[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Trying to explain NFTs to family on Thanksgi...
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Ask HN: Trying to explain NFTs to family on Thanksgiving. Am I
wrong?
I tried to explain NFTs and crypto to family on Thanksgiving, but I
don't think I was able to get it across across. I should have
mentioned that many years before NFTs you could buy land on the
Moon and get a certificate of ownership. There is no legal
framework for owning land on the Moon, but that doesn't have to
stop you from setting up a market for Moon land with your friends
and trading your Moon acres for goods and services. As long as a
group of people decided to use Moon land as money, they can use it
as a way of enabling transactions. Like Monopoly money, it's
essentially a way of keeping score of who owns what. Like casino
chips, you might even be able to exchange them for dollars if the
market owner (the casino) finds it profitable to maintain the
illusion that they are real money. Just don't try to buy groceries
with casino chips. The operative phrase is "There is no legal
framework," so if the Chinese decide to build a moon base on your
land you're out of luck because you never really owned any land on
the Moon. Any day now someone will try to sell an NFT of the
Brooklyn Bridge. In other words, NFTs are just another vehicle to
extract money from suckers.
Author : okareaman
Score : 19 points
Date : 2021-11-27 18:59 UTC (4 hours ago)
| jyu wrote:
| You're wrong. Look at the history of digital gaming and people
| trading in game items for real money. Look at the whole swath of
| digital art, music, nba game moments, etc that could not be
| certified and now can be. Look at how major game studios were
| silent about NFTs and now all announced in their recent earnings
| reports that they are at least investigating blockchain and NFT
| and soon incorporating them into their futures. If you do any bit
| of shallow research, you'll stumble into several multi billion
| and soon to be multi trillion dollar market cap plays.
|
| Look back at this comment in five years.
| okareaman wrote:
| I said _The operative phrase is "There is no legal framework"_
|
| Are you telling me there is a legal framework so NFT ownership
| is enforceable? Or are you saying it's a game people have
| agreed to play? Edit: I didn't say you couldn't have an
| operative market.
| elliekelly wrote:
| In-game items aren't being sold as "investments" and they're
| typically non-transferable. They are not advertised as items
| that will appreciate in value and the purpose of the items
| isn't to make money. And 99% of the time you don't even own the
| items at all but instead have bought a license to use a design
| under terms stipulated by the video game company.
| ratorx wrote:
| I don't think video games have very much use for NFTs. Valve
| games (TF2, CS:GO) have a thriving 3rd party cosmetic market
| based on trading, and Valve even takes a cut for e.g. the Steam
| community market. This did not need NFTs to implement. I don't
| see why a game dev would go through the trouble of establishing
| a distributed model of ownership, especially for multiplayer
| games, which already have the centralisation of game servers,
| or game server discovery servers. Also, it gives them less
| control of the ecosystem.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > Am I wrong?
|
| For trying to explain NFTs to your family? Probably. If your
| family trusts you with technology, the best way to actually talk
| about it would be implicitly imparting your opinion as a passing
| topic. Something like "you hear about those chumps spending real
| life money on randomly-generated pixel art?" If they show
| interest, chase it down and indulge their curiosity. If they
| don't really care, cauterize the topic with a joke or a banal
| comment like "I didn't know the public could _get_ any dumber! "
| In any case, I'd bet the last thing _anyone_ wants to do is
| launch into a blockchain-based seminar when they really just want
| you to pass the mashed potatoes.
| okareaman wrote:
| I guess I have a weird family. My ex wife was there. She is a
| programmer who I consider a mathematical genius. I am a
| programmer. Our son was there. He rebelled by not caring about
| anything tech. My mother and father are pretty smart. They were
| all curious about it because of the buzz, so I did my best to
| explain it. I'm pretty sure they grokked it, especially the
| part about Bitcoin being attractive because the government
| can't devalue it by printing more. My ex has a relative working
| in New York City as a hedge fund manager, so I asked her to ask
| him to get a second opinion.
| allears wrote:
| When you say "the government can't devalue it by printing
| more," that shows a pretty shallow understanding of
| economics. Are you thinking there's only so much gold owned
| by the government, and each printed dollar represents a share
| of that gold? That hasn't been true for a long time. Are you
| thinking there's only so much money in the world, so we
| should never print more since that dilutes the pool? That's
| not correct either. Economics isn't an easy subject, and I'm
| far from knowledgeable about it myself, but I do know that
| the sound bites favored by TV personalities are all about
| pushing political agendas, and not at all related to actual,
| you know, truth.
| okareaman wrote:
| I'm aware that we are not on the gold standard. I'm also
| aware that money supply is a number that is closely
| tracked. I'm also aware that countries get in trouble when
| they try to print new money to get out of a crisis. That's
| about the extent of my understanding.
| thrower123 wrote:
| The Dutch Tulip craze seems the most relevant example, but at
| least somewhere at the bottom of all the financialization in that
| case, there were some actual tulip bulbs that could be planted to
| yield flowers.
| musicale wrote:
| Same thing with physical art - even if it lacks monetary value,
| you still have something beautiful that you can hang on your
| wall.
|
| A physical painting might also have attractive qualities
| (texture, color, sparkle) that a flat print would not have. (On
| the other hand, a print of an older painting might correct some
| deficiencies in the original such as damage, cracks, or
| fading.)
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| You probably shouldn't try to explain things to your family until
| you understand them yourself.
| CogitoCogito wrote:
| You can never really be sure you actually understand something.
| Trying to explain it to others is just about the best possible
| way to probe your understanding.
| okareaman wrote:
| I think we have to try or we're letting our people down
|
| _From an excerpt of the book published in a 1996 issue of
| Caltech's Engineering & Science magazine:
|
| Feynman was a truly great teacher. He prided himself on being
| able to devise ways to explain even the most profound ideas to
| beginning students. Once, I said to him, "Dick, explain to me,
| so that I can understand it, why spin one-half particles obey
| Fermi-Dirac statistics." Sizing up his audience perfectly,
| Feynman said, "I'll prepare a freshman lecture on it." But he
| came back a few days later to say, "I couldn't do it. I
| couldn't reduce it to the freshman level. That means we don't
| really understand it."
|
| John Gruber writes the simple explanations are the goal at
| Apple as well:
|
| Engineers are expected to be able to explain a complex
| technology or product in simple, easily-understood terms not
| because the executive needs it explained simply to understand
| it, but as proof that the engineer understands it completely._
|
| https://kottke.org/17/06/if-you-cant-explain-something-in-si...
| poetically wrote:
| You're correct. NFTs are unenforceable certificates of ownership
| for publicly available digital assets (at least as they are used
| currently). It's possible to make NFTs that connect to real world
| activities like tickets for concerts and whatnot but no one has
| done that yet or at least I haven't heard of it yet.
| andy800 wrote:
| Dirtybird Flight Club is a new (Oct 2021) NFT project, backed
| by the Dirtybird record label, that has held multiple free DJ
| events exclusively for NFT holders. So yes they connect to real
| world activities, and yes they are enforceable.
| poetically wrote:
| What exactly is being enforced?
| andy800 wrote:
| Don't own an NFT, can't attend the show.
| Traster wrote:
| How does the NFT ensure you can attend the show? Surely
| the bouncer can just tell you you're not getting in, or
| let in the DJs friends?
| andy800 wrote:
| How does a bank ensure you can withdraw your money?
| Surely the teller can just raid your account and give
| your cash to his/her friends.
|
| I don't think anything can 100% prevent illegal activity,
| but eventually someone who abuses their power will get
| caught and be removed.
| gus_massa wrote:
| The teller has a camera over his/her shoulder, and [at
| least here] to extract the money you must go with your
| credit card and type a PIN, so the computer can verify
| it's you.
|
| Banks hate competition, so they ensure the teller is not
| stealing money from the client.
| andy800 wrote:
| Bouncers are watched by cameras too. And if they don't
| allow in legitimate ticket holders (unless incapacitated,
| abusive, etc), they get removed from the job. The owner
| of the nightclub can't risk his business being sued, or
| fined, or losing business from event promoters who
| receive multiple complaints of denied entry at that
| specific venue.
|
| The credit card/PIN combo sounds great until someone
| walks into the bank and says their wallet was stolen, or
| even, that you died last week and presents a forged death
| certificate. The point is every system has a failure
| point if someone is determined enough. NFTs can prove
| digital presence in a specific wallet, they can't
| actually prove who owns the wallet. No crypto asset can
| do that, which is why many people have gotten tricked
| into giving up their private key or recovery phrase.
| CogitoCogito wrote:
| I think the posters you're responding to are asking the
| following: what does an NFT provide here that any other
| identifier doesn't? They could just say you need to have
| an ID with your name on it. Is the point that would not
| be private? And so they could fix that by just sending
| you a long random string and forcing you to show that?
| But then is the issue in that case that that string could
| get duplicated multiple times and so if you had an NFT
| you could essentially guarantee that this private
| identifier is simultaneously transferable, but still
| effectively unique?
|
| These are legitimate questions and I'm just trying to
| understand.
| andy800 wrote:
| The OP said NFTs were "unenforceable", I disagreed. That
| was the extent of it -- I didn't claim they do anything
| another identifier can't. A physical ticket is
| enforceable, isn't it?
|
| The location of the NFTs (what wallets they reside in) is
| public knowledge on the blockchain. The enforcement part
| comes by proving you are the owner of one of those
| wallets. Can someone steal your ID, or your phone with a
| wallet on it, sure, but as I said earlier, nothing is
| 100% resistant to illegal activity.
| CogitoCogito wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that the OP didn't mean literally
| unenforceable, but more that an NFT is no more
| enforceable than any other mechanism. In the end someone
| has to stand there and verify it and make a decision.
| They could use any number of methods that (may) be
| equally as good. In other words, why would one choose
| NFTs over any other method?
|
| Anyway I don't want to get into that. I would still
| appreciate answers to my questions (here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29363960 ) in case
| someone here is feeling charitable.
| [deleted]
| okareaman wrote:
| Maybe the simplest way to explain NFTs is to compare them to
| casino chips: "if you have a casino chip and that casino goes
| out of business, your chip will most likely be worthless"
|
| Say you take 10 grand to Bob's Casino in Las Vegas, buy chips
| and turn them into 100 grand at blackjack. You put the chips in
| your bag and go home to sleep because you're pretty drunk.
| Bob's Casino burns down overnight and Bob announces it he now
| bankrupt and going out of business. Your 100 grand in chips are
| now worthless.
|
| The top answer for "are casino chips legal tender?" on Google
| is _Because casino chips are not legal tender, they are not
| legally transferable. That doesn 't mean some people don't try
| to exchange them for cash or chips at rival casinos. Although
| the practice was once popular in Las Vegas, the government
| stepped in to prevent money laundering and counterfeiting._
|
| The U.S. dollar is the global reserve currency because it is
| backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. Government and
| people have confidence the U.S. will last. Bob's Casino chips
| are back by Bob.
|
| NFT's are backed by who?
| andy800 wrote:
| Who is the Mona Lisa "backed by"?
| quietthrow wrote:
| Curious how nfts are any different from qr codes in some ways.
| poetically wrote:
| They're not. The difference is that if the QR code was public
| and associated with some specific public key then it would be
| exactly like an NFT. The blockchain enthusiasts are confused
| about the economic and cryptographic aspects, they're
| orthogonal concerns.
| chiph wrote:
| The problem with NFTs is that they often don't have good
| provenance, and so are ripe for fraud.
|
| Suppose we have a well-known photo of the Brooklyn Bridge. It was
| scanned twice and separate NFTs were created and sold. The data &
| hash is different because the scanner had different dust patterns
| on the glass each time. But visually - it's the same photo. And
| they were sold with the promise that they were unique in the
| world. Which is technically true (the math proves it), but a
| reasonable person would not think so.
|
| A legit source like the NYC Museum of Modern Art would be trusted
| to sell NFTs that are unique and collectible. However "Bob's
| online NFT Shop" has a really nice website & sales brochure and
| so far has relied on his Terms of Use to quash any rumors of
| selling dupes.
| rcacho wrote:
| I don't think it matters whether the source is legit or not.
|
| People have to ask themselves why they are buying an NFT.
|
| If they are buying it because they have a genuine interest in
| owning the NFT then they might want to make sure what they are
| purchasing is "authentic". Which I imagine in this case means
| there isn't, and won't be, an NFT that has more claim to being
| "authentic".
|
| The more popular case for buying an NFT, I imagine, is for its
| value. Whether that be to sell it for more or simply to own
| something of value. In this case authenticity doesn't really
| matter. Two years from now it is entirely possible that MOMA's
| NFTs are entirely worthless. Everything with a brand is going
| to be trying to sell an NFT.
|
| Consider trading cards based on 90's cartoons. Both Pokemon and
| Dragon Ball were popular cartoons. Only Pokemon cards cards
| though still have any value, to my knowledge.
|
| More than trying to recognize whether the source is legit
| people have to understand the NFT culture. "Bob's online NFT
| Shop"'s Starry Night NFT might be worth millions in the future
| while MOMA's version is worthless. The value isn't really about
| authenticity. Both could be entirely forgotten tomorrow as it
| turns out that people don't care about art NFT and it turns out
| that COVID variant NFTs are the thing that has staying power.
| hebetude wrote:
| The problem with art is good provenance. NFTs specifically
| solves this issue. Provenance was a common word used by art
| collectors describing the issues with Art auctions during
| NFT.NYC. Noah Davis really opened my eyes to this topic, here's
| his speech at NFT.NYC
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeVZeXsRKhs
|
| It would take a while to explain provenance in crypto space.
| It's largely based on credibility and ownership of addresses.
| Once credibility and address is established, it is a simple
| operation to prove the Bridge picture came from a specific
| artist. Things like ENS (Ethereum Name Service) are examples of
| deep support for provenance in Crypto.
| folli wrote:
| I recently wrote a short article about NFTs, how they work and
| how to get started. Might be of some interest to your family:
| https://medium.com/@contact_9164/how-to-create-your-first-nf...
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(page generated 2021-11-27 23:01 UTC)