright and broader IP law, but the artwork may well be too simple to copyright and thus IP transfer is irrelevant (my go-to example: $120,000 banana duct taped to wall). The only "right" that's being purchased there, and potentially re-sold later, is the blessing of the artist that a banana taped to a wall by the owner of this certificate is "original", and an identical banana taped to an identical wall by me is not. As you say, it's entirely metaphysical - and I don't see how conferring that blessing on a particular banana by way of a sales receipt is different to conferring it on a particular jpeg by way of a cryptographic hash. I mean this with absolute honesty: the two concepts are, to me, identical.
Photography also plays into this in an interesting way, especially from a digital source. One print is "original", worth millions. Another is not, and is worth a few dollars. You bought a print, not the copyright, so there's no IP transfer. They may well be physically indistinguishable in every way - so what is the value attached to? It's attached to the conceptual originality, not the photo. How do you prove you've got the original? With a record of purchase. Is it any different if that record exists on a blockchain or a gallery's computer or a piece of paper? I can't personally see how it would be.
I want to underline, again, that none of this is saying "all art NFTs are a good idea" or "all contemporary art purchases are absurd" - just that I see areas of overlap where I can't distinguish the two, and that people seem much more forgiving of the traditional market than the NFT one.
I wouldn't use the word "blessing", but rather "copyright". It's licensing, the right to legally reproduce and comercialize an art piece. That is a thing in itself. NFTs do not grant copyright....
I wouldn't use the word "blessing", but rather "copyright". It's licensing, the right to legally reproduce and comercialize an art piece. That is a thing in itself. NFTs do not grant copyright. Art NFTs, as they're currently used, are, put simply, basically nothing. They're like concracts that give you the right to breath the same air you're already allowed to breath.
That’s exactly the argument I was trying to preempt in two different ways! For the wall-banana, it’s highly unlikely that the concept is complex or original enough to enjoy IP protection. For the...
That’s exactly the argument I was trying to preempt in two different ways!
For the wall-banana, it’s highly unlikely that the concept is complex or original enough to enjoy IP protection.
For the photographic print you may well be buying the individual print with no licensing at all.
In both cases the value differential is attached to the concept of originality, not to any additional legal rights associated with the purchase.
Nothing. It stands alone, just the same as the piece of paper recording that your wall-bananas are “original” and mine are not. [Edit] And in turn the value differential is attached to the NFT, in...
Nothing. It stands alone, just the same as the piece of paper recording that your wall-bananas are “original” and mine are not.
[Edit] And in turn the value differential is attached to the NFT, in the same way it can be attached to the ephemeral and abstract concept of originality.
A license, or contract if you will, grants me the right to legally reproduce and comercialize artwork. NFTs, as they're often used in connection to artwork, do not grant such right. In fact, they...
A license, or contract if you will, grants me the right to legally reproduce and comercialize artwork. NFTs, as they're often used in connection to artwork, do not grant such right. In fact, they do not grant anything whatsoever.
But surely if you (and everyone else) already had the right to reproduce and commercialise a given work due to its ineligibility for IP protection, the license you bought also grants you nothing?
But surely if you (and everyone else) already had the right to reproduce and commercialise a given work due to its ineligibility for IP protection, the license you bought also grants you nothing?
A copyright is not "nothing". There's a difference between abstract and immaterial. A contract for an artwork that does exist is different from a contract for the right to live on a bedroom at...
A copyright is not "nothing". There's a difference between abstract and immaterial. A contract for an artwork that does exist is different from a contract for the right to live on a bedroom at Hogwarts.
The difficulty some face in understand the difference between abstract aspects of reality and immaterial aspects of reality is the source of this entire line of reasoning you're trying to put forth.
The result is and odd form of "programmers mysticism".
I'm sorry, but I lost track of the point you're trying to make. In what way some aspects of the art market being abstract makes NFTs material or valuable in any way?
I'm sorry, but I lost track of the point you're trying to make. In what way some aspects of the art market being abstract makes NFTs material or valuable in any way?
It absolutely doesn’t! My point, my only point, is that equivalent things were happening long before NFTs. That’s it. I’m not saying they’re a good idea and I’ve tried to underline that in every...
It absolutely doesn’t! My point, my only point, is that equivalent things were happening long before NFTs. That’s it. I’m not saying they’re a good idea and I’ve tried to underline that in every post that I can. I’m just saying the weirdness isn’t new - it takes the same form as edge case oddities that have come before, and isn’t fundamentally different from them.
Yes weird things happened before. But somehow I don't find that helpful to make direct comparisons to today's art NFTs, because it's too easy to forget of the unique bizarreness of NFTs.
Yes weird things happened before. But somehow I don't find that helpful to make direct comparisons to today's art NFTs, because it's too easy to forget of the unique bizarreness of NFTs.
I actually understand buying a jpeg. But buying an NFT is not buying a jpeg. Buying an NFT, from what I can gather, buys you an NFT. That's way more absurd than the art market, in which you...
I actually understand buying a jpeg. But buying an NFT is not buying a jpeg. Buying an NFT, from what I can gather, buys you an NFT.
That's way more absurd than the art market, in which you purchase tangible objects.
I worked at a gallery once. People bought things to hang on their walls. Sure, pricing of paintings can be quite absurd, but it's an absurdity about something that exist.
I actually wanna hear a good argument for art NFTs that is not a form of mysticism or whataboutism ("why can't NFTs be absurd? X is absurd and is widely accepted"). I really do. The world would make more sense, and I like feeling that the world makes sense.
Unfortunately I was just typing this at the same time. I’m coming from the side that we already reached peak absurdity! Out of interest, what would you mean by “buying a jpeg” vs “buying an NFT”?...
Unfortunately I was just typing this at the same time. I’m coming from the side that we already reached peak absurdity!
Out of interest, what would you mean by “buying a jpeg” vs “buying an NFT”? I see the NFT as just a certificate of ownership in that scenario.
I can, for example, pay a photographer for a ultra-resolution jpeg of the night sky. There is no expectation of permanence or uniqueness, or any of the things that NFTs pretends to grant. I pay...
I can, for example, pay a photographer for a ultra-resolution jpeg of the night sky. There is no expectation of permanence or uniqueness, or any of the things that NFTs pretends to grant. I pay for the download and I'm responsible for not losing the file. I am not paying for a bogus certificate of ownership, I'm not being fooled in any way. That's honest and easy to understand. No false promises.
It's quite possible to have civil debate on NFTs, but if you ask "Why do people hate X?", you should probably be prepared to hear a lot of negative opinions about X...
It's quite possible to have civil debate on NFTs, but if you ask "Why do people hate X?", you should probably be prepared to hear a lot of negative opinions about X...
Agreed. I didn't mean to imply it wasn't the predictable/expected outcome given the poor framing. I was just pointing the topic out since I don't think dubteebub was aware of it.
Agreed. I didn't mean to imply it wasn't the predictable/expected outcome given the poor framing. I was just pointing the topic out since I don't think dubteebub was aware of it.
Oh my god that was such a frustrating thread. I should have known that discussion was going to go nowhere when the OP said upfront that they think criticism of NFTs comes from jealousy.
Oh my god that was such a frustrating thread. I should have known that discussion was going to go nowhere when the OP said upfront that they think criticism of NFTs comes from jealousy.
Yeah it was tough the OP had another thread going through their steps of generative art, and I engaged with it because it was neat and creative. Then I find that thread and I felt weird because I...
Yeah it was tough the OP had another thread going through their steps of generative art, and I engaged with it because it was neat and creative.
Then I find that thread and I felt weird because I suddenly realized the generative art thing was for NFTs. I couldn't contribute either, it was just hard to watch.
I'm sorry to say I did contribute, at least I tried to. It was a big waste of time. He kept answering questions with non-sequitors, like comparing the blockchain to the invention of film, then...
I'm sorry to say I did contribute, at least I tried to. It was a big waste of time. He kept answering questions with non-sequitors, like comparing the blockchain to the invention of film, then immediately walking it back when challenged while repeating the same thing elsewhere in the thread. And everywhere, constantly holding this "I dunno why everyone's so negative" attitude, even as everyone was telling him exactly why. The first disingenuous discussion I've had on Tildes.
Oh. TBH, I was kind of hoping that you were going to say you spent it something cool and interesting like a trip to the carnival or the movies, or a totally sweet airsoft submachine gun, or...
Oh. TBH, I was kind of hoping that you were going to say you spent it something cool and interesting like a trip to the carnival or the movies, or a totally sweet airsoft submachine gun, or something like that.
I've gone a few months now without NFTs being regularly forced into my awareness. My guess is that there were only ever a few thousand people actually trading them, and they were just investing...
I've gone a few months now without NFTs being regularly forced into my awareness. My guess is that there were only ever a few thousand people actually trading them, and they were just investing resources in pumping up the hype.
I don’t know what “pro-NFT” means but i am intrigued by the technology of ERC721 and ERC1155 tokens. I’m anti-bored apes, and haven’t bought any jpegs, but I have bought two NFTs which gave me...
I don’t know what “pro-NFT” means but i am intrigued by the technology of ERC721 and ERC1155 tokens.
I’m anti-bored apes, and haven’t bought any jpegs, but I have bought two NFTs which gave me access to their communities and associated treasuries.
In general I feel 90% of NFT sales are based on speculation, but there ARE people using them in interesting ways.
Check out NounsDAO, which is using NFT sales to fund projects their members are interested in. Buy the NFT and you get to submit project proposals.
On mirror.xyz, an author is using NFTs to get people to pay for his book, chapter by chapter. Good Morning News is experimenting with creating engaging, uncensorable news.
People say it’s a solution searching for a problem, and that’s true, but the internet was once the same.
Maybe I'm taking you too literally, but I don't think that's right. The Internet was a means of passing documents between networked computers, and eventually to connect those distant networks...
People say it’s a solution searching for a problem, and that’s true, but the internet was once the same.
Maybe I'm taking you too literally, but I don't think that's right. The Internet was a means of passing documents between networked computers, and eventually to connect those distant networks together. There were no web browsers or even a World Wide Web yet, but the Internet was created to solve the specific problem of deliverability.
And blockchain was invented to solve the specific problem of government control of currency. Usage of the internet was originally isolated to document-passers and tech enthusiasts, and usage of...
And blockchain was invented to solve the specific problem of government control of currency.
Usage of the internet was originally isolated to document-passers and tech enthusiasts, and usage of the blockchain is limited to people who use unregulated currency and tech enthusiasts. That’s the “solution looking for a problem” phase.
The internet increased adoption through tools like web browsers and consumer cryptography. Every addition increased the number of people who found the internet useful, until we reach a point where it’s harder to imagine the world without internet than with.
Those tools are what are being built in the web3 space now. So yes, a lot of it is scammy and probably 99% won’t survive 10 years, but the people in the space see a future in this technology.
The article's title is quite misleading. The exchange wasn't hacked, one of their social media accounts was compromised and was used to phish people.
I heavily agree. A marketplace being hacked is something you can't do anything about, but social media getting hacked? You just need to get the word out for people to be wary, the more people know the better. It's an important distinction.
Is there a reason why NFT isn't being used for copyright wrt blogs, recipes, articles, etc. Stored in a cold wallet, it seems like an excellent way to track these sorts of assets.
Don't they cost money?
some do, but I made a free joke one at mintable.app. It had to have a minimum value of $150.
But really, why isn't it a $20/yr or whatever service where you can mint unlimited text based NFTs, not for resale, but purely as a record of ownership or, in the case of sale, transaction?
Depends what exactly you’re looking for, but mirror.xyz does that-ish for free
that's pretty cool, actually. The whole 'trading' thing with NFTs has distracted from its practical uses.
Yeah I stay away from speculative investments. Utility is so much more interesting
I'm speculating based on zero knowledge here, but if your blog gets plagiarised, is proving yourself as the original owner the hard part of that process? I imagine the hard part is tracking down the copyright infringer to serve them the papers.
I also (again, speculating) don't see long-term recording as a big priority there. How often does a years-old article get stolen? I doubt the cost of minting on a blockchain is worth it if old content makes up (for example) 1% of all cases of theft.
Basically I don't think it'd be worth the cost.
Oh no! Anyway...
I definitely wouldn’t describe myself as “pro”, but I do find them kind of fascinating for a few reasons (all links to previous threads):
They’re a much more complex and flexible class of technology than the usual “overpriced jpeg” use would suggest
They have some genuine potential for decentralised record keeping
The fine art market is already insane, and buying jpegs is in no way fundamentally stranger
So yeah, bored apes are probably just environmentally damaging beanie babies, and maybe the whole industry will come to nothing - but the weird part isn’t new and the new part isn’t weird.
Each of the interesting parts (which I also find interesting) has the one caveat:
The blockchain is just a distributed ledger, which tracks your ownership of the jpeg.
I didn't think I was repeating myself, but the blockchain is just a distributed ledger
The art market is a horrible mess, and we've managed to make the digital equivalent, except using art that is not bound by physical scarcity. We've made the status of ownership more important than the piece, and it is definitely not about the art at this point.
I don't mean any of these as gotchas or owns, but insofar as I am interested in crypto and NFTs, I'm similarly interested, but I also don't think the originating technologies are the best use of these systems.
I don’t think I really follow why those are caveats? Maybe it’s that I’m too attached to thinking of NFTs in the semantic technical sense (a token that isn’t identical to other tokens) rather than the more culturally loaded meaning that’s grown up around them.
To the first point, the fact that a given blockchain can be a ledger for many unique and interesting things, not to mention interactions with code and functionality, rather than just a ledger for total balances of identical coins (i.e. bitcoin) is facilitated by the fact that tokens can be made distinguishable. Identifiable (non fungible) tokens are part of what makes complex blockchain functionality possible, and saying “it’s just a ledger” wipes away the difference between a chain with NFTs and one without them.
Second point absolutely depends on NFT capability - you can’t store and trade property records if each one is identical, for example - so arguably a subset of the first point (although broadly ignoring the complex shit you can do with smart contracts, which is more where I was going in point one) but definitely specific to NFT capable chains rather than bitcoin derivatives.
Final point, yeah, agreed! I say it to underline that NFTs didn’t cause any of this, they just reflected what was already there.
The weird part (status, money, huge bubbles and giant crashes, highly conceptual and seemingly arbitrary assignment of value, “art” being a proxy for wealth and cachet) isn’t new, and the new part (infrastructure to store, trade, and interact with unique pieces of information in a truly persistent, cryptographically secure, and decentralised manner) isn’t weird.
Whether the new part is useful in comparison to a centralised database is a fair debate. In most cases it definitely isn’t, but the real test will be finding out if that’s “most” or “all”.
I may be accidentally coming at them from the culturally loaded perspective, but my approach is more a concern with their application and its effects.
I see the value the technology provides, but it would only work on things that aren't infinitely replicable: Deeds to physical objects, for example.
Definitely. But the value is in the property the document is about, not the document itself. I may be too fixed on what's being done currently, which is the token itself being the valuable part. I guess in the real world if I had an NFT that confirmed my ownership of a house, that token would effectively be my right to the house, but the "digital images as blockchain-tracked assets" idea is pretty flawed IMO. I still can't see NFTs doing much more than acting as a verification, which they sort of already do using single distributed source of truth. I can also see sense in a freely searchable distributed ledger, because it would make it easier to stake your claim on a physical good, sort of a second proof to back up the deed.
I'll read but not respond to the thing I said about art because, frankly, I was kinda out of line on it. I will say that using NFTs and smart contracts to track ownership Van Gogh makes much more sense than trying to use them to give value to an ugly forum avatar, but we likely agree on that, and it was sort of my point, but I don't think I articulated it well.
Nobody wants that, near as I can tell, and I'm definitely not advocating for it. For a painting maybe, but you could have private blockchains as well. My bank can have a record of a house I own, for example, referenced via a hash in a blockchain that does not extend outside of its network . To verify I am the owner of the house, I give the bank my public key, which it uses to verify I own the hash, which it then uses internally to find the deed, which would not be stored on the blockchain.
This is basically 2FA with extra steps, which is to say I'm not entirely certain of any unique solutions blockchain technology provides as well. Company blockchains would also require many of the same industry-specific controls as the records themselves, I imagine.
I'm not an expert on blockchain technology by any means, but this kind of use come as close to a legitimate use for the tech that I have seen, but it still seems to be a solution in search of a problem. If your deed is on a private blockchain that is only stored in your bank's network, then you don't really need a blockchain right? The main selling points of the tech are decentralization and trustlessness, neither of which is necessary if you have a single trusted entity maintaining the ledger, right?
I think you can have the cryptographic benefits of what you're describing without needing a blockchain, and most of the legitimate seeming uses that I've seen for blockchain tech have been similar, not really something that you need a blockchain for. I like this blog post that I've seen linked a bunch of times that breaks down why almost no applications actually need a blockchain.
You definitely could, and we do it for things like package signing that require key pairs for example. I was simply trying to explain potential business case and why they aren't strictly putting private data all over the public blockchain.
Frankly, this is the major tradeoff for trust and practicality. You don't want credit card data or medical data, even just cryptographic hashes to access them, anywhere near the public, and any industry that could arguably reap the security benefits of a private blockchain already has its own standards in place. Adding another layer, even if it provides a security benefit, simply means one more layer needs to be checked for compliance.
I'm neither an expert or an evangelist here. I'm mildly interested in potential applications, but frankly haven't seen anything that isn't reinventing the wheel.
Yeah I think we're generally in agreement. I didn't think you were evangelizing for NFTs at all. Your example is just one that has occurred to me before as a scenario where NFTs might actually make sense as a solution, but I think when you really examine it blockchain tech is still unnecessary in pretty much every application that I've seen proposed.
The house example does get into, I think, a good reason why in most cases it's not really decentralizing ownership.
The mere idea of a token, that is distinct from others, is of course valuable, which I think some people have bulldozed over in attempts to argue against Ethereum or other crypto-based "NFTs" - the deed to your house can be thought of as an token that is non-fungible, so can your credit card, your bank account, ownership of a game on steam, and so forth.
However, record of ownership is just one half of the battle that is "owning" something. It's an important and necessary half, but the other half is enforcement.
If you have ownership of your house verifiable on a private blockchain, what are you going to do when someone squats in it? Call the police, of course. They will verify your ownership and kick the squater out. What if they don't? What if the courts and the local government just ignore it?
You have to trust the local government in this case to enforce ownership. So you may as well trust them with the whole record-keeping business.
Such is the case with many crypto NFTs - the NBA NFTs, for instance. If the NBA is running them, and all the interactivity is just running on their servers, and they even have a terms of service, then there is little difference between a block in Ethereum and a row in a sql database.
I think in general it's difficult to find cases where the "enforcement" aspect does not naturally lead to centralizing anyhow, and when the latter half is centralized, there's not much point in all the ceremony to get a decentralized record of ownership. It's all or nothing.
The biggest counterexample I can think of is company shares. It used to be that ownership was conferred by moving physical certificates around, followed by clearinghouses that held bulk quantities of those certificates and simply recorded their current owners, and finally the modern system where those records are kept by those same clearinghouses and the physical certificates have been done away with entirely.
Enforcement still happens through the government and the courts, but record keeping is separate.
I doubt most traders would want those transactions to be visible for analysis on a public chain, but it's at least an interesting example of record keeping being separated from enforcement in a major market.
I think there are probably a lot of examples of data being held by trusted third parties such as contractors, vendors, etc. I can think of a bunch just in the healthcare industry, and I'm sure it's the case in a lot of other areas. I suspect that US government doesn't actually do much of it's own IT in house at all, most of it is contracted out or they use COTS or bespoke solutions.
Mmm. Owners of significant shares of companies do report said ownership to the government. While the government doesn't do the day to day tracking of exact shares, they do get regular reports on the matter.
I think it is, because producing an exact, indistinguishable copy of a jpeg is absolutely trivial. The only thing denoting an NFT jpeg as unique is the attached token, which has no intrinsic value.
NFTs basically takes away one of the key things that makes digital works unique and exciting: The fact that they can be duplicated and shared with everyone for little or no cost. It feels like a bunch of libertarians trying to force their antiquated ideals of supply side economics into a space where supply is inherently unlimited.
The fine art market is a grotesque mess of scams and money laundering, so creating something like it with even less regulatory scrutiny seems like a horrible idea. We should be fixing the problems that currently exist with fine art, not duplicating them on an even bigger scale.
But then sometimes in the contemporary art world there is no physical work at all included with a purchase - you buy the abstract concept and it’s your gallery’s responsibility to actually create the display.
Anyone could create an equally valid version to the same spec, the original artist is involved in none of them and the supply is just as indistinguishable and unlimited as a digital work, but one is “real” because the artist sold the right to that gallery and the rest are not. If it’s sold on, the concept it sold, not the physical instance. To me that’s way weirder than tagging a digital image with a serial number, and at the very least comes with precisely equal downsides!
A niche example? For sure, but proof enough for me that they can and do reach the same heights of strangeness.
Not necessarily. Yes, the supply is artificially constrained by the artist exercising their IP rights, but it is also practically constrained by the need for physical space to set it up, and the knowledge and labor needed to recreate and maintain it.
Duplicating a JPEG on the other hand is a simple matter of drag and drop.
That's no different from buying a screenplay to shoot. You are buying instructions to produce a work of art, as well as the right to comercialize the result of those instructions.
What would you say if a company commission a project from a architect, and execute it without the architect's involvement?
I don't think that's crazy at all, and also see no relation to NFTs. What's happening in all these arguments is a conflation of NFTs and some inherently metaphysical (or abstract) aspects of reality.
Both of those examples depend heavily on the implementation and interpretation as well as the plan, though - the film, or the building, are complex derivative works whereas the artwork may be totally trivial to make an identical replica of. This also touches on what @babypuncher said - my question there is what happens if a work is as easy to replicate as it is to drag-drop an image?
The right to commercialise the work is tied to copyright and broader IP law, but the artwork may well be too simple to copyright and thus IP transfer is irrelevant (my go-to example: $120,000 banana duct taped to wall). The only "right" that's being purchased there, and potentially re-sold later, is the blessing of the artist that a banana taped to a wall by the owner of this certificate is "original", and an identical banana taped to an identical wall by me is not. As you say, it's entirely metaphysical - and I don't see how conferring that blessing on a particular banana by way of a sales receipt is different to conferring it on a particular jpeg by way of a cryptographic hash. I mean this with absolute honesty: the two concepts are, to me, identical.
Photography also plays into this in an interesting way, especially from a digital source. One print is "original", worth millions. Another is not, and is worth a few dollars. You bought a print, not the copyright, so there's no IP transfer. They may well be physically indistinguishable in every way - so what is the value attached to? It's attached to the conceptual originality, not the photo. How do you prove you've got the original? With a record of purchase. Is it any different if that record exists on a blockchain or a gallery's computer or a piece of paper? I can't personally see how it would be.
I want to underline, again, that none of this is saying "all art NFTs are a good idea" or "all contemporary art purchases are absurd" - just that I see areas of overlap where I can't distinguish the two, and that people seem much more forgiving of the traditional market than the NFT one.
I wouldn't use the word "blessing", but rather "copyright". It's licensing, the right to legally reproduce and comercialize an art piece. That is a thing in itself. NFTs do not grant copyright. Art NFTs, as they're currently used, are, put simply, basically nothing. They're like concracts that give you the right to breath the same air you're already allowed to breath.
That’s exactly the argument I was trying to preempt in two different ways!
For the wall-banana, it’s highly unlikely that the concept is complex or original enough to enjoy IP protection.
For the photographic print you may well be buying the individual print with no licensing at all.
In both cases the value differential is attached to the concept of originality, not to any additional legal rights associated with the purchase.
But to what is the NFT attached, exactly?
Nothing. It stands alone, just the same as the piece of paper recording that your wall-bananas are “original” and mine are not.
[Edit] And in turn the value differential is attached to the NFT, in the same way it can be attached to the ephemeral and abstract concept of originality.
That's incorrect. A contract grants me the legal right to reproduce and comercialize an artwork.
I’m… very confused. You don’t need a contract to reproduce and commercialise sufficiently simple concepts.
A license, or contract if you will, grants me the right to legally reproduce and comercialize artwork. NFTs, as they're often used in connection to artwork, do not grant such right. In fact, they do not grant anything whatsoever.
But surely if you (and everyone else) already had the right to reproduce and commercialise a given work due to its ineligibility for IP protection, the license you bought also grants you nothing?
A copyright is not "nothing". There's a difference between abstract and immaterial. A contract for an artwork that does exist is different from a contract for the right to live on a bedroom at Hogwarts.
The difficulty some face in understand the difference between abstract aspects of reality and immaterial aspects of reality is the source of this entire line of reasoning you're trying to put forth.
The result is and odd form of "programmers mysticism".
I’m not saying a copyright is nothing. I’m saying some works cannot be copyrighted. There is no copyright to sell.
I'm sorry, but I lost track of the point you're trying to make. In what way some aspects of the art market being abstract makes NFTs material or valuable in any way?
It absolutely doesn’t! My point, my only point, is that equivalent things were happening long before NFTs. That’s it. I’m not saying they’re a good idea and I’ve tried to underline that in every post that I can. I’m just saying the weirdness isn’t new - it takes the same form as edge case oddities that have come before, and isn’t fundamentally different from them.
Yes weird things happened before. But somehow I don't find that helpful to make direct comparisons to today's art NFTs, because it's too easy to forget of the unique bizarreness of NFTs.
I actually understand buying a jpeg. But buying an NFT is not buying a jpeg. Buying an NFT, from what I can gather, buys you an NFT.
That's way more absurd than the art market, in which you purchase tangible objects.
I worked at a gallery once. People bought things to hang on their walls. Sure, pricing of paintings can be quite absurd, but it's an absurdity about something that exist.
I actually wanna hear a good argument for art NFTs that is not a form of mysticism or whataboutism ("why can't NFTs be absurd? X is absurd and is widely accepted"). I really do. The world would make more sense, and I like feeling that the world makes sense.
Unfortunately I was just typing this at the same time. I’m coming from the side that we already reached peak absurdity!
Out of interest, what would you mean by “buying a jpeg” vs “buying an NFT”? I see the NFT as just a certificate of ownership in that scenario.
I can, for example, pay a photographer for a ultra-resolution jpeg of the night sky. There is no expectation of permanence or uniqueness, or any of the things that NFTs pretends to grant. I pay for the download and I'm responsible for not losing the file. I am not paying for a bogus certificate of ownership, I'm not being fooled in any way. That's honest and easy to understand. No false promises.
AFAIK there are still a few around, but they generally keep it to themselves after the last NFT dogpile topic.
It's quite possible to have civil debate on NFTs, but if you ask "Why do people hate X?", you should probably be prepared to hear a lot of negative opinions about X...
Agreed. I didn't mean to imply it wasn't the predictable/expected outcome given the poor framing. I was just pointing the topic out since I don't think dubteebub was aware of it.
Oh yes, of course ;)
Oh my god that was such a frustrating thread. I should have known that discussion was going to go nowhere when the OP said upfront that they think criticism of NFTs comes from jealousy.
Yeah it was tough the OP had another thread going through their steps of generative art, and I engaged with it because it was neat and creative.
Then I find that thread and I felt weird because I suddenly realized the generative art thing was for NFTs. I couldn't contribute either, it was just hard to watch.
I'm sorry to say I did contribute, at least I tried to. It was a big waste of time. He kept answering questions with non-sequitors, like comparing the blockchain to the invention of film, then immediately walking it back when challenged while repeating the same thing elsewhere in the thread. And everywhere, constantly holding this "I dunno why everyone's so negative" attitude, even as everyone was telling him exactly why. The first disingenuous discussion I've had on Tildes.
I’m pro in that I made $50 off of NFTs. Easy money.
Not bad. What did you spend it on?
Bought some Solana (the biggest proof-of-stake blockchain) and am currently holding.
I just converted my entire coinbase wallet to Solana... all $5.36 of it. If I get rich off of this, I'll take you out for dinner.
Oh. TBH, I was kind of hoping that you were going to say you spent it something cool and interesting like a trip to the carnival or the movies, or a totally sweet airsoft submachine gun, or something like that.
It’s not spent, yet! And if my new gamble does well I could buy a car with the gains.
I've gone a few months now without NFTs being regularly forced into my awareness. My guess is that there were only ever a few thousand people actually trading them, and they were just investing resources in pumping up the hype.
I don’t know what “pro-NFT” means but i am intrigued by the technology of ERC721 and ERC1155 tokens.
I’m anti-bored apes, and haven’t bought any jpegs, but I have bought two NFTs which gave me access to their communities and associated treasuries.
In general I feel 90% of NFT sales are based on speculation, but there ARE people using them in interesting ways.
Check out NounsDAO, which is using NFT sales to fund projects their members are interested in. Buy the NFT and you get to submit project proposals.
On mirror.xyz, an author is using NFTs to get people to pay for his book, chapter by chapter. Good Morning News is experimenting with creating engaging, uncensorable news.
People say it’s a solution searching for a problem, and that’s true, but the internet was once the same.
Maybe I'm taking you too literally, but I don't think that's right. The Internet was a means of passing documents between networked computers, and eventually to connect those distant networks together. There were no web browsers or even a World Wide Web yet, but the Internet was created to solve the specific problem of deliverability.
And blockchain was invented to solve the specific problem of government control of currency.
Usage of the internet was originally isolated to document-passers and tech enthusiasts, and usage of the blockchain is limited to people who use unregulated currency and tech enthusiasts. That’s the “solution looking for a problem” phase.
The internet increased adoption through tools like web browsers and consumer cryptography. Every addition increased the number of people who found the internet useful, until we reach a point where it’s harder to imagine the world without internet than with.
Those tools are what are being built in the web3 space now. So yes, a lot of it is scammy and probably 99% won’t survive 10 years, but the people in the space see a future in this technology.