[HN Gopher] NFT Canon
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       NFT Canon
        
       Author : n3on_net
       Score  : 56 points
       Date   : 2021-04-02 15:13 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (a16z.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (a16z.com)
        
       | CynicusRex wrote:
       | "A man who is rich but ignorant he called a sheep with golden
       | fleece." --Diogenes the Cynic: Sayings and Anecdotes, with Other
       | Popular Moralists by Robin Hard, SS326.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | riskneutral wrote:
       | This makes it clear to me that a16z are in the same league as
       | penny stock pumping grifters. It does seem obvious in retrospect.
        
       | choppaface wrote:
       | Uhhh this isn't a canon so much as a cannon for a VC to inject
       | their own financial incentives into your thinking. Even if
       | they're wrong about what they cite, any conversation or
       | discussion just draws more attention to them versus the
       | competition. If you want to learn about NFTs, do you own
       | research. Don't lend your critical thinking resources to an
       | investor unless they're paying handsomely.
        
       | dvt wrote:
       | NFTs just happen to be the token du jour, and it's a bit sad that
       | a16z is peddling them. There's nothing of value here, and no one
       | will care in 4 years. Remember Crypto Kitties[1]? Don't worry, no
       | one else does either. The idea of "proof of ownership" makes no
       | sense in a digital context, anyway, and the best way forward (if
       | actually trying to solve this problem) isn't with some pump-and-
       | dump token, but rather with DRM-style certificates.
       | 
       | But no one's _really_ trying to solve the problem of digital
       | ownership, provenance, chain of custody, or original
       | verifiability, they 're just trying to get rich.
       | 
       | [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoKitties/
        
         | _red wrote:
         | Well, they are pushing them because in general traditional VC's
         | completely missed out on the initial crypto boom.
         | 
         | NFT's are their manufactured attempt to build a Crypto V2
         | market they think they can control. 90% of the stories you read
         | about in the press about NFT's are placed there by these same
         | VC investors. They are desperately trying to viral market fomo
         | response for their useless tokens....sorry their _authentic
         | original JPG 's_....
         | 
         | Its really quite sad.
        
         | inthewoods wrote:
         | VCs are geared to take big swings and bets. Makes total sense
         | that they would buy into anything that has the potential to be
         | a billion dollar idea, even if the likelihood of success is
         | 1-5%.
         | 
         | What's interesting about NFTs to me is that an org like the NBA
         | is one of the most successful - but I guess that makes sense
         | because, as others have posted, they generate all the NFTs and
         | can validate them. So it seems to me that it can be successful
         | in the case where you have a single, centralized owner. Where
         | it breaks down for me is when that ownership is some random
         | person on the interwebs.
         | 
         | NBA Top Shot is also interesting because the number of
         | buyers/sellers seems fair stable/flat - that would indicate to
         | me that it is a relatively small number of people trading with
         | each other because I think the number of buyers/sellers would
         | increase if the overall market was growing - but I could be
         | wrong about that.
         | 
         | https://www.cryptoslam.io/nba-top-shot
        
         | vallas wrote:
         | > they're just trying to get rich.
         | 
         | Aren't you too rich or too poor... Developing really something
         | for getting rich is a reason worth enough. The real problem is
         | long-term courage.
        
         | miracle2k wrote:
         | Whatever you think about NFTs, there are plenty of earnest
         | people in the space; they have been trading, building and
         | podcasting for years without any mainstream attention, or in
         | fact, without making money. And yes, people are still trading
         | Cryptokitties.
        
           | echelon wrote:
           | People are still working on Commodore 64, but that doesn't
           | make it a logical next step for our industry or the internet.
        
           | heterodoxxed wrote:
           | | _there are plenty of earnest people in the space_
           | 
           | Of course there are. Scams wouldn't work if everyone involved
           | was in on it.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | jcpham2 wrote:
       | Absolutely delighted that cryptocurrency has spawned this larger
       | conversation of digital ownership and proof of work, proof is
       | stake, etc.
       | 
       | This is great stuff to read other people discuss and curate on
       | the internet now 10 or 11 years in.
        
       | russellbeattie wrote:
       | I don't think I would have ever have predicted that having
       | control over a line of data in a shared database running on just
       | 8,000 computers would be so valuable.
       | 
       | "See this database entry? It's yours. In order to change it, you
       | need this little JSON file and a password. Got it? Great. That
       | will be $69 million please."
        
       | nickysielicki wrote:
       | "It's time to build" sitting prominently at the top of the page
       | is just adding insult to injury, here.
        
       | heckerhut wrote:
       | Haters dropping the same tired BS on NFTs in 3 2 1
        
         | ptudan wrote:
         | HN is not the place to discuss crypto. As a whole, the comments
         | are consistently bearish.
        
       | moonbug wrote:
       | NFTs are bullshit.
        
         | king_magic wrote:
         | Yes they are, and I cannot begin to understand the insane
         | support for them.
        
           | dboreham wrote:
           | There has clearly been an orchestrated PR blitz in the past
           | few weeks to make NFTs "a thing". So the "support" is
           | Astroturf.
        
       | bko wrote:
       | It might be covered in one of the resources, but when people talk
       | about NFTs, they just mean some token on Ethereum that the issuer
       | of said coin say is "the" product. For instance, the NFT for "the
       | first tweet" that sold is just someone created an Ethereum token
       | and said "this one is the first tweet", presumably w/ some text
       | in the token that states the tweet.
       | 
       | In that regard, its kind of centralized. There can be multiple
       | NFTs that claim to be tweets. There's no naturally definitive
       | "twitter" token, unless it's managed by Twitter itself. But
       | you're relying on the issuer of the coin to say "I am the NFT
       | coin" and everyone to agree.
       | 
       | Real world NFTs (e.g. art and collectibles) are unique in that
       | there is no dispute about what the original is. The art was
       | created by the artist or its a forgery. In that regard NFTs rely
       | on some issuing entity that bestows upon itself an arbitrary form
       | of ownership. I can make my own Twitter token and if I get
       | someone to buy a coin for an absurd amount (insider dealing?),
       | and convince reports to write about it, I can be "the twitter
       | nft"
       | 
       | Or am I thinking of this incorrectly?
        
         | dls2016 wrote:
         | > Real world NFTs (e.g. art and collectibles) are unique in
         | that there is no dispute about what the original is. The art
         | was created by the artist or its a forgery. In that regard NFTs
         | rely on some issuing entity that bestows upon itself an
         | arbitrary form of ownership. I can make my own Twitter token
         | and if I get someone to buy a coin for an absurd amount
         | (insider dealing?), and convince reports to write about it, I
         | can be "the twitter nft"
         | 
         | I think of NFTs as a fancy system of determining provenance: X
         | bought hash Y from seller Z. Whether other people assign
         | meaning/value to that transaction is subject to the usual whims
         | of human nature.
        
         | PretzelPirate wrote:
         | The confusion comes from how NFTs that represent images have
         | become so popular right now (I believe it's because it's the
         | easiest use case of an NFT and people want to make a quick
         | buck).
         | 
         | NFTs themselves are just a cryptographic representation of
         | something unique. It can be a token that says "you own this
         | image", but it can also be an in-game virtual item, a software
         | license, a digital trading card, etc...
         | 
         | There is some level of centralization in many cases. For
         | example, a trading card game will likely own the contract that
         | can mint cards and own the art for the cards. Other services
         | can read that contract to see what cards you own and use that
         | data inside their own game logic (though probably not the
         | images due to legal reasons).
         | 
         | This would already be useful for something like Magic the
         | Gathering where unofficial online services exist to play by
         | whatever rules you want. The last time I used one, you just put
         | your deck list in so everyone used the rarest cards. They may
         | have evolved now to check your Magic Online account, but you
         | can't do that as easily in Magic Arena.
         | 
         | Assuming the creators don't limit your freedom in their smart
         | contract, you can also buy, sell, or trade the NFT to whoever
         | and for whatever you want unlike a centralized service which
         | wouldn't enable access to an open market outside of the game's
         | ecosystem.
        
           | rusk wrote:
           | Here's the thing - if it relies on a central authority to say
           | "this is the genuine article" why do you even need a
           | blockchain? A PGP certificate or X.509 is arguably "a
           | cryptographic representation of something unique"
           | 
           | EDIT even something like a domain name - which is arguably a
           | better example as only one of such a thing can actually exist
           | in that only one owner can derive the value from it.
        
             | asimpletune wrote:
             | Because then it's not on the blockchain. Yes, I could sell
             | you a txt record, saying you own this hash, which
             | represents a jpg, but then it's not blockchain.
             | 
             | Honestly, I don't know.
             | 
             | Maybe it's because the blockchain is immutable? Like, I
             | could change that txt record because I'm evil or something.
             | That makes sense to me, in terms of technology.
        
               | miracle2k wrote:
               | Someone is trying it your way: https://signed.work/
               | 
               | The problem is that these signatures cannot be traded
               | anymore, since no one is tracking who owns which
               | editions. I can sell my signature to you, and then sell
               | it to someone else tomorrow. The artist intended to mint
               | 100 "prints", but suddenly 1000 people claim to own one.
        
               | rusk wrote:
               | No but the point is, when you're talking about physical
               | artefacts you can in theory issue as many tokens as you
               | like ... it's still down to a central authority to
               | certify.
        
             | gnopgnip wrote:
             | An NFT on the blockchain can be verifired crytographically
             | that it is the "original", it can't be duplicated, and you
             | can transfer it to anyone if you have the private key and
             | the gas.
             | 
             | A token off the blockchain controlled by a centralized
             | group could transfer ownership without a key at all. They
             | could issue the same one to more than one party and
             | duplicate it. Someone else could claim to own the record
             | and they could decide you don't anymore, they get to decide
             | who it is sold to. Or prohibit you from transferring it at
             | all.
        
             | makeworld wrote:
             | I don't like NFTs, but the point of putting it on the
             | blockchain is that it's globally available, verifiable, and
             | immutable. Many versions of a PGP-signed message could
             | exist and be passed around.
        
               | rusk wrote:
               | My point isn't that the token itself is globally
               | verifiable but that the asset it refers to actually is
               | ...
        
           | Igelau wrote:
           | That's the other reason I hate NFT. The only plausible use
           | case is as a terrible DRM key.
        
         | Igelau wrote:
         | > am I thinking of this incorrectly?
         | 
         | You've got it, more or less. The "surely I must be missing
         | something" reaction is actually indicative of the correct
         | understanding: the emperor has no clothes.
         | 
         | NFT: No Fscking Thing
        
         | lukebuehler wrote:
         | Yep, another way to put it is that any NFT is worthless unless
         | it is tied to some network effect.
         | 
         | This can be merely social convention, e.g. an artist announcing
         | that this is his Ethereum address, or an auction house acting
         | as an intermediary. But it could also be a network effect based
         | on software, e.g., a game, or something in between like the
         | original CryptoKitties.
        
           | bko wrote:
           | Yeah, that's what I figured. I get the idea of it being tied
           | to a game, but you don't really get the benefit of block
           | chain, except for making the token sellable without having to
           | go through the proper market channels.
           | 
           | Overall I'm very bullish on crypto as digital gold, less so
           | on Ethereum style apps and even less so on NFTs. It's an
           | interesting litmus test. I see a lot of crypto enthusiasts
           | speak highly about NFTs which I find odd. They generally have
           | very well thought out and reasoned arguments for Bitcoin as a
           | digital store of wealth, but then they go into NFTs and talk
           | about scarcity. But the scarcity of Bitcoin is only valuable
           | because it is the defacto digital currency, due to it's
           | survival up to this point. It has dealt with governance
           | issues, was built of strong cryptographic principals and most
           | importantly stood the test of time (lindy effect). Then they
           | speak about NFTs in a vague way as though they're naturally
           | authoritative without pointing out the obvious: you don't
           | actually own the digital asset you're buying. If it actually
           | had some real concept of ownership (e.g. owning a tweet
           | allows me to delete the tweet), then it would be a different
           | story. But as it stands now I don't see the value.
           | 
           | The cheer leading from the crypto community is odd and makes
           | me question their principals. I'd be happy to be proven wrong
           | and have someone steelman the argument for NFTs without
           | relying on "its a scarce asset and people want to own scarce
           | assets". It's also very early days in NFTs, so ten years from
           | now if the Twitter tokens are still selling for millions, I'd
           | be more willing to agree as it would have Lindy effect by
           | that point.
        
             | xur17 wrote:
             | > I see a lot of crypto enthusiasts speak highly about NFTs
             | which I find odd. They generally have very well thought out
             | and reasoned arguments for Bitcoin as a digital store of
             | wealth, but then they go into NFTs and talk about scarcity.
             | 
             | I've seen the opposite - most crypto enthusiasts I have
             | spoken to don't seem to understand NFTs at all / why they
             | are considered valuable by other people. I fit into that
             | camp.
             | 
             | > Overall I'm very bullish on crypto as digital gold, less
             | so on Ethereum style apps and even less so on NFTs.
             | 
             | I'm quite bullish on Ethereum style "defi" apps - once we
             | finally have decent layer 2 options and software deployed
             | on layer 2, I think interest rates on stablecoins will be a
             | large incentive for folks to start onboarding. The big
             | remaining piece then is convincing people to spend their
             | stable coins at stores - I would expect some level of
             | "rewards" paid by the store would be sufficient.
             | Essentially, an app that you can deposit funds into, earn
             | interest that is well above what your bank account pays,
             | and earns rewards that are competitive (or ideally beat)
             | with credit cards.
        
               | warkdarrior wrote:
               | > Essentially, an app that you can deposit funds into,
               | earn interest that is well above what your bank account
               | pays, and earns rewards that are competitive (or ideally
               | beat) with credit cards.
               | 
               | That would be fantastic! Give me 10% interest on my
               | wallet, and 10% "cashback" for my purchases with crypto,
               | and I'll switch my whole financial life to crypto.
        
               | xur17 wrote:
               | 10% cashback is probably pushing it unless the wallet is
               | giving away "platform tokens" as a growth hack at the
               | beginning. 2 to 3% is probably more realistic given what
               | merchants pay credit card providers.
               | 
               | Long term, if merchants were smart, they'd make their own
               | reward systems on top of this to encourage usage.
        
               | MrMan wrote:
               | Why does defi imply higher interest rates?
        
               | xur17 wrote:
               | I'm not 100% sure of all of the reasons - I imagine some
               | of it is defi being harder to access, some of it is the
               | increased risk (uncertainty / it's reasonably new), some
               | of it is removal of middlemen, and some of it is
               | incentivized behavior as a growth hack (similar to Uber
               | subsidizing rides). Curious for other peoples' thoughts
               | on what drives the higher interest rates.
        
               | bko wrote:
               | You earn interest by "lending" your digital asset. People
               | want to speculate against the asset (i.e. bet the price
               | will go down). The only way to do that is borrow someone
               | else's crypto (pay them an interest rate for the
               | trouble), sell it, and eventually buy it back later at a
               | lower price.
               | 
               | The interest rate is determined by the market, and since
               | its pretty early on in defi world, the owners of the
               | crypto demand a higher interest rate to make it worth
               | their while. Also, the more volatile the asset the more
               | valuable it is in terms of derivatives.
        
         | cma wrote:
         | > there is no dispute about what the original is
         | 
         | Still though, the value of collectible goes up if you have
         | extensive documentation proving it is the original, vs it just
         | merely being the original, or worse, it being the original and
         | someone else having extensive documentation convincingly making
         | the case that their counterfeit is actually the original.
        
           | billytetrud wrote:
           | NFTs can't prove originality, only ownership. Since digital
           | things are easily copied exactly, that's all you can do
        
             | kgwgk wrote:
             | For a very sui generis definition of ownership.
        
         | nostrademons wrote:
         | It's a simulacrum, in the post-modern sense.
         | 
         | For those who are unfamiliar with the concept, a simulacrum is
         | a copy of something that has itself become hyper-real and
         | usurped the reality of the original. The canonical example is
         | Disney World, which is a copy of Disneyland, which is itself a
         | copy of many elements of Americana (Louisiana Bayou, the
         | frontier West, Main Street USA, etc.) Disney World has eclipsed
         | Disneyland in visitors, which itself has eclipsed visits to
         | various small town main streets or the Louisiana bayous. You
         | plan a family vacation to Disney World, you don't plan a trip
         | to Bumfuck, Wyoming. Even though it's a copy of a copy (and a
         | poor one at that), its reality has eclipsed that of the
         | original, just because the original is hard to get to and kind
         | of boring.
         | 
         | Similar with NFTs. Yes, you can make an NFT of the Mona Lisa
         | and claim that you have the only one. Yes, you're a lying
         | swindler and probably a bad person. But your copy is much
         | easier to trade, move around, and store than the actual Mona
         | Lisa. And just as there's only one original Mona Lisa, there's
         | only one original NFT of the Mona Lisa, so your copy still has
         | the same scarcity. As more capital comes onto the blockchain,
         | your NFT is likely to acquire its own hyper-reality and become
         | _the_ Mona Lisa, and the original painting will be hidden away
         | in a museum somewhere and disappear from trading.
        
           | notahacker wrote:
           | "Sod going to an art gallery to look the actual paint
           | committed to canvas by the legendary artist over 500 years
           | ago, we can queue up to look at this PNG copy and admire the
           | uniqueness of the cryptographic token some anonymous
           | programmer attached to it recently" said literally nobody
           | ever.
           | 
           | Rollercoasters and Mickey Mouse make pastiches of common
           | things more interesting; creating an inferior copy of a
           | famous thing and trying to compensate for its inferiority and
           | inauthenticity with a _cryptographic string_ has the opposite
           | effect.
        
             | okareaman wrote:
             | What if you had a human model (or robot) who looked liked
             | Mona Lisa, dressed like Mona Lisa and was certified as the
             | only recognized copy of Mona Lisa and by purchasing the NFT
             | you were the only one who could have s.e.x with her?
        
           | Judgmentality wrote:
           | > And just as there's only one original Mona Lisa, there's
           | only one original NFT of the Mona Lisa
           | 
           | I apologize if I'm misunderstanding, but can't you create as
           | many NFTs of the Mona Lisa as you want? What's to stop
           | someone from just creating a second one, even the original
           | owner of the Mona Lisa? You can't copy the Mona Lisa (at
           | least not in such a way as to call it the original), but you
           | can make another NFT of the real Mona Lisa and...as far as I
           | can tell it's just as good.
           | 
           | I realize you can't copy the chain that's already descended
           | from the first NFT, but why does that matter? You can still
           | say this is a genuine NFT for the real Mona Lisa, and the
           | problem is you can make as many of those as you want. Or at
           | least that's how I understand it.
           | 
           | Copying something digital is very different from copying
           | something molecular. A digital copy is as good as the
           | original. A molecular copy is almost certainly possible to
           | distinguish, and if you can't you may as well not have an
           | original.
        
             | nostrademons wrote:
             | My understanding is that the NFT also contains a hash of
             | the work that it represents, so there really is only one of
             | a given digital work. You can create another NFT of a
             | different digitization, but there's still distinguishing
             | factors between them that would make one "better" than the
             | other (higher resolution, maybe, or more ubiquitous file
             | format). Also over time a particular digitizations' status
             | of being the first gives it its own legitimacy, unless the
             | environment changes in a way that makes competing ones
             | significantly more convenient.
             | 
             | It's sort of like the forking problem for cryptocurrencies
             | in general. Anyone can fork the Bitcoin code and say they
             | made a new cryptocurrency, and many people have done
             | exactly that (Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin SV, Bitcoin ABC). In
             | practice, the fork tends to die out, because much of a
             | cryptocurrency's value is in who agrees that it's valuable,
             | and there's a big first-mover advantage there.
        
               | lordnacho wrote:
               | An NFT is basically a number in a smart contract. Through
               | the ERC721 (there are others) interface, you can ask the
               | smart contract which address owns that particular number.
               | So, "contract 0xdeadbeef... , who owns 123456 ? It's
               | owned by 0xabcdef..."
               | 
               | This is totally fine, but keep in mind someone could
               | deploy an identical contract to a different address,
               | which also has a 123456 in it, which is also owned by
               | 0xabcdef. You'd have to be careful when you're checking
               | the ownership that you're checking everything. I could
               | imagine an unscrupulous person saying "Look, I sent you
               | 123456, it's in your address, see?" and then absconding.
        
               | bko wrote:
               | > My understanding is that the NFT also contains a hash
               | of the work that it represents, so there really is only
               | one of a given digital work
               | 
               | I've never heard that before. Can someone confirm this is
               | true? Is it solving for a hash of the original
               | digitization of the work or something?
        
               | clpm4j wrote:
               | My understanding is that John can take a picture/jpg of
               | the Mona Lisa, mint an ERC-20 token and sell his
               | picture/jpg on a NFT marketplace. Jane can also take a
               | picture/jpg of the Mona Lisa, mint an ERC-20 token and
               | sell her picture/jpg on a NFT marketplace. I think the
               | difference shows up when Jack Dorsey mints a screenshot
               | of his first tweet and sells it, it's worth $2m because
               | it's sold by Jack. Whereas I could screenshot Jack's
               | first tweet, mint it and sell it for $0.01 because it's
               | sold by me.
               | 
               | Very happy to be corrected if this is incorrect.
        
               | Judgmentality wrote:
               | This is also my understanding, and my point was (in this
               | example) Jack Dorsey can just do it a second time, and a
               | third time, and so on.
               | 
               | And it's not like Monet making more paintings, because
               | each painting is unique. This is an identical digital
               | copy from the same person, with no guarantee of its
               | longevity.
        
               | aboodman wrote:
               | Both of these statements are true:
               | 
               | - An NFT can (should) include a hash of the work
               | 
               | - Multiple NFTs can exist pointing to the same hash.
               | 
               | However:
               | 
               | > And it's not like Monet making more paintings, because
               | each painting is unique.
               | 
               | Each NFT is also unique in the sense that each NFT itself
               | has an address and its own history. They are
               | distinguishable. They are orderable.
               | 
               | > This is an identical digital copy from the same person,
               | with no guarantee of its longevity.
               | 
               | The _record_ has a guaranteed longevity - the longevity
               | of the underlying blockchain. The object it points to
               | obviously does not.
               | 
               | However that's not really important. Building records in
               | the city clerk office have a guaranteed longevity that is
               | far greater than the buildings themselves.
               | 
               | So for example, if Jack minted multiple NFTs for the same
               | tweet it would be clear to everyone which one was first.
               | Only the first one would presumably be considered
               | valuable.
               | 
               | If Jack attached IP rights to those NFTs, courts would
               | presumably only consider the first valid.
               | 
               | I personally find NFTs that lack actual legal property
               | rights to be silly and valueless, but I wanted to address
               | confusion about how they actually work.
        
               | Judgmentality wrote:
               | > So for example, if Jack minted multiple NFTs for the
               | same tweet it would be clear to everyone which one was
               | first. Only the first one would presumably be considered
               | valuable.
               | 
               | That's not how I see it at all. Once Jack has been shown
               | to be willing to oversell himself just to make a quick
               | buck, it will immediately devalue everything associated
               | with him, including the original NFT. You're buying into
               | the quality/credibility/longevity of the creator here,
               | and once it's shown he's a shill there's not much reason
               | to value any of his original "work" highly.
               | 
               | I am open to being wrong, but it still boggles my mind
               | anybody could think NFTs are anything other than a scam.
               | At least bitcoin had lots of legitimate theory to be used
               | as an alternative to currency, even if it only ended up
               | being an investment alternative for gold. An NFT is like
               | trying to sell art without actually having to create art.
        
               | miracle2k wrote:
               | > An NFT is like trying to sell art without actually
               | having to create art.
               | 
               | An NFT of a tweet maybe. But actually artists do create
               | art and sell it as NFTs.
        
               | Judgmentality wrote:
               | Sure, but there's no guarantee there won't be duplicates
               | of that work later. Unless the author has a legal
               | contract guaranteeing never to make another NFT of that
               | work again, there's no reason to believe in its
               | authenticity.
               | 
               | And call me crazy, but the kind of people selling NFTs
               | don't strike me as trustworthy.
        
               | miracle2k wrote:
               | But in the non-NFT world, artists are selling prints of
               | their work, and have been doing so for decades - hardly a
               | fad! Those can be fairly expensive for the top tier, and
               | they work the same way: You trust the artist will not
               | inflate the supply of the same work with additional
               | prints later on.
        
               | deckard1 wrote:
               | yes, but you can't just recreate a print at high quality
               | unless there happens to be a digital image of it floating
               | around.
               | 
               | Here's Beeple's $69 million artwork in full resolution
               | (warning: 300 megs!):
               | 
               | https://ipfsgateway.makersplace.com/ipfs/QmXkxpwAHCtDXbbZ
               | HUw...
               | 
               | The metadata for the IPFS: https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmPAg1mjx
               | cEQPPtqsLoEcauVedaeMH81WXDPvPx...
               | 
               | Because a token is public we can all see the contents.
               | Now, you could theoretically just put the hash in there
               | without the content existing on the IPFS (or elsewhere),
               | and then give the owner the content after the sale via a
               | separate channel. But now you've got the problem of how
               | to verify what you're buying is the real deal.
               | Furthermore, it complicates resale (not that IPFS will
               | save you there, IIRC if you're the one storing content on
               | IPFS and the _only_ one, then it 's possible you just
               | stop hosting it and the data vanishes).
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | aboodman wrote:
               | > Once Jack has been shown to be willing to oversell
               | himself just to make a quick buck, it will immediately
               | devalue everything associated with him, including the
               | original NFT. You're buying into the
               | quality/credibility/longevity of the creator here, and
               | once it's shown he's a shill there's not much reason to
               | value any of his original "work" highly.
               | 
               | To be clear I don't personally see any value at all in an
               | NFT that doesn't have legal IP rights attached. I think
               | we agree that far.
               | 
               | However:
               | 
               | > it will immediately devalue everything associated with
               | him, including the original NFT
               | 
               | It might. Kind of hard to theorize as to what the result
               | would be. The reason I'm hesitant to jump to that
               | conclusion is because of the timestampy nature of
               | blockchains. It's not as if the market is suddenly
               | flooded with forgeries and nobody can tell what's real.
               | It's baked into the blockchain which one was first. In
               | fact you might argue it would not be possible
               | (economically) for Jack to do this in the first place
               | since nobody would buy the second instance.
        
               | aboodman wrote:
               | Another comparison here to make is like signed copies /
               | limited editions. People buy signed copies of albums,
               | artworks, etc., even though forgeries are rampant. Are
               | NFTs like signed copies?
               | 
               | If the value of a signed copy is mostly performative,
               | then NFTs alone maybe should not have value (because
               | nobody can really see that you own one). If the value of
               | a signed copy is personal, then maybe it does.
               | 
               | I don't personally see any value in owning an NFT, but
               | it's not cut and dry to me that nobody else will or
               | should.
        
               | rideontime wrote:
               | It's not.
        
         | makomk wrote:
         | In reality, I think a lot of art these days _isn 't_ created by
         | the artist, at least not mostly - it's created by their
         | technicians or students or other people they employ and then
         | just given their blessing, maybe with a few last finishing
         | touches. The thing that makes it not a forgery is literally the
         | artist's blessing; in principle you could even have a "forgery"
         | that was created by the same person as the genuine article.
         | This isn't widely advertised for obvious reasons but it isn't
         | exactly a _secret_ either, and it 's not really a new thing -
         | the actual creation of some of the classic, famous fine art
         | paintings was a lot like this too and it makes verifying
         | authenticity very interesting.
        
       | malthaus wrote:
       | NFT are null pointers with a random price tag
        
         | echelon wrote:
         | They're more like barcodes.
         | 
         | I wouldn't pay 60 million for a barcode.
        
       | jakemauer wrote:
       | The only way that NFTs make sense to me is in some sort of
       | impossible to implement DRM-like system where ONLY the current
       | owners of the media can display it or utilize it. If buying an
       | NFT of a piece of art meant that I could digitally display the
       | file in full resolution, or if it otherwise afforded me some
       | tangible benefit during the period of ownership, I could see it
       | making sense.
       | 
       | As of right now NFTs are basically donations to the artist with
       | more steps and about 1000x the carbon footprint.
        
         | gnopgnip wrote:
         | The utility of art or collectibles is a very small portion of
         | the value. A game worn Michael Jordan jersey you paid $100k for
         | has essentially the same utility as a <$100 jersey. It is
         | valuable because it is scarce, and the provenance
        
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