Instagram Is Disabling Its NFT Features(nftnow.com)
nftnow.com
Instagram Is Disabling Its NFT Features
https://nftnow.com/news/breaking-instagram-is-sunsetting-digital-collectibles-nfts/
437 comments
I agree with your general point, but suggesting non-techies should learn about cryptography in order to stay safe online is pretty ridiculous; if people need an understanding of cryto to be safe we might as well switch the Internet off.
Learning to use cryptography is not at all ridiculous. Understanding that HTTPS provides a level of scrambling to traffic is totally reasonable.
I don't think GP was talking about learning modulo arithmetic and prime factorisation.
I don't think GP was talking about learning modulo arithmetic and prime factorisation.
I rather think you'd generalise https as "secure", and http as "not".
No mention of crypto required.
No mention of crypto required.
And that's how you get people that think that every website starting with "https" is secure and legit, even though it's trivial for malicious sites to use TLS.
Fundamental cryptographic primitives (encryption, signatures,...) don't require any advanced math to understand if you don't go into the concrete instantiations. The technical community should really try to better teach these concepts to the general public as we move further into the digital age.
Fundamental cryptographic primitives (encryption, signatures,...) don't require any advanced math to understand if you don't go into the concrete instantiations. The technical community should really try to better teach these concepts to the general public as we move further into the digital age.
I think people need to understand what's protected. Something like "https guarantees that your are connected to the website displayed in the address bar and that no one can see the content of the communication"
It's important because for example it makes it clearer why they should still check the url in the address bar (and not get phished) or that the communication with the website itself is not hidden (only the content is), etc.
It's important because for example it makes it clearer why they should still check the url in the address bar (and not get phished) or that the communication with the website itself is not hidden (only the content is), etc.
> website displayed in the address bar
I would probably start there and work your way up to https :(
I would probably start there and work your way up to https :(
>No mention of crypto required.
what do you think you're teaching, then? Just general good practices?
A teen can be told and taught to wear a condom without explanation of the virology and biology behind the things that it helps to avoid -- similarly Grandma can learn the importance behind https without memorizing the cypher suites; it's still an aspect of cryptography.
what do you think you're teaching, then? Just general good practices?
A teen can be told and taught to wear a condom without explanation of the virology and biology behind the things that it helps to avoid -- similarly Grandma can learn the importance behind https without memorizing the cypher suites; it's still an aspect of cryptography.
I sort of agree but also sorta irrelevant?
The important point is that TLS is referred to as crypto in some cases, and I believe that's what the GGP was referring to. Were I writing an expository piece, sure, I might use different language, but that's not really what my reply was about.
The important point is that TLS is referred to as crypto in some cases, and I believe that's what the GGP was referring to. Were I writing an expository piece, sure, I might use different language, but that's not really what my reply was about.
Surely someone who is talking about TLS knows enough about IT to understand the context of crypto is different than cryptocurrency?
"What makes it secure" is a common (and reasonable) question from anybody curiously minded.
The answer is symmetric cryptography, and you can give a layman example of what that is. But the key word is cryptography.
The answer is symmetric cryptography, and you can give a layman example of what that is. But the key word is cryptography.
secure from what, though
This is exactly what I was getting at, thanks.
To give another example where this comes up: keeping backups of your data is prudent. Encrypting those backups is a good idea in a lot of cases to protect your data in case of device theft. While most modern systems make this as simple as possible for the casual user it still helps the user to have a basic understanding of what’s actually going on and the implications.
To give another example where this comes up: keeping backups of your data is prudent. Encrypting those backups is a good idea in a lot of cases to protect your data in case of device theft. While most modern systems make this as simple as possible for the casual user it still helps the user to have a basic understanding of what’s actually going on and the implications.
If it were up to me every person with access to a computer where other people's personal or financial data is handled should be required to get a security certification stating they have a basic understanding of digital signatures, certificates, HTTPS, encryption and how to protect against common threats (phishing, social engineering). If people can't do that they might as well go back to typewriters and FAX machines.
In banks (and similarly regulated institutions) there's mandatory security training to educate employees. Sadly, in my experience, this "training" is essentially like those kids rides at an amusement park where you're stuck in a trolly till the end – it's slow and mostly tedious but sometimes there's one bit of trivia that might delight. In the end, there's a very simple multiple choice test that is worded to make it more or less obvious what the correct answers are. If you do get it wrong you get infinite retries and there are only so many questions...
I'd love to see mandatory education in basic cryptography and such, but in reality I'd assume that even that would end up being security theater for the sake of ticking a box on the compliance score sheet.
I'd love to see mandatory education in basic cryptography and such, but in reality I'd assume that even that would end up being security theater for the sake of ticking a box on the compliance score sheet.
This sounds like the OSHA 10 class I recently had to do. I think the issue here is that if a business wants workers it is incentivized to make the tests as easy as possible, not to make sure their employees know what they’re doing.
Agreed. On top of that, everyone who owns a car should be required to learn how to change their serpentine belts, oil, replace spark plugs, and alternator. They should be required to sign a paper saying they will change their tires with a spare on the side of the road and carry a jump starter with them at all times. The roads would be a safer place if people knew what was going on inside their cars and how to operate them.
Definitely. And also consider whether you are in agreement with the 1500 hours of training required to be a barber: https://www.barber-license.com/rhode-island/
> I agree with your general point, but suggesting non-techies should learn about cryptography in order to stay safe online is pretty ridiculous
I think it's about understanding concepts and uses, not the inner workings. As an example, Glenn Greenwald (despite being a reporter handling sensitive topics) didn't know how to use encryption when he was contacted by Snowden, and learned it later. [1]
I think it would be very useful if the general public could use encryption to the same level they drive cars.
[1]: https://theintercept.com/2014/10/28/smuggling-snowden-secret...
I think it's about understanding concepts and uses, not the inner workings. As an example, Glenn Greenwald (despite being a reporter handling sensitive topics) didn't know how to use encryption when he was contacted by Snowden, and learned it later. [1]
I think it would be very useful if the general public could use encryption to the same level they drive cars.
[1]: https://theintercept.com/2014/10/28/smuggling-snowden-secret...
If you're in the cryptography business I'd just refer to it as digital security. ( Or cybersecurity if you prefer ).
It's the same concept but without the baggage of "crypto".
It's the same concept but without the baggage of "crypto".
Yes but
Why should I change? They’re the ones who suck.
Why should I change? They’re the ones who suck.
Well yeah, there was a time when the title song for the Flintstones could contain the verse "we'll have a gay old time" without anyone questioning Fred and Barney's sexual orientation. Those times are gone too...
i still use the old meaning of gay. It has such a wonderful meaning
You could say the old meaning of gay is quite...gay
All I can do is upvote this but I kind of want it printed on a hoodie or something as well.
Come on, I'm sure that before bitcoin was invented, no one used the term "crypto" to refer to "cryptography"; doing that would be more cringy than this article itself.
Here's OpenSSL calling cryptography crypto in 1998: https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commits/master?after=9313...
And libgcrypt in 2000: https://github.com/gpg/libgcrypt/commit/bf2fc9201cfa96cd70ef...
Totally normal and not cringy at all.
Edit: And on Usenet in 1982: https://www.usenetarchives.com/view.php?id=net.misc&mid=dGVr...
And libgcrypt in 2000: https://github.com/gpg/libgcrypt/commit/bf2fc9201cfa96cd70ef...
Totally normal and not cringy at all.
Edit: And on Usenet in 1982: https://www.usenetarchives.com/view.php?id=net.misc&mid=dGVr...
As someone who was a developer well before Bitcoin was invented, yes, we did.
Here's a conference from 1981 put on by the IEEE:
https://www.iacr.org/archive/crypto81/1_front_matter.pdf
Here's a conference from 1981 put on by the IEEE:
https://www.iacr.org/archive/crypto81/1_front_matter.pdf
yp.to - D. J. Bernstein's[1] domain registered in 1997 preceeds Bitcoin[2] by 12 years.
[1] https://cr.yp.to/
[2] https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
[1] https://cr.yp.to/
[2] https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_(book) is from 2001 and it may give you a good indication of what the term crypto was referring to back then.
Literally everyone did
> I'm sure
And yet you are wrong :)
And yet you are wrong :)
> I'm sure that before bitcoin was invented, no one used the term "crypto" to refer to "cryptography"
I have to assume this is sarcasm, right?
That's literally what "crypto" has always meant for decades, cryptography.
The Crypto conference started in 1981 for instance.
https://www.iacr.org/meetings/crypto/
I have to assume this is sarcasm, right?
That's literally what "crypto" has always meant for decades, cryptography.
The Crypto conference started in 1981 for instance.
https://www.iacr.org/meetings/crypto/
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yeah, the vocabulary used in public discussed has done a weird shift to accommodate the takeovers of various marketing departments.
What used to be "crypto" is now "cyber".
What used to be "cyber" is now "metaverse".
What used to be "crypto" is now "cyber".
What used to be "cyber" is now "metaverse".
Cybersecurity is also much more accurate description of the skills/work required to stay safe online.
Most computers are not compromised because of flaws in cryptography or the application thereof, they are compromised because of operational security (opening suspicious email attachments, reusing passwords, running systems with default admin passwords, etc). These things have little to do with cryptography and are much better understood as "cybersecurity".
Most computers are not compromised because of flaws in cryptography or the application thereof, they are compromised because of operational security (opening suspicious email attachments, reusing passwords, running systems with default admin passwords, etc). These things have little to do with cryptography and are much better understood as "cybersecurity".
How about encryption? It's called e2ee after all.
They're different though. Encryption is just one application of cryptography.
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> The worst part is how the public now thinks if you’re involved in software you must be a massive believer in cc/NFTs because they keep hearing about it so all techies must think it’s awesome, right!?
This used to be the case about a year ago, now I see the trend shifting towards AI.
This used to be the case about a year ago, now I see the trend shifting towards AI.
the subreddit for "buttcoin" does a pretty good job lampooning cryptocurrency true believers.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/
Nah, they go too far in hating it beyond the bounds of actual reality. I hate cryptocurrency as much as the next guy, but I got banned from that sub for pointing out that credit card transactions don't actually settle instantly and chargebacks exist.
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Every tech friend I know is deeply cynical about NFTs and pretty much everything else now because anything that happens is immediately turned into some sort of grift by ravenous capitalists.
Most of all my tech friends are skeptical about most things we encounter in life. We're just naturally curious and ask questions to learn more. Asking questions about NFTs and the benefits of cryptocurrencies has led to a consensus of it being mostly pointless in the case of NFTs or a way to skirt around regulations in the case of cryptocurrencies.
The people I've found that have embraced NFTs and altcoins are the ones that are much more focused on business and making money rather than the tech under it all.
The people I've found that have embraced NFTs and altcoins are the ones that are much more focused on business and making money rather than the tech under it all.
Sorry but HN is just too biased against anything blockchain-related.
There are tons of reasons to use Web3. You typically do so when you want a community to manage some value without trusting a middleman. Here are a lot of examples: https://intercoin.org/applications
There are tons of reasons to use Web3. You typically do so when you want a community to manage some value without trusting a middleman. Here are a lot of examples: https://intercoin.org/applications
I don't find most of those persuasive, and the couple that would actually benefit from the blockchain are niche applications that most people would never use.
[deleted]
I worked at Facebook in 2021, and NFTs were like a honeypot for the most useless managers.
If I were Zuck, I might start another crypto project next year and ask for volunteers because it seems like a pretty good way to extract the worst performers into a neat org chart box that can be shut down without breaking anything else.
If I were Zuck, I might start another crypto project next year and ask for volunteers because it seems like a pretty good way to extract the worst performers into a neat org chart box that can be shut down without breaking anything else.
Anecdotally, as someone trying to hire, the vast majority of candidates with Web3/NFT or whatever on their resume can't pass our phone screen. It's a pretty good selector for finding better talent.
Or with metaverse, only idiots would work on that.
John Carmack is hardly an idiot.
John Carmack publicly criticized the intentional pursuit of "the metaverse" at Meta while he was employed at Meta.
"I have been pretty actively arguing against every single metaverse effort that we have tried to spin up internally in the company from even pre-acquisition times."
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/21/10/29/2144232/john-carmac...
"I have been pretty actively arguing against every single metaverse effort that we have tried to spin up internally in the company from even pre-acquisition times."
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/21/10/29/2144232/john-carmac...
I'm sure this is a great strat that companies already use.
- Recruit people to a new project that has a selection bias towards under-performers (or some other characteristic you want to weed-out)
- Let the project rot for a quarter
- Cut the project and all its teammates
- Recruit people to a new project that has a selection bias towards under-performers (or some other characteristic you want to weed-out)
- Let the project rot for a quarter
- Cut the project and all its teammates
> Recruit people to a new project that has a selection bias towards under-performers (or some other characteristic you want to weed-out)
More than under-performers, I think these kind of projects tend to attract those with shiny object syndrome or political ambitions.
More than under-performers, I think these kind of projects tend to attract those with shiny object syndrome or political ambitions.
This could be a symptom of Facebook and not software as a whole. I mean, you could say the same thing about what’s happening in AI and large corporations. Same for IoT etc.
No, you couldn't, because the other things have useful applications, and can possibly work.
You could use blockchain based transactions to reduce overhead and complexity. Here’s JPM doing it https://cointelegraph.com/news/jp-morgan-executes-first-defi...
Have you ever tried steelmanning your arguments?
Have you ever tried steelmanning your arguments?
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My favorite recent NFT story was the exchange that opened an NFT market, and then closed it 30 days later because they only had $100 in trades:
https://web3isgoinggreat.com/?id=wazirx-closes-nft-marketpla...
https://web3isgoinggreat.com/?id=wazirx-closes-nft-marketpla...
Imagine starting an NFT market and not even doing the standard wash trades to set the ridiculous prices for all of the FOMO spam.
Oh my god, these guys were true believers. That’s even more hilarious.
Oh my god, these guys were true believers. That’s even more hilarious.
Washing is pretty abrasive when there's a 5% sales commission.
I think they are suggesting that the exchange would use bot accounts, exempt from trading fees.
Not for the people running the market.
Even if they did pay it they would be collecting their own vig
You gotta spend money to grift money.
You need to work on your grindset - Washing is cheap when there's a 5% sales commission.
A low price to pay when you're laundering money, which is the only real NFT use case.
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It's pretty weird to call your product "a fully decentralized platform" as you announce that you have unilaterally shut it down.
NFTs: the thing nobody needed, let alone wanted, but which proved to be a sufficiently effective money laundering (sorry, "speculative") instrument that we all had to have it shoved down our throats for the better part of a year anyway.
Goodbye and good riddance.
Goodbye and good riddance.
>NFTs: the thing nobody needed, let alone wanted
Its a good idea to handle ownership of finite digital assets. Imagine buying a song or video game online, and then being able to sell it or give it to a friend later, without having to go through a central authority (and not be breaking copyright law). Just like with a CD.
Unfortunately, 99% of NFT projects have been essentially penny stock schemes, so now that's what everyone thinks of them as.
Its a good idea to handle ownership of finite digital assets. Imagine buying a song or video game online, and then being able to sell it or give it to a friend later, without having to go through a central authority (and not be breaking copyright law). Just like with a CD.
Unfortunately, 99% of NFT projects have been essentially penny stock schemes, so now that's what everyone thinks of them as.
> finite digital assets
That's a nice oxymoron you have there. Digital assets are not "finite" or scarce, that's their biggest strength: that they can be copied and shared infinitely. I know that some people hate that, and would love to change it (see DRM). But to hell with that.
That's a nice oxymoron you have there. Digital assets are not "finite" or scarce, that's their biggest strength: that they can be copied and shared infinitely. I know that some people hate that, and would love to change it (see DRM). But to hell with that.
That's not true at all. Any deed of ownership can be finite, especially if they refer to a physical object where there is a natural limit on the number of owners. Just because you can make infinite copies of the document, doesn't mean the legal system allows you to do that.
And there we end up relying on a legal system again to verify the asset and we're back to square one. If my NFT needs to be verified when I sell it, which it will, because there will be fakes, then we still need a third party.
Welcome to the real world, where technology can't solve social problems.
Can we pin this comment to the top of every HN thread?
But why cram a finite-based system into a non-finite universe ? What's the point ? Haven't we understood that private property and ownership are not, in fact, better than sharing and common usage ? The digital world allows us to actually touch this, and we still import artificial restrictions that only benefit those who already have ?
The whole point about digital goods is that you don't "own" them. Read the contract.
You talk about consumers who buy a usage-license. But someone must create those content first, and holds the ownership on them. Which is usually the creator, or publisher, or someone who bought the ownership. And there are usually proof of this ownership, like contracts and such.
Even if ownership of digital assets or false scarcity were good ideas, NFTs never did any of this.
The spec was technically amateurish — basically just URLs in a bit of JSON in a slow database, with barely any connection to the asset. NFTs allowed regular non-IPFS URLs without any checksum, which allowed HTTP servers to change the asset at any time! And they had absolutely no uniqueness checks, allowing automating piracy!
https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/14/22726556/signal-founder-...
You could literally copy an image, and make a new token for it, and there was no way to decide which token was the true one for any given image, except maybe if you trusted some central authority, haha.
The spec was technically amateurish — basically just URLs in a bit of JSON in a slow database, with barely any connection to the asset. NFTs allowed regular non-IPFS URLs without any checksum, which allowed HTTP servers to change the asset at any time! And they had absolutely no uniqueness checks, allowing automating piracy!
https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/14/22726556/signal-founder-...
You could literally copy an image, and make a new token for it, and there was no way to decide which token was the true one for any given image, except maybe if you trusted some central authority, haha.
> Imagine buying a song or video game online, and then being able to sell it or give it to a friend later, without having to go through a central authority (and not be breaking copyright law).
I don't have to imagine it. That's the reality right now without NFTs in the mix.
I don't have to imagine it. That's the reality right now without NFTs in the mix.
How do you plan to buy or sell a song or a video game using NFT, WITHOUT A CENTRAL AUTHORITY? (emphasis on the important part of the question)
You would need a central authority (the copyright holder) to maintain a list of legitimate NFTs. However, you would not need to get their permission whenever you want to sell them.
How do you plan to sell some digital artifact is you either a) don't have a right do this, or b) have a right but the medium (NFT and blockchain) doesn't support transfer of the IP rights in any form? You would need the central authority to track IP rights and ownership in the centralised DB and which point why use NFTs in the first place?
> You would need the central authority to track IP rights and ownership in the centralised DB and which point why use NFTs in the first place?
You wouldn't need a single central authority, you could have multiple certifying agencies who would have their own reputation. Similar to how there are multiple ratings agencies that can certify a bond as AAA, or multiple art curators who can certify a painting as genuine, or different comic book graders.
You wouldn't need a single central authority, you could have multiple certifying agencies who would have their own reputation. Similar to how there are multiple ratings agencies that can certify a bond as AAA, or multiple art curators who can certify a painting as genuine, or different comic book graders.
The number of centralised authorities doesn't change the core problem in my question - how do you sell anything with attached IP rights when NFT infrastructure doesn't support this operation?
The NFT infrastructure supports buying and selling tokens. Attaching IP rights to that token can be done through the legal system, and third party agencies could attest on the blockchain that they believe the token has such a legal structure in place and properly set up (e.g. that the legitimate rightsholder has signed the release/deed/what-have-you in question).
Yizahi(1)
> Imagine buying a song or video game online, and then being able to sell it or give it to a friend later, without having to go through a central authority
Way too complicated, I'll stick with mp3s.
Way too complicated, I'll stick with mp3s.
What makes NFTs any more effective at money laundering than cryptocurrency?
Hypothetically?
If I made $1M of bitcoin proceeds-of-crime and I put it through a coin tumbler then cash out, it can't be directly linked to the crime - but I also can't explain where the money came from.
On the other hand, if my legitimate account creates some shitty digital art and auctions it, then my proceeds-of-crime account buys it, I get slightly less money (auction fees etc) but a good explanation of where I got the money from: I'm an artist, you don't understand my work because you're a dumbass.
Of course, there are plenty of other ways to launder money - feed the proceeds of crime through a fixed-odds betting terminal and I'm just a lucky gambler. Anonymously buy fine art with a suitcase full of cash, then resell it as something I found in grandpa's attic. Sue my own anonymous tax-haven company, and report a big payment as an out-of-court settlement. And so on.
If I made $1M of bitcoin proceeds-of-crime and I put it through a coin tumbler then cash out, it can't be directly linked to the crime - but I also can't explain where the money came from.
On the other hand, if my legitimate account creates some shitty digital art and auctions it, then my proceeds-of-crime account buys it, I get slightly less money (auction fees etc) but a good explanation of where I got the money from: I'm an artist, you don't understand my work because you're a dumbass.
Of course, there are plenty of other ways to launder money - feed the proceeds of crime through a fixed-odds betting terminal and I'm just a lucky gambler. Anonymously buy fine art with a suitcase full of cash, then resell it as something I found in grandpa's attic. Sue my own anonymous tax-haven company, and report a big payment as an out-of-court settlement. And so on.
This was a great explanation.
The price is more flexible. Any given coin pair is worth a certain exchange rate at a certain time, and an investigating entity could analyse historic coin prices, compare to the amounts exchanged as recorded on the blockchain, and deduce the actual value gained or lost.
With NFTs, each one is valued independently and the price is what you and someone-who-definitely-isn't-you-wink-wink traded it for most recently.
With NFTs, each one is valued independently and the price is what you and someone-who-definitely-isn't-you-wink-wink traded it for most recently.
You can sell them to yourself (at arm's length, using separate entities) to establish a price, and then sell them to yourself again (using a different entity) to take the profit and launder the money. Crypto may be manipulated, but you can't just set an arbitrary price equal to the amount of money you need to launder.
The tech isn’t going anywhere. Perhaps the speculative bubble over gif NFT’s is behind us but I guarantee there will be uses for unique on-chain tokens for a long time to come.
> The tech isn’t going anywhere.
When people say "good riddance" they don't expect all NFT code to vanish from existence.
They're just saying that it will be tucked into its own dusty corner of tech history, to be forgotten by the masses and especially by tech professionals.
When people say "good riddance" they don't expect all NFT code to vanish from existence.
They're just saying that it will be tucked into its own dusty corner of tech history, to be forgotten by the masses and especially by tech professionals.
I've got no illusions about NFTs, but I also think they're perpendicular to the real takeaway from this article: Instagram yet again tried to ape a competitor's (in this case Twitter's) feature, yet again did not check whether any of their users wanted it, and yet again shuttered it after wasting a lot of time, money, and goodwill. I am starting to wonder if it is Facebook's dumping ground for features that they don't want to test-in-prod on Facebook actual.
Totally agree, single projects on Blur have $3 million in 1D volume and a floor price above $100k (at time of writing, 66 eth), the copycat markets were a little silly to think they would catch the spillover of the popularity of the platforms that started it just because they made the same thing on their side of the fence. It's a shame that it was a feeding frenzy for scammers, it's just another protocol when you look under the hood [0]
[0] https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/standards/tokens/erc...
[0] https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/standards/tokens/erc...
Especially if they dont market to fraudsters and money launderers but to normal people who already pirate movies and wont start paying for monkey jpeg.
Yet they still haven't made an iPad native app. An obviously profitable project that users want.
It is amazing to think how wild the nft craze was, definitely history will look back at it as peak zero interest rate phenomena. My favourite stories:
- BBC: Twelve-year-old boy makes £290,000 from whale NFTs https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-58343062
- Guardian: Rishi Sunak asks Royal Mint to create NFT (note 11 months later, it seems this project has quietly died) https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/apr/04/rishi-sun...
- BBC: Twelve-year-old boy makes £290,000 from whale NFTs https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-58343062
- Guardian: Rishi Sunak asks Royal Mint to create NFT (note 11 months later, it seems this project has quietly died) https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/apr/04/rishi-sun...
It's amazing the feeling of "what the hell is going on with all this apparently credulous attention being paid to a total nonsense" that one feels watching this stuff happen in real time.
It was always screamingly obviously a scam/sham/whatever, yet it was lapped up. Unreal. Critical faculties chucked enthusiastically out of the window, including by people and companies that should've known far better. And I appreciate there was of course some cynical deliberate bandwagon jumping, but still.
"I don't understand the first thing about what's going on with all this but smart people seem excited so what could go wrong" is a horrific basis for anything involving money and possible consequent loss of huge amounts of it!
It was always screamingly obviously a scam/sham/whatever, yet it was lapped up. Unreal. Critical faculties chucked enthusiastically out of the window, including by people and companies that should've known far better. And I appreciate there was of course some cynical deliberate bandwagon jumping, but still.
"I don't understand the first thing about what's going on with all this but smart people seem excited so what could go wrong" is a horrific basis for anything involving money and possible consequent loss of huge amounts of it!
Which makes it all the more baffling that Sesame Street just jumped in. https://variety.com/2023/digital/news/sesame-street-nfts-coo...
NFTs are the tulips of the 21st century.
If there is a future for crypto it is in the cyberpunk/pirate zone. The idea the institutional investors thought they could make a buck off all these folks is hilarious. Even in their delusional unrealized apotheosis the crypto/web3 crowd was building the anti Facebook. I think all the web3 investment was horrible BS and crypto is not a place for venture investing. If it has a future at all it should embrace the drug dealing ponzi scheming tax evading ransomwaring heart of itself. It’s not chase bank, it’s the Medellin cartel.
On the contrary, true believers are usually the easiest people to make a buck off. Their bias makes them easy to trick/manipulate.
There were Gamestop true believers for Christ's sake, who knew they bought in high and would probably not get out before it crashes, but still let themselves convinced their disposable income that month was worth the price of sticking it to the man.
It was a fun time though, and watching hedge funds lose billions of dollars in value definitely was worth the 100$. The way I see it, the fun went on for months, way better entertainment value than movie tickets in that time. And I still have some GME and AMC to remember that glorious time.
Ape together strong.
Ape together strong.
Who do you think got your $100? A different hedge fund that made billions in profits.
If the value was real to you there is no arguing, likewise i spend more on inputs to grow tomatoes every year than the market value of what I get out, for similar reason. but I'm sure you are aware someone that repeated the line about sticking it to the man is still laughing about you believing it and getting left holding the bag.
"hedge funds", plural? Most hedge fund made money, one lost. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/02/08/gamestop-...
There is nothing funny in seeing retail being abused by fake Shamans telling the way to win was to buy overpriced shares from...
And to this day, some irreductible think they re fighting dtcc (why ??) by direct registering...
There is nothing funny in seeing retail being abused by fake Shamans telling the way to win was to buy overpriced shares from...
And to this day, some irreductible think they re fighting dtcc (why ??) by direct registering...
You have a strange definition of fun, you could have kept that $100 and still had the same amount of ‘fun’ reading the same nonsense online.
When you bet on a game, the fun factor goes up 10x for sure.
Nah
You know who had a really good time? All of those institutional investors who got your $100.
I feel like those are second order "true believers". The real guys never left Cypherpunks mailing list, or you wont find them on Twitter at least.
Not only that but that's a big market too. Drugs are like what, a $2 Trillion/year economy? Tax evasion? A few trillions? Money laundering and scam? Another Trillion?
That's trillions of $$ transacted and in value. Will put Bitcoin price at $250-$400 Thousands of dollars.
That's trillions of $$ transacted and in value. Will put Bitcoin price at $250-$400 Thousands of dollars.
Institutional investors are making a lot of $$$ of these crypto folks ! Arbitragists, Hedge Funds etc.
Dollar for dollar, institutional LPs have lost way more on crypto than they have made. Multicoin is down 90%, rumor is the 2nd A16Z crypto fund (the 6b one) is deep in the red and a full write off
It already happened, no? The retail investor has successfully been taken advantage of by the institutional investor with crypto
The pirate zone is very much against private property and ownership, it is probably the last place crypto will work. Cyberpunk is the denunciation of the ravages capitalism does, I don't think you will sell them NFTs in the next 1000 years.
The future of crypto is much more boring. It’s in the accounting world. It’s in AP/AR. It’s the backbone between accounting systems at different firms transacting with each other, who are collaborative but also trying to make money from each other. Think contractors and subcontractor.
Instead of double entry accounting, where each firm keeps a separate ledger for a project, they can all transact off one record of truth.
That kind of paradigm change won’t happen until oracle and sap etc agree on standards and interoperability. Give it another 40-50 years to displace current databases.
Instead of double entry accounting, where each firm keeps a separate ledger for a project, they can all transact off one record of truth.
That kind of paradigm change won’t happen until oracle and sap etc agree on standards and interoperability. Give it another 40-50 years to displace current databases.
NFTs to me felt from the start like stereoscopic film: Sure technologically it has some interesting aspects, but I couldn't really see how the results are worth the extra effort. And anybody kept telling me it is the future.
That being said, with NFTs I have never met any truly technologically knowledgeable person who could explain me in detail why it solves the problems it (wrongfully) claimed to solve.
That being said, with NFTs I have never met any truly technologically knowledgeable person who could explain me in detail why it solves the problems it (wrongfully) claimed to solve.
The killer app of Ethereum already exists, and it is the set of standards being built on it that allow you to easily interoperate with other financial applications. NFTs are basically what the name implies, whereas "tokens" represent something fungible (e.g. stocks in a company), NFTs are a new standard (ERC721 or others) for representing non-fungible digital goods (deeds for houses, collectibles, game assets, etc.).
Suppose I'm a small indie game studio. I create a game, and this game has skins for characters, weapons, what have you. I want to build a real money economy around these assets, but don't have the manpower to deal with payment processors, build a marketplace, etc. My company could just represent the skins as ERC721 tokens and instantly have access to the wealth of infrastructure that already supports the ERC721 standard. People can buy and sell on a marketplace of their choosing (Opensea, Blur, etc.), they can manage their assets using a wallet of their choice (Metamask, Rainbow, Frame, Coinbase Wallet, etc.).
This is just one example, but can be applied to literally any non-fungible asset that be represented digitally. And although the application I mentioned is primarily a financial one (because Ethereum is the internet of finance), there are certainly non-financial use cases for having a fully interoperable, decentralized representation of a digital good.
It's important to understand that NFTs didn't invent digital scarcity. This is an idea that's existed for a long time. Downloading a song I have to pay for, League of Legends issuing a limited edition skin, even the notion of a privileged role on a website (e.g. moderator) implies some sort of digital scarcity. People value having status, people value having scarce things, NFTs didn't invent that idea, they just make it much easier to represent these things in a very standard way and plug into mechanisms that allow for price discovery of these things (which I repeat, already are deemed to have value, but have extremely high friction to trade).
Maybe you don't understand because you aren't a digital native. I grew up playing World of Warcraft, and even from a young age I understood the power of having something other people didn't have. When I saw other players with their Naxxramas gear and I'm sitting there in normal Uncommons, it implied a difference of status. There was value in getting this gear because it made you feel special and important, or part of a certain community. The entire premise of the game revolves around the idea of scarcity (people have to work to get the best gear). If people had the best gear from the start, they wouldn't show up to raid every week, they wouldn't spend hours and hours farming materials or gold. That's digital scarcity, it's always existed.
Suppose I'm a small indie game studio. I create a game, and this game has skins for characters, weapons, what have you. I want to build a real money economy around these assets, but don't have the manpower to deal with payment processors, build a marketplace, etc. My company could just represent the skins as ERC721 tokens and instantly have access to the wealth of infrastructure that already supports the ERC721 standard. People can buy and sell on a marketplace of their choosing (Opensea, Blur, etc.), they can manage their assets using a wallet of their choice (Metamask, Rainbow, Frame, Coinbase Wallet, etc.).
This is just one example, but can be applied to literally any non-fungible asset that be represented digitally. And although the application I mentioned is primarily a financial one (because Ethereum is the internet of finance), there are certainly non-financial use cases for having a fully interoperable, decentralized representation of a digital good.
It's important to understand that NFTs didn't invent digital scarcity. This is an idea that's existed for a long time. Downloading a song I have to pay for, League of Legends issuing a limited edition skin, even the notion of a privileged role on a website (e.g. moderator) implies some sort of digital scarcity. People value having status, people value having scarce things, NFTs didn't invent that idea, they just make it much easier to represent these things in a very standard way and plug into mechanisms that allow for price discovery of these things (which I repeat, already are deemed to have value, but have extremely high friction to trade).
Maybe you don't understand because you aren't a digital native. I grew up playing World of Warcraft, and even from a young age I understood the power of having something other people didn't have. When I saw other players with their Naxxramas gear and I'm sitting there in normal Uncommons, it implied a difference of status. There was value in getting this gear because it made you feel special and important, or part of a certain community. The entire premise of the game revolves around the idea of scarcity (people have to work to get the best gear). If people had the best gear from the start, they wouldn't show up to raid every week, they wouldn't spend hours and hours farming materials or gold. That's digital scarcity, it's always existed.
> "I want to build a real money economy around these assets"
It's not a real money economy when you're asking your customers to first convert their money to crypto magic beans. Dealing with crypto exchanges has been shown to be a great way to put your money into scammers' pockets. Customers will blame you when that happens.
If you want to sell skins, why not let customers pay with real money via Stripe or another payment API? It's certainly a much easier integration task than reconciling your game database with the Ethereum state of those assets, and the end-user UX is lightyears better so you'll probably sell a lot more skins.
This Instagram NFT shutdown demonstrates again that the mainstream has no appetite for crypto despite the breathless claims of the past ten years.
It's not a real money economy when you're asking your customers to first convert their money to crypto magic beans. Dealing with crypto exchanges has been shown to be a great way to put your money into scammers' pockets. Customers will blame you when that happens.
If you want to sell skins, why not let customers pay with real money via Stripe or another payment API? It's certainly a much easier integration task than reconciling your game database with the Ethereum state of those assets, and the end-user UX is lightyears better so you'll probably sell a lot more skins.
This Instagram NFT shutdown demonstrates again that the mainstream has no appetite for crypto despite the breathless claims of the past ten years.
"why not let customers pay with real money via Stripe or another payment API"
Because stripe takes a massive cut?
"the end-user UX is lightyears better so you'll probably sell a lot more skins"
for now
"This Instagram NFT shutdown demonstrates again that the mainstream has no appetite for crypto despite the breathless claims of the past ten years."
Everybody in the community already knew this. Like you've said, the UX isn't there yet. That's obvious to anyone that is in the space. Nobody was sitting here applauding Meta for their obvious bandwagoning onto the latest thing. Maybe if they actually wanted people to adopt NFTs they should work on improving the UX or build some fucking infrastructure instead of just leeching off the community trying to make a buck. If you want people to display their art as NFTs on instagram, then create an Oculus App that's a virtual art gallery, allow people to display their instagram NFTs in that gallery. Interface with other technologies that already exist in the space. Use your billions and billions of dollars to make the experience better for everyone. They didn't even fucking attempt to build anything.
Because stripe takes a massive cut?
"the end-user UX is lightyears better so you'll probably sell a lot more skins"
for now
"This Instagram NFT shutdown demonstrates again that the mainstream has no appetite for crypto despite the breathless claims of the past ten years."
Everybody in the community already knew this. Like you've said, the UX isn't there yet. That's obvious to anyone that is in the space. Nobody was sitting here applauding Meta for their obvious bandwagoning onto the latest thing. Maybe if they actually wanted people to adopt NFTs they should work on improving the UX or build some fucking infrastructure instead of just leeching off the community trying to make a buck. If you want people to display their art as NFTs on instagram, then create an Oculus App that's a virtual art gallery, allow people to display their instagram NFTs in that gallery. Interface with other technologies that already exist in the space. Use your billions and billions of dollars to make the experience better for everyone. They didn't even fucking attempt to build anything.
Stripe's cut is less than what the ETH-USD rate can move in a single day.
With crypto prices trending down, your game skin business is probably going to lose more money just to the crypto exchange rate than they'd pay out to Stripe... And meanwhile you didn't get any of the convenience of using Stripe, so your revenue is probably a lot smaller because your players just aren't using the feature.
With crypto prices trending down, your game skin business is probably going to lose more money just to the crypto exchange rate than they'd pay out to Stripe... And meanwhile you didn't get any of the convenience of using Stripe, so your revenue is probably a lot smaller because your players just aren't using the feature.
What you said about price action is basically completely wrong, but regardless it's not like you're forced to pay in ETH. Any asset can be represented digitally.
I bought an NFT last year so I could understand how they worked in practice. It was an absolute ballache - it took me over an hour or so to get everything set up and I had to throw good money after bad to cover gas fees which were only revealed after I'd converted my real money into eth. In the end I think I spent a similar amount or even more on fees than the NFT itself cost. The gas fees certainly cost way more than normal card processing fees would have been for a transaction of that size.
> Because stripe takes a massive cut?
2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction, sure, but after that you have actual fiat money that you can use to pay salaries and suppliers.
Ethereum isn't free, either. You gas fees, withdrawal fees, and the volatility in selling. Probably comes out to a little less in total, but is a 0.5% saving worth adding all that attrition to your sales process?
2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction, sure, but after that you have actual fiat money that you can use to pay salaries and suppliers.
Ethereum isn't free, either. You gas fees, withdrawal fees, and the volatility in selling. Probably comes out to a little less in total, but is a 0.5% saving worth adding all that attrition to your sales process?
Ethereum isn't free, but L2s and L3s will cost cents or even fractions of cents. 2.9% + 30 cents per tx is a MASSIVE amount. Consider that a profit margin of 10% is considered good for a business.
I'm old enough to remember Microsoft points for Xbox live.
People want to pay in their local currency with their local bank account not jump through shady hoops. I want to play videogames not chat with little girls in the Philippines.
People want to pay in their local currency with their local bank account not jump through shady hoops. I want to play videogames not chat with little girls in the Philippines.
Microsoft Points were a dark pattern to obscure the actual cost of games and to leave customers with partially-depleted point counts. They're not a good thing to look back at. Microsoft wisely stopped their use about a decade ago, and Xbox purchases are done in fiat currency instead.
Whatever man, you're gonna use it without knowing regardless. But feel free not to educate yourself now and miss all the opportunity.
This is some boomer level commentary right here.
Shows complete lack of understanding of what you're talking about.
Shows complete lack of understanding of what you're talking about.
I don't see how any of this is better using NFT. You have had digital tokens for a very long time without Blockchain. If I make a game with skins I have 2 possibilities: the first one is to only use the in game money system (no real money) at which point there is no point using Blockchain, or use real money to buy skins, at which point I will also have to implement refunds, KYC, reverting transactions, because that is always needed in the real world, and there the convenience of an NFT just disappears.
NFT seems only useful if there is a zero trust situation and irreversibility is wanted, but I see nearly no situation where this is the case.
NFT seems only useful if there is a zero trust situation and irreversibility is wanted, but I see nearly no situation where this is the case.
All of those things you mentioned can probably be solved with Account Abstraction and Application Specific Rollups. These technologies are still in the early stages but are moving along. Not trying to attack, but like a lot of people here, it seems that most people's understanding of Blockchains is stuck in like 2014. There are levels of trustlessness, and levels of irreversibility. None of the things I mentioned (when fully implemented) are going to be happening on the main Ethereum chain.
> None of the things I mentioned (when fully implemented) are going to be happening on the main Ethereum chain.
The ability to say this with a straight face and realise nothing is amazing.
The ability to say this with a straight face and realise nothing is amazing.
???? I'm not sure what you're implying but look up the idea of the modular blockchain and educate yourself. Ethereum won't be the main execution layer for most transactions.
> Ethereum won't be the main execution layer for most transactions.
Then there's no need for Ethereum.
I mean, knock yourself out, and build your tower of Babel where every next layer is an increasingly complex patchwork of workarounds, but don't pretend that this is somehow good, great, fats, amazing, better than grilled cheese etc.
Then there's no need for Ethereum.
I mean, knock yourself out, and build your tower of Babel where every next layer is an increasingly complex patchwork of workarounds, but don't pretend that this is somehow good, great, fats, amazing, better than grilled cheese etc.
> All of those things you mentioned can probably be solved with Account Abstraction and Application Specific Rollups.
Or a database on the game server…
People keep trying to shoehorn blockchain whatever into places where a simple database would suffice and already exists.
Nobody is going to save in game character state in a Account Abstraction and Application Specific Rollup.
Or a database on the game server…
People keep trying to shoehorn blockchain whatever into places where a simple database would suffice and already exists.
Nobody is going to save in game character state in a Account Abstraction and Application Specific Rollup.
NFTs are a new standard (ERC721 or others) for representing non-fungible digital goods (deeds for houses, collectibles, game assets, etc.).
One look at this line and all further delusional house of cards falls down. There are no technical possibilities for NFTs to represent anything, it is technically impossible for current chains. There are only two exceptions - punk pixel art because they live fully on chain, and ENS records which are somewhat useful but only inside tokenbro industry.
One look at this line and all further delusional house of cards falls down. There are no technical possibilities for NFTs to represent anything, it is technically impossible for current chains. There are only two exceptions - punk pixel art because they live fully on chain, and ENS records which are somewhat useful but only inside tokenbro industry.
> My company could just represent the skins as ERC721 tokens and instantly have access to the wealth of infrastructure that already supports the ERC721 standard. People can buy and sell on a marketplace of their choosing (Opensea, Blur, etc.), they can manage their assets using a wallet of their choice (Metamask, Rainbow, Frame, Coinbase Wallet, etc.).
But doing all the work to integrate ERC721 into your game might take the same time (or more) than a simple centralized payment system (not to mention that transacting these ERCshits is costly, more than 5USD per trade most of the time). So why bother?
But doing all the work to integrate ERC721 into your game might take the same time (or more) than a simple centralized payment system (not to mention that transacting these ERCshits is costly, more than 5USD per trade most of the time). So why bother?
Most L2 developer experience is pretty easy nowadays. I would say a lot easier than Apple app development & distribution experience, for example. L2 fees are a fraction of the cost of industry standard payment processors.
The DX can continue to get better, but that’s not what is holding game devs back from choosing an L2.
The DX can continue to get better, but that’s not what is holding game devs back from choosing an L2.
What L2 are you talking about? If lightning, I agree. But that doesn't support NFTs.
If another, which one? Take in account that L2s are based on a network of channels. You can only transfer value atomically among a network of channels if the tokens being transferred across the channels are fungible, otherwise what you transfer from Alice to Bob is not the same than what you transfer from Bob to Carol.
If another, which one? Take in account that L2s are based on a network of channels. You can only transfer value atomically among a network of channels if the tokens being transferred across the channels are fungible, otherwise what you transfer from Alice to Bob is not the same than what you transfer from Bob to Carol.
Most Ethereum L2s (rollups) follow similar patterns; once you learn how to build on one with tools like Hardhat + Alchemy/Infura + Solidity, you can easily transfer these skills to other L2s. zkSync, Scroll, Optimism, Arbitrum. Most of these aim to be EVM compatible, so NFTs and other contracts can be built on them.
So the only thing that nft solves is game designers not having to build their market. That does not solve anything for the player. If anything, it exposes the player to a complete loss of his asset, due to mistake or theft. No value in that at all.
I bought a bunch of skins in League of Legends. I no longer play the game. As a former player, I would love if I could sell those skins on the open market.
Many times while playing the game, I changed my main character, but had skins for other characters I no longer played (maybe they got nerfed or something). It would be great if I could exchange those skins for other skins of equal value for the character I switched to.
Yes, the company itself could implement all these different features, but at that point you're re-inventing the wheel. We have a set of standards regarding digital assets, and the technology already exists to do the things I mentioned seamlessly. The only thing the company needs to do is implement their assets as part of that (ERC721) standard.
Many times while playing the game, I changed my main character, but had skins for other characters I no longer played (maybe they got nerfed or something). It would be great if I could exchange those skins for other skins of equal value for the character I switched to.
Yes, the company itself could implement all these different features, but at that point you're re-inventing the wheel. We have a set of standards regarding digital assets, and the technology already exists to do the things I mentioned seamlessly. The only thing the company needs to do is implement their assets as part of that (ERC721) standard.
> As a former player, I would love if I could sell those skins on the open market.
I hope you understand that for the same reason, Riot does not want you to be able to sell your skins?
I hope you understand that for the same reason, Riot does not want you to be able to sell your skins?
Maybe, but that's not true for all game developers.
We don't need NFTs for that, though. We could have an old fashioned Web 2.0 site for a digital skin marketplace. We could have SDKs for game devs that allow them to integrate with it.
The NFT spec doesn't even guarantee the basics of what it needs to support.
The NFT spec doesn't even guarantee the basics of what it needs to support.
How hard can it be to keep a many-to-many mapping between account ids and skin ids, and then make a way to transfer those between accounts, potentially for some fee? Steam has had it for a decade without any issues.
The game publisher still has the final authority on whether a skin is displayed in game or not, and no blockchain is going to change that.
The reason Riot doesn't do this is that it would reduce profits. If they would make more money otherwise, they would be doing that already.
The game publisher still has the final authority on whether a skin is displayed in game or not, and no blockchain is going to change that.
The reason Riot doesn't do this is that it would reduce profits. If they would make more money otherwise, they would be doing that already.
> Maybe you don't understand because you aren't a digital native
Why do some people insist that if others disagree with their opinion, it has to be because those others don't understand?
Why do some people insist that if others disagree with their opinion, it has to be because those others don't understand?
Are you a walking talking parody account?
Why do things have to solve problems? Are you going to an art collector and asking them the same questions?
I am still regularly contacted by recruiters trying to peddle Web3/NFT startup jobs - how are these companies still existing and how are they making money?
IMO, some investors are just slower in recognizing a scam. I know a few Web3 people that are still raising funds - it might be harder, but still happening. Some investors know very little about technology and are buying into the big promises of this new (now old) religion.
To make it clear, this doesn't mean that these companies are actually _making_ money.
To make it clear, this doesn't mean that these companies are actually _making_ money.
Have you tried
https://cryptofees.info ?
Some of them are making bank.
Most artists using NFTs for revenue are not using IG, so are unaffected by this news. NFT is in many ways anti-Meta, just buy/sell/mint directly with your wallet.
It is now dead in the water in any app, unfortunately. Apple charges 30% fee on all in-app NFT sales, and on top of that Apple ToS strictly prohibits any “functional” use of NFT tech in their apps.[1] As you’d expect, NFT markets have moved to web in general, outside of app space.
[1] https://twitter.com/wongmjane/status/1584609845570768897?s=2...
It is now dead in the water in any app, unfortunately. Apple charges 30% fee on all in-app NFT sales, and on top of that Apple ToS strictly prohibits any “functional” use of NFT tech in their apps.[1] As you’d expect, NFT markets have moved to web in general, outside of app space.
[1] https://twitter.com/wongmjane/status/1584609845570768897?s=2...
I think they always were out of conventional fiat markets. Its just that big corps try to get a slice of the market (and so far mostly fail at it).
Recently https://tychomusic.com/ released some old vinyl record as digital music for the first time.
You'd think a market place like https://bandcamp.com/ would make this a trivial event: create the release, set the release date, let people pay, once the release date hits everyone downloads a ZIP with some FLAC files and a JPEG cover.
Instead, this was an "NFT" release: took 15 tries (and several credit card charges) to "reserve" my spot. My purchase is now on some confusing website with random ID's all over the place, and I need to "mint" a "ticket" to log into it.
If ever there was a solution in search of a problem, NFT's are it.
You'd think a market place like https://bandcamp.com/ would make this a trivial event: create the release, set the release date, let people pay, once the release date hits everyone downloads a ZIP with some FLAC files and a JPEG cover.
Instead, this was an "NFT" release: took 15 tries (and several credit card charges) to "reserve" my spot. My purchase is now on some confusing website with random ID's all over the place, and I need to "mint" a "ticket" to log into it.
If ever there was a solution in search of a problem, NFT's are it.
I have yet to hear anyone say they are embarrassed by their crypto/NFT dabbling a, but a quiet withdrawal from this space is satisfying enough.
It’s rare I’d say this, but good for Facebook.
Even Salesforce has some NFT feature: https://www.salesforce.com/products/web3/nft/
Salesforce probably has SOAP and RPC and XML DB features, so that's not such a high bar to clear.
Instagram had NFT features?
Yep. Some examples:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CoXV7WTJbfS/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CpIpbEgLko7/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CpS19ZdrThw/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CoXV7WTJbfS/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CpIpbEgLko7/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CpS19ZdrThw/
Not an Instagram user, but aren't those just normal uploaded pictures like any other?
What makes them have "NFT features"? (except some tags and the obvious "NFTish" art style)
What makes them have "NFT features"? (except some tags and the obvious "NFTish" art style)
Maybe there was some special badge or indicator that showed up before but has now disappeared since Instagram got rid of the feature.
I don't use Instagram either but a Google image search shows a "digital collectible" checkmark in the bottom left corner. I hope this wasn't the whole thing as I don't see what would stop you from putting this checkmark into the image.
I don't use Instagram either but a Google image search shows a "digital collectible" checkmark in the bottom left corner. I hope this wasn't the whole thing as I don't see what would stop you from putting this checkmark into the image.
Was also wondering the same thing, but it seems to only show up in-app. If you're not a user and just viewing on the web I don't think you see anything.
And yes it says "Digital Collectible" and the image animates back and forth in a partial spin before settling into place.
And yes it says "Digital Collectible" and the image animates back and forth in a partial spin before settling into place.
I can see an indicator on the lower left on the Website. Are they A/B Testing the rollback?
Nobody was using it turns out.
Sound like no one even knew it was a thing, which also might explain that nobody used it.
Barely anyone even owns an NFT so I don't think product education was the primary problem
It's both surprising that they had the feature this early in the adoption of token-based ownership, and that they wound it down so quickly.
> token-based ownership
It's just token ownership. What ties tokens to actual physical assets is the institutional framework of laws, contracts, courts and law enforcement. Not a glorified pointer in a glorified ledger.
It's just token ownership. What ties tokens to actual physical assets is the institutional framework of laws, contracts, courts and law enforcement. Not a glorified pointer in a glorified ledger.
Same with paper vehicle titles, and metal license plates.
Times can and should change.
Times can and should change.
> this early in the adoption of token-based ownership
NFTs are on their death bed, there's nothing early about this.
NFTs are on their death bed, there's nothing early about this.
Common problem for many corporations, especially in times like these. They basically put it on life support the moment it is released so it never has a shot
[deleted]
the crypto tech cycle was one of the stupidest things a bunch of supposedly smart people bought hook line and sinker in a REALLY long time. The sweaty FOMO was incredibly real for something that never withstood an even cursory amount of scrutiny.
NFTs didn't hold up to even the smallest amount of scrutiny. You'd have people say we will all be trading land as NFTs but can't answer what happens when hackers steal your land NFT. Obviously it makes no sense for the police and government to respect the stolen NFT but there is also no mechanism for correcting this mistake so the blockchain is now out of sync with reality.
And in the end, people care about reality a lot more than they do about blockchain data.
And in the end, people care about reality a lot more than they do about blockchain data.
So you're telling me that this thing is going to have value because of artificial scarcity... but anyone can create their own new NFT (including one that links to the exact same image) at any time?
Oh, and many of the people involved are going to stay anonymous, and attempting to prove the authenticity of one of these things by deferring to off-chain authorities goes against the intended spirit of the entire thing.
Utterly baffling.
Oh, and many of the people involved are going to stay anonymous, and attempting to prove the authenticity of one of these things by deferring to off-chain authorities goes against the intended spirit of the entire thing.
Utterly baffling.
There was a joke "It's obvious now in hindsight that NFTs are a scam, but to be fair, it was also obvious before, and in the middle too"
I'm not sure anyone at any point thought they were legit, it was crypto chuds hyping their next scam, and the media willing to join in for extra clicks. The real losers were the the ones who bought in thinking they would find a greater fool to off load their magic beans to later.
I'm not sure anyone at any point thought they were legit, it was crypto chuds hyping their next scam, and the media willing to join in for extra clicks. The real losers were the the ones who bought in thinking they would find a greater fool to off load their magic beans to later.
I think the media went bananas with NFTs because images are clickbait and NFTs are primarily a way of trading images. NFTs allowed news organizations to write a bunch of both positive and negative articles about cryptocurrency and include unique images. Entire narratives could be created and gained traction based on who the artist was and "why we do (or don't) like them". Previous articles about the weird cryptocurrency thing didn't have images or only had the same tired Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc. logos or Getty stock images.
The baffaling part is it even sounds like someone making up an over the top scam.
If you believe that ownership of a hash of the brooklyn bridge in a ledger is the same as the real thing. Well i have the brooklyn bridge to sell you.
If you believe that ownership of a hash of the brooklyn bridge in a ledger is the same as the real thing. Well i have the brooklyn bridge to sell you.
I spent $15-20k on NFTs, still hold them and are still happy with them. I'm not sure what makes them "legit", but they are to me.
In an "art market" context it makes sense. I can print a copy of Warhol's Campbell Soup labels, but that doesn't devalue the original, nor is my copy as valuable as the original.
It's not about copying the pixels, it's about showing provenance.
It's not about copying the pixels, it's about showing provenance.
But surely, the thing that makes Warhol's soup cans more valuable than a copy is the fact that Warhol (or his studio, anyway) actually touched the original. Being able to show provenance isn't what makes it valuable, it only shows that the particular thing in question is the valuable one.
I can paint something right now and show provenance for it, but that won't make my childish scrawl valuable.
The problem with electronic art is that there's nothing special about the original over copies in this sense. You can't hold it and know that you're holding the very thing that the artist was working on.
I can paint something right now and show provenance for it, but that won't make my childish scrawl valuable.
The problem with electronic art is that there's nothing special about the original over copies in this sense. You can't hold it and know that you're holding the very thing that the artist was working on.
And the fact that a painting is not reproducible. The best you can get is close to the original, but it will still be different because its the real world. Copies of digital assets are exact replicas. Thus, the only real value is, as you say, provenance, but I think much fewer people care about that than we all seem to think.
But if you can mint arbitrarily many NFTs of a given URL it doesn't show provenance of the linked image, just of that particular NFT of it.
Anyone can create any signed document with any contents.
What they cannot do is forge your signature.
This is how asymmetric crypto works.
What they cannot do is forge your signature.
This is how asymmetric crypto works.
The thing is though, no one cares about digital signatures. Tech bros can't even be bothered checking signatures for ISOs they are about to deploy to production. You think normies are going to check the NFT metadata, track down the original sale, find the artists public key and validate its legit so they can think "Oh no this NFT is a clone, I will now revoke my enjoyment of this picture"
Most of our interaction with digital signatures is indeed transparent.
You are viewing a website right now with a certificate stating this is news.ycombinator.com signed by someone in your OS trust store.
I can just make a certificate saying a different website is news.ycombinator.com. What I can’t do (hopefully) is get it signed. You will have a very different UX when I do this.
Even though I can easily make an unsigned document, the digital signature in the certificate still has value, just like the NFT.
You are viewing a website right now with a certificate stating this is news.ycombinator.com signed by someone in your OS trust store.
I can just make a certificate saying a different website is news.ycombinator.com. What I can’t do (hopefully) is get it signed. You will have a very different UX when I do this.
Even though I can easily make an unsigned document, the digital signature in the certificate still has value, just like the NFT.
You can’t automate checking NFT certificates because they are all “real” and valid NFTs. The fact that the one you have wasn’t signed by the person who created the picture isn’t something cryptographically or even technically possible.
Yes you can can. If someone says they have a Beeple, and signed by someone other than Beeple, they don't have a Beeple.
Same way as if I receive a 'real and valid' message claiming to be you, but not signed by you, I can't say it was you that sent me the message.
Same way as if I receive a 'real and valid' message claiming to be you, but not signed by you, I can't say it was you that sent me the message.
Pedantic correction: no one is aware of digital signatures. The people who are sometimes do not even fully understand them or the value.
The people aware of them also don't care. If I see a NFT profile picture on twitter, I can't imagine why I would bother to validate the authenticity.
I don't know why you're downvoted.
I worked for a company that made NFT character skins for their games; of course when the game checked your wallet for game skins, it only looked for NFTs that were signed by the game company. As you said, impossible to clone or forge.
Of course anyone could (and did) clone the ARTWORK associated with the NFT and create fake/pirate NFTs; but they had no in-game value. That's still a problem for players who might get duped by the fakes though.
In the end, though, using the blockchain didn't enable any functionality for the users that couldn't have been accomplished using a plain database of ownership. In theory the blockchain would grant some permanence to the asset, but once the game company shut down the market value of the asset cratered anyway.
I worked for a company that made NFT character skins for their games; of course when the game checked your wallet for game skins, it only looked for NFTs that were signed by the game company. As you said, impossible to clone or forge.
Of course anyone could (and did) clone the ARTWORK associated with the NFT and create fake/pirate NFTs; but they had no in-game value. That's still a problem for players who might get duped by the fakes though.
In the end, though, using the blockchain didn't enable any functionality for the users that couldn't have been accomplished using a plain database of ownership. In theory the blockchain would grant some permanence to the asset, but once the game company shut down the market value of the asset cratered anyway.
No one is talking about this because it doesn't matter. If there is a centrally trusted and approve key, then blockchains and NFTs add nothing. When there is no centrally trusted key, then clones are trivial.
NFTs are simply crypto scammers trying to find a problem to their solution they have.
NFTs are simply crypto scammers trying to find a problem to their solution they have.
There are many non centralised cryptosystems including PGP and Signal. It’s potty hard to convince someone you own a fake beeple. On the internet there’s token gating, in person it’s going to look weird when you pull out Apple/Google photos instead of a wallet app.
Also, that there was any value in the JSON `{url: "imgur.com/1234"}`. Several NFT contracts did not even bother to include a hash of the image data.
Or that the average person would care about these internal details beyond their understanding. Sure, you can't copy an NFT with the creators signature, but the average user has no idea how to validate this let alone even cares to validate your shitty profile pic isn't a clone.
Personally I think the only one that really makes sense is Monero - and thats only becuse it has a solid use case (and is being used a TON). And interestingly enough its not really used as a speculative currency (the price is not nearly as volatile - meaning you will probably never get rich form it either).
NFT's I think potentially had SOME initial interesting tech (mainly the early talk about being able to track photo copyright for photographers for example) but quickly evolved into the crypto BS investment crap.
NFT's I think potentially had SOME initial interesting tech (mainly the early talk about being able to track photo copyright for photographers for example) but quickly evolved into the crypto BS investment crap.
Did they buy it hook line and sinker, or were they just trying to get in on the scam?
a lot of people have gotten rich in the meantime and many tokens still have non zero value.
> the crypto tech cycle was one of the stupidest things
Same was said for the user-generated content that lived in the community forums on the fringes of the web back in 2000s. Big sites and 6-figure columnists even suggested that these were 'littering' the Internet.
15 years later, content is user-generated, and now there is even something that is called the 'creator economy'. And even those 6-figure, out-of-touch elite columnists who derided it are jumping on the bandwagon.
...
Crypto is a technology. It does things. We observe that it is able to do things and it works. Its just missing a widescale use-case. The moment someone finds that use-case, it will explode like how the actual web exploded back then. Solely the DAO concept is revolutionary by itself, enabling large-scale, democratic economic organization for the masses, which was not possible or difficult and totally non-transparent before. That a few people here and there used it for dumb reasons or failed in accomplishing various objectives like buying the constitution etc does not change what potential DAOs provide.
Of course, there is also the problem of crypto space and all the features and applications within them being WAY too out of the average user's league in terms of user friendliness. Just like how it required knowing what a 'forum' was, knowing how to 'register', and then even knowing the right people who could refer you to the forum so that the administration would approve your membership back in early 2000s.
Same was said for the user-generated content that lived in the community forums on the fringes of the web back in 2000s. Big sites and 6-figure columnists even suggested that these were 'littering' the Internet.
15 years later, content is user-generated, and now there is even something that is called the 'creator economy'. And even those 6-figure, out-of-touch elite columnists who derided it are jumping on the bandwagon.
...
Crypto is a technology. It does things. We observe that it is able to do things and it works. Its just missing a widescale use-case. The moment someone finds that use-case, it will explode like how the actual web exploded back then. Solely the DAO concept is revolutionary by itself, enabling large-scale, democratic economic organization for the masses, which was not possible or difficult and totally non-transparent before. That a few people here and there used it for dumb reasons or failed in accomplishing various objectives like buying the constitution etc does not change what potential DAOs provide.
Of course, there is also the problem of crypto space and all the features and applications within them being WAY too out of the average user's league in terms of user friendliness. Just like how it required knowing what a 'forum' was, knowing how to 'register', and then even knowing the right people who could refer you to the forum so that the administration would approve your membership back in early 2000s.
> The moment someone finds that use-case, it will explode
True, but it's entirely possible that such a use case will never materialize. People haven't even been able think of plausible theoretical ones except in niche applications. That's not to say none are possible, but they're hiding pretty well.
My personal hypothesis is that the interesting tech in crypto will eventually find a real, solid use -- but it won't be one resembling what anyone thinks, and won't be sexy.
True, but it's entirely possible that such a use case will never materialize. People haven't even been able think of plausible theoretical ones except in niche applications. That's not to say none are possible, but they're hiding pretty well.
My personal hypothesis is that the interesting tech in crypto will eventually find a real, solid use -- but it won't be one resembling what anyone thinks, and won't be sexy.
> True, but it's entirely possible that such a use case will never materialize
Hard disagree. DAOs already exist, for example, and they are widely used even if the phenomenon is unknown to who doesnt have an interest in it or who is not technical enough. They are still way too technical for the average user, and even solely this use case could easily explode the moment everything is simplified and presented to the users with an intuitive and easy to use interface by a new service.
A lot also depends on the infrastructure improving - IPFS is great, for example. But its not as fast as a server, forcing you to store very little data using it. For the moment, any use case that will involve IPFS must fit into those narrow confines. Actually, same goes for most of crypto - Ethereum is a framework that you can literally, actually program on. But you wont be compiling any complex modern app code and serving it from there. One reason why the use cases still revolve around financial things, NFTs and other things that are built on the ledger functionality.
> but it won't be one resembling what anyone thinks
That's entirely possible.
> and won't be sexy.
And that totally depends. Anything that gets mass adoption ends up 'sexy'...
Hard disagree. DAOs already exist, for example, and they are widely used even if the phenomenon is unknown to who doesnt have an interest in it or who is not technical enough. They are still way too technical for the average user, and even solely this use case could easily explode the moment everything is simplified and presented to the users with an intuitive and easy to use interface by a new service.
A lot also depends on the infrastructure improving - IPFS is great, for example. But its not as fast as a server, forcing you to store very little data using it. For the moment, any use case that will involve IPFS must fit into those narrow confines. Actually, same goes for most of crypto - Ethereum is a framework that you can literally, actually program on. But you wont be compiling any complex modern app code and serving it from there. One reason why the use cases still revolve around financial things, NFTs and other things that are built on the ledger functionality.
> but it won't be one resembling what anyone thinks
That's entirely possible.
> and won't be sexy.
And that totally depends. Anything that gets mass adoption ends up 'sexy'...
> DAOs already exist
They're also a pretty niche application. And I'm not convinced they're something that requires blockchain to accomplish anyway.
> Anything that gets mass adoption ends up 'sexy'
Not if it ends up being an invisible piece of machinery, which I think is the most likely result. Different bits of the more interesting tech will get incorporated into larger systems to support their goals. The larger systems may (or may not) be sexy, but the bits of crypto they incorporate will just be background players to that.
But then, the surest way to be wrong is to predict the future. Who knows what will really happen?
They're also a pretty niche application. And I'm not convinced they're something that requires blockchain to accomplish anyway.
> Anything that gets mass adoption ends up 'sexy'
Not if it ends up being an invisible piece of machinery, which I think is the most likely result. Different bits of the more interesting tech will get incorporated into larger systems to support their goals. The larger systems may (or may not) be sexy, but the bits of crypto they incorporate will just be background players to that.
But then, the surest way to be wrong is to predict the future. Who knows what will really happen?
Do you have any examples of DAOs that are doing something interesting that goes beyond just voting on re-allocation of tokens (or having their tokens stolen)?
To be honest even an example of a DAO that only votes on token allocations but has spent them on something more useful than a book about Dune would be interesting.
To be honest even an example of a DAO that only votes on token allocations but has spent them on something more useful than a book about Dune would be interesting.
I know someone who works for a DAO full time doing customer service for a blockchain
Look at MakerDAO. It's the longest running DAO in history.
From their website it looks like they write code for blockchain related things and maintain a stablecoin.
Are there any DAOs that do something that's NOT entirely about crypto things?
Are there any DAOs that do something that's NOT entirely about crypto things?
> Are there any DAOs that do something that's NOT entirely about crypto things?
That will be difficult until crypto is improved to have the user friendliness to allow non-crypto-savvy people to use crypto services. Even the very act of 'getting a wallet' is a high bar to entry for the majority of the population, leaving aside 'connecting it to something' then using the still-complex crypto features like DAOs.
That will be difficult until crypto is improved to have the user friendliness to allow non-crypto-savvy people to use crypto services. Even the very act of 'getting a wallet' is a high bar to entry for the majority of the population, leaving aside 'connecting it to something' then using the still-complex crypto features like DAOs.
Sounds like they didn’t roll out any actual meaningful features until long after the crypto hype died down. Peak crypto/NFT frenzy was early/mid 2021.
So not only were they bandwagoning, they were slow too.
So not only were they bandwagoning, they were slow too.
Genuine question but does this feel like yet another nail in the coffin of cryptocoins in general?
I feel like the general sentiment is that cryptocoins have mostly been used to scam people out of money. The field seems full of manipulative tactics all for the purpose of feeding the early investors.
Blockchains are not a magic technology, they will probably have a niche use somewhere, but cryptocoins seem like a dead end.
I feel like the general sentiment is that cryptocoins have mostly been used to scam people out of money. The field seems full of manipulative tactics all for the purpose of feeding the early investors.
Blockchains are not a magic technology, they will probably have a niche use somewhere, but cryptocoins seem like a dead end.
After the 1000th "last nail in the coffin" I gave up believing that this will end someday. I see it becoming one of those ever-lasting scams that go up and down in popularity, like piramid schemes, tourist scams, 419 scams etc.
Oh it will absolutely be drawn out. I see that first hand because I know some people who write blockchains. There are still new "products" being launched that seem to be only for promoting the use of various cryptocoins.
So it might be like e-mail spam, it'll stick around as long as there are suckers born every minute.
But I'm hoping it will fade away from the mainstream at least.
So it might be like e-mail spam, it'll stick around as long as there are suckers born every minute.
But I'm hoping it will fade away from the mainstream at least.
Interesting reading through the comments here, everyone talking like it’s dead.
Is this true? Are NFT’s / crypto done? You know some people that are involved in it and they still seem to be hard into that world, so I was surprised to read all of this.
Is this true? Are NFT’s / crypto done? You know some people that are involved in it and they still seem to be hard into that world, so I was surprised to read all of this.
It's not done in the sense that people are still involved in it, but I think that public sentiment has shifted toward realizing that NFTs and crypto are not solving any problems better than existing alternatives, and the whole thing was massively oversold.
Check out this article for what I think is a good perspective on how blockchain tech is not useful: https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2022/11/19/AWS-Block...
Check out this article for what I think is a good perspective on how blockchain tech is not useful: https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2022/11/19/AWS-Block...
It fell off a cliff a year ago, and now it's pretty dead:
https://trends.google.co.uk/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&...
https://trends.google.co.uk/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&...
The HN moral judgement cycle is in overdrive again. There seems a genuine distain for people that make money based on speculation.
HN is mostly about statups, basically speculation of product and potential market value. Many of us make our livings on speculation.
I think you'll find it's more the case the people here are a) educated on how the technology literally works b) educated on how product as it applies adoption literally works c) able to think abstractly about market need.
NFT as a technology and product... use case is... incredibly small.
I think you'll find it's more the case the people here are a) educated on how the technology literally works b) educated on how product as it applies adoption literally works c) able to think abstractly about market need.
NFT as a technology and product... use case is... incredibly small.
Uniswap does massive amounts of volume per day and their entire product is built on NFTs as liquidity positions. I would say that use case is far from 'incredibly small'.
HN has disdain for grifters and scammers. You are confusing them with speculators.
I think the disdain is for things that appear to be little more than a grift.
"The Web3 community responds" --- is it a community though? And is that really the expression of the "community"? Or just some selected few statements that "by coincidence" happen to be aligned to theirs?
Just because there are some people around the world doing similar things to you doesn't mean it's a community. I feel like people crave so much this feeling of "being a part of a community" that they try to apply this to everything, up to a point where the term is becoming meaningless.
Just because there are some people around the world doing similar things to you doesn't mean it's a community. I feel like people crave so much this feeling of "being a part of a community" that they try to apply this to everything, up to a point where the term is becoming meaningless.
The term "community" is a buzzword. I'd say about 1% of what is claimed to be a community is an actual community.
Passed few days have been really really juicy for the crypto space. Purchase popcorn futures while you can.
Was excited when I learned about Bitcoin, how it's 'cash you can email'.
Struggled to ever see the point of NFT's - at least as anything beyond 'trading cards' (which granted have their place).
No problem with the hype moving on. Leaves a cleaner space behind for more compelling innovations to gain some limelight.
Struggled to ever see the point of NFT's - at least as anything beyond 'trading cards' (which granted have their place).
No problem with the hype moving on. Leaves a cleaner space behind for more compelling innovations to gain some limelight.
Well the concept of something to be non-fungible was pretty cool to me. I was just thinking about tokens being interchangeable until the concept of NFTs was explained.
The fact that they've mostly been made to create bored apes and all that was a bit mind boggling unimaginative :')
The fact that they've mostly been made to create bored apes and all that was a bit mind boggling unimaginative :')
But think about the money laundering industry...
And Sesame Street just announced its NFT, long after the hype has passed. I knew they were desperate for funding when they let HBO get first shot at new episodes, but I figured that solved things.
There are lots different scams to pull, and you can't know which ones they'll be pulling until you get further into it. Suppose you say "sure I'll sell, how much will you pay?" "Oh lots of money, I represent Nigerian princes of limitless wealth, but first you must convert your artworks to NFTs." "Sure thing, how?" "I am expert in this process, you just need to pay me the gas fees required to mint the NFTs". From here they can go a few ways. They could just quote a standard market rate in gweis, and you'll be like "in what?", and they'll explain that a gwei is a billionth of an Ether, a trivial amount, and you'll google all that and determine "oh yeah, of course people pay gas fees to mint NFTs in gweis", so you ask "ok, how do I send you gweis?" They could send you to a scam site that will try to drain whatever source of money you tried to buy gweis with, or they could tell you legitimately, then you send them your gweis, and they could just fuck off with your money and celebrate a scam well done. But if they have your gas fees, they could keep it going by explaining the prince is eager to buy the NFTs, now you just need to create an account on the NFT marketplace he uses, which you'll google and realize "well of course I need to gwei up for a marketplace account", so maybe you send more gweis to the scammer to create the account, or the scammer sends you to a third party site from which they get a referral commission, but ideally the scammer sends you to a sham NFT marketplace that they run and keep the proceeds from. Then they could fuck off with even more of your money and celebrate a scam well done. But since you're in this deep, they're going to milk it, and explain how the prince has transferred a trillion gweis to the marketplace to buy your NFTs, all you need to do is list them on the marketplace. I'm guessing you can see where this is headed...listing them on the marketplace requires a listing fee! Google confirms all this is perfectly normal. You're hesitant, but the prince is a busy man, and in a hurry to close the transaction. This is not just a one time deal, he's an ongoing benefactor to a select group of Instagram AI artists who are now fabulously wealthy...but he can't be inconvenienced with delays like this! He's being driven to one of his jets, and if you don't list the NFTs by takeoff time, the deal will be scuttled!!
I'll preface this by saying that I'm not a crypto fan, but I felt that NFTs were at least a promising use case for blockchain (* in addition to money, to avoid derailing this discussion).
They solve a real world problem of ownership of digital assets in an interesting way. We need a solution here and NFTs proposed an "open" one. I wish we keep exploring this space.
They solve a real world problem of ownership of digital assets in an interesting way. We need a solution here and NFTs proposed an "open" one. I wish we keep exploring this space.
How? They literally just point to a URL right? It's like buying the name of the a star but high tech....
They can point to a metadata URL, or store data. But the key is they have a unique id and can be used to verify ownership. Think of it like a global compound primary key: (chain id, NFT contract address, NFT id). For many things a database will suffice here, but it’s also useful to remove the dependency of a central authority. It’s worth exploring more.
Ownership of an unlimited resource: a link to something. How do you verify ownership when many links point to the same resource?
Metadata isn’t part of the core spec, so NFTs don’t have to link to anything. You can only verify ownership of the NFT id. What the NFT represents is up to the author. It could be a credential to a web application. It could be a pass to a venue checked at the door. It could be anything to gate access by asserting if the wallet holder has a specific id or balance greater than zero of said NFT. An NFT is a unique token. What builders do with it is up to them. Mostly it’s been art. What else could builders do when they have a permissionless way to assert that a user owns a unique digital id (NFT). It’s worth exploring more.
Well, it's worth exploring with a minimal amount of money and not by somehow squeezing in money from pension funds and the like.
They can do that research as part of PhD dissertations.
They can do that research as part of PhD dissertations.
Ones that had larger image sizes did, but some such as Cryptopunks for example are "on-chain", hence the small image size. Definitely a limitation for larger file sizes though.
No, that is just one example of a payload - the token itself is non-fungible, so presumably some one could write code to associate the ownership of that token to some game feature. Lets say a mount in WoW, then you could trade said token as part of a secondary market.
I dont think its a great idea, largely because making the ledger operate in a zero trust environment isnt a great value add for video game tokens, but it's important to judge things on their merits and in this case you could build a system as described.
I dont think its a great idea, largely because making the ledger operate in a zero trust environment isnt a great value add for video game tokens, but it's important to judge things on their merits and in this case you could build a system as described.
> Lets say a mount in WoW, then you could trade said token as part of a secondary market.
This use-case always broke down for me when I realized you inherently can't have a secondary market when you still rely on the first market (the owners/operators of WoW) to maintain the integration(s) with token<->game.
If I sell an owned mount token to a friend but the ownership of that mount doesn't actually transfer in-game, the entire system breaks down. Ergo, the livelihood of any secondary market relies entirely on Blizzard maintaining whatever in-game functionality uses the tokens, rather than solidifying a promise of any real decentralized ownership.
This use-case always broke down for me when I realized you inherently can't have a secondary market when you still rely on the first market (the owners/operators of WoW) to maintain the integration(s) with token<->game.
If I sell an owned mount token to a friend but the ownership of that mount doesn't actually transfer in-game, the entire system breaks down. Ergo, the livelihood of any secondary market relies entirely on Blizzard maintaining whatever in-game functionality uses the tokens, rather than solidifying a promise of any real decentralized ownership.
Correct, in this case Blizzard would have to release a mount NFT whose ownership their code checked. There must be a first party NFT market for the second party one to make sense.
The system as described doesnt 'break down' if that transfer doesnt relay to in game, it never launched whatsoever.
I dont know what would be in it for developers to tie into such a system - unregulated video game markets are notorious for the scams they breed (don't believe me? Meet me in Thais depot for some fast hands), so ceding control so that a secondary market can spring up sounds.. counterproductive.
The system as described doesnt 'break down' if that transfer doesnt relay to in game, it never launched whatsoever.
I dont know what would be in it for developers to tie into such a system - unregulated video game markets are notorious for the scams they breed (don't believe me? Meet me in Thais depot for some fast hands), so ceding control so that a secondary market can spring up sounds.. counterproductive.
> No, that is just one example of a payload - the token itself is non-fungible, so presumably some one could write code to associate the ownership of that token to some game feature. Lets say a mount in WoW, then you could trade said token as part of a secondary market.
I don't know why you started your sentence with "No". What you describe is exactly the same as buying the name of a star, except it's on blockchain instead of some kind of database.
If you like, you can write code to associate the ownership of that star (by access whichever star registry institution you like) to some game feature. Or you can let the player submit a "star ownership certfication. It's just the same except the data source is decentralized.
I don't know why you started your sentence with "No". What you describe is exactly the same as buying the name of a star, except it's on blockchain instead of some kind of database.
If you like, you can write code to associate the ownership of that star (by access whichever star registry institution you like) to some game feature. Or you can let the player submit a "star ownership certfication. It's just the same except the data source is decentralized.
I read your dismissal as 'that is stupid that would not work'.
Right now I dont think there is a programmatic way to do that with star certificates. I guess I dont see what your point is - are you just trying to link two things that seem frivolous to you?
Right now I dont think there is a programmatic way to do that with star certificates. I guess I dont see what your point is - are you just trying to link two things that seem frivolous to you?
My point is that they're stupid for the exact same reason.
You buy "something". That "something" doesn't represent any legal right for you. If you buy a NFT of an image, you won't be the copyright owner of that image. You can't stop other people from using it either. Maybe there are some exceptions, but generally you just don't get anything legally. Similarly, buying a star doesn't give you legal right on that star.
Why does doing this programatically make it different? Plus, buying a star is not inherently non-programmable. You can launch a star registry with an API. You can laucnh an NFT for stars. What makes buying a star stupid is that it doesn't represent any legal right, not that it's doesn't scale.
You buy "something". That "something" doesn't represent any legal right for you. If you buy a NFT of an image, you won't be the copyright owner of that image. You can't stop other people from using it either. Maybe there are some exceptions, but generally you just don't get anything legally. Similarly, buying a star doesn't give you legal right on that star.
Why does doing this programatically make it different? Plus, buying a star is not inherently non-programmable. You can launch a star registry with an API. You can laucnh an NFT for stars. What makes buying a star stupid is that it doesn't represent any legal right, not that it's doesn't scale.
Sure, if you use a nonsense example you get nonsense results. Not really blaming you for that, I have no idea why people acted like an NFT with a url payload represented ownership given that it didnt interact with any of our systems of ownership.
The hypothetical under examination here is if I built a system that used NFT ownership as ownership of some in game thing - it represents a promise to value a given token, which is wholly different from the star thing (they dont value that certificate in a meaningful way). If your first instinct is to launch into a tirade about how dumb that is then great - total agreement. But, you could build it and it would work, and it would be meaningfully different from star ownership certificates.
The hypothetical under examination here is if I built a system that used NFT ownership as ownership of some in game thing - it represents a promise to value a given token, which is wholly different from the star thing (they dont value that certificate in a meaningful way). If your first instinct is to launch into a tirade about how dumb that is then great - total agreement. But, you could build it and it would work, and it would be meaningfully different from star ownership certificates.
Please explain how a promise to a value is different from a star certificate NFT? With the star system you can encode the position in the sky at a certain date in the block chain itself. The date of discovery (assuming this is for new star discoveries only) can act as a verifier when determining who discovered this first.
Because the issuer of the certificate will not in any way meaningfully enforce your 'ownership' of that star.
In my hypothetical game I can enforce that relationship. Lets say the game is pokemon except with scorpions, and each scorpemon is represented as an NFT. Your wallet contents then determine what scorpemon you can play with.
Does that make sense?
In my hypothetical game I can enforce that relationship. Lets say the game is pokemon except with scorpions, and each scorpemon is represented as an NFT. Your wallet contents then determine what scorpemon you can play with.
Does that make sense?
you don't own the scorpemon though. The second that original game shuts down or decides its not worth hosting that asset you have unique nft to nothing. It's up to the game maker to interpret whatever the hell your nft is worth hence it's not that different to ownership of a star. You can't just make up an imaginary decentralized world where people just make a scorpemon game and host it for free forever lmao. Someone is trying to make a profit.
Yes, obviously. Who are you trying to dunk on?
[deleted]
An NFT points to some asset, just as a deed to a house points to that house. The deed is not the house, but owning the deed gives you the right to exclude others from usage of the house. So the fact that an NFT is just a pointer shouldn't somehow disqualify it from being meaningful.
Maybe eventually we'll put things like deeds on-chain as NFTs. This would have the benefit of decentralizing the record-keeping power, so we wouldn't have to worry about failure of some central authority in this regard.
Enforcement of these ownership rights will probably depend on some centralized power, but if the deeper record-keeping layer becomes decentralized, is that not a win?
I can print a copy of the Mona Lisa, but that doesn't devalue the original painting.
Maybe eventually we'll put things like deeds on-chain as NFTs. This would have the benefit of decentralizing the record-keeping power, so we wouldn't have to worry about failure of some central authority in this regard.
Enforcement of these ownership rights will probably depend on some centralized power, but if the deeper record-keeping layer becomes decentralized, is that not a win?
I can print a copy of the Mona Lisa, but that doesn't devalue the original painting.
That’s such an apt comparison!
NFT’s are meant to be non-fungible. This isn’t the case at all in practice. Mostly due to the “technology” behind it not doing what it claims (you can hash the same work with imperceptible transformations and claim it is unique). But also due to a variety of factors that effectively amount to “human nature”.
For now, you’ll have to settle for a court system and copyright law.
For now, you’ll have to settle for a court system and copyright law.
NFTs best real usecase was in logistics as a kind of unique item-ledger providing a secure history of custody and important details about the item of concern during its movements.
All the digital ownership stuff is whack funny money low rates bullshit. That usecase for it is a concession that the copyright industry got it right, which is obviously not the case. NFTs just don't have the muscle to prop themselves up like Copyright does.
All the digital ownership stuff is whack funny money low rates bullshit. That usecase for it is a concession that the copyright industry got it right, which is obviously not the case. NFTs just don't have the muscle to prop themselves up like Copyright does.
> They solve a real world problem of ownership of digital assets in an interesting way. We need a solution here
Do we, though?
Do we, though?
And I thought the idea of digital is that as soon as it is out it's 'free'
/shrug
/shrug
Oh, integrating a form of gambling/pyramid scheme into your app was a bad idea? What a surprise!
I'm no NFT cheerleader, but I do bemoan the failure of yet another attempt to provide artists with revenue.
NFTs were always daft, but the fiction, as fiction often does, spoke to a real need.
NFTs were always daft, but the fiction, as fiction often does, spoke to a real need.
Artists have been poor forever. There's a reason the expression is "starving artist" and not "well-fed artist."
It's also easier than ever now for an independent artist to make money. Patreon, Fanbox, Skeb have vastly simplified the logistics of getting money for your work. Promotion through social media is free, though time-consuming.
The problem is the same as it always was: artists want to focus on creating art, and not running a business. If I told you I was going to make a software company, with the expectation of a livable salary, but spend $0 on sales, marketing, or customer support, you'd call me an idiot, because there's a lot more to a software business than churning out code. Similarly, there's a lot more to making a living as an artist than drawing pictures or creating music.
Ironically, NFTs were most successful with people who already understood all this. Unscrupulous people like Steve Aoki aggressively marketed their own NFTs using their existing brand power and made a hefty sum, while your dime-a-dozen 10k Twitter follower artist got nothing.
It's also easier than ever now for an independent artist to make money. Patreon, Fanbox, Skeb have vastly simplified the logistics of getting money for your work. Promotion through social media is free, though time-consuming.
The problem is the same as it always was: artists want to focus on creating art, and not running a business. If I told you I was going to make a software company, with the expectation of a livable salary, but spend $0 on sales, marketing, or customer support, you'd call me an idiot, because there's a lot more to a software business than churning out code. Similarly, there's a lot more to making a living as an artist than drawing pictures or creating music.
Ironically, NFTs were most successful with people who already understood all this. Unscrupulous people like Steve Aoki aggressively marketed their own NFTs using their existing brand power and made a hefty sum, while your dime-a-dozen 10k Twitter follower artist got nothing.
In an ideal world you’d do what you are best at. If that was churning useful code then be it. If that was selling that code without needing to churn code yourself then be it. It’s unfortunate we can’t collaborate with eachother without stealing eachother’s livelyhood.
Aren't you just describing a business? Maybe even a startup specifically, with a CTO who's great at building things and a CEO who's great at selling them? I don't really see how that's stealing each other's livelihood; neither of those people can be successful without the other.
> while your dime-a-dozen 10k Twitter follower artist got nothing
Very condescending and, at the same time, not true at all. Many existing artists did much better in revenue than ever in the way of getting paid for their craft during the rise of NFTs, there were many spaces where artists would brag about their success and help onboard others into the space, often paying their transaction fees.
For many of the small audience artists it's very sad the momentum faded, and the spring of generative AI doesn't help them either.
Very condescending and, at the same time, not true at all. Many existing artists did much better in revenue than ever in the way of getting paid for their craft during the rise of NFTs, there were many spaces where artists would brag about their success and help onboard others into the space, often paying their transaction fees.
For many of the small audience artists it's very sad the momentum faded, and the spring of generative AI doesn't help them either.
I think the Bored Ape thing was a perfect illustration of who is provided with revenue by NFTs.
You aren't wrong, and again, I am at pains to indicate that I don't support NFTs, was disappointed with NFTs, and I genuinely believe they're a standout sign of cultural decay.
Again, my concern is for the artists who were briefly given hope, however false.
For context, this book is helpful: https://www.amazon.com/Death-Artist-Creators-Struggling-Bill...
Again, my concern is for the artists who were briefly given hope, however false.
For context, this book is helpful: https://www.amazon.com/Death-Artist-Creators-Struggling-Bill...
In the original post you've called it an "attempt to provide artists with revenue" and let's be clear it was never that. The only attempt was to provide revenue for Facebook, and both NFT scammers and Facebook only used artists as a fig leaf for the get-rich-quick scheme of wash trades and piracy.
At pain of downvoting, I respectfully need to ask if you read the article?
It literally describes an effort by Meta to put NFTs to use for artists.
Again, decay.
It literally describes an effort by Meta to put NFTs to use for artists.
Again, decay.
Artists can easily make money, they just have to produce what the market demands, like any other business. Draw furry porn comics and paywall them behind patreon and watch the cash roll in.
Of course no one was going to pay $1000 for landscape_digital_painting.png which you can get a dime a million on dall-e.
Of course no one was going to pay $1000 for landscape_digital_painting.png which you can get a dime a million on dall-e.
Nope, Gigachad is exactly correct. If you want to make money as an artist you have to make stuff that other people want to buy. If you only make art that speaks to your unique soul then the market may consist of only yourself.
This is hardly a new phenomenon. Artists today have more ways of getting paid than ever, but it is still a buyers market.
This is hardly a new phenomenon. Artists today have more ways of getting paid than ever, but it is still a buyers market.
What's really interesting is the last gasp of digital art represented by NFTs when DALL-E and Stable Diffusion were literally right around the corner, days away.
If DALL-E emerged before NFTs, I don't think we would have seen them gain any traction _at all_.
If DALL-E emerged before NFTs, I don't think we would have seen them gain any traction _at all_.
1attice(2)
On the contrary, I'm glad to see the death of yet another scam targeting artists. People might have been trying to convince artists it could provide revenue, but I don't believe many of those people were themselves artists. It felt very much like "here you go, use this technology, we know best", because from the very start of the scam I saw artists unambiguously asserting they wanted no part in it, but lots of art being wrapped up in NFTs without permission.
As someone who still knows a number of professional Illustrators I highly suggest talking to artists about this topic then for once, both hobby and professional. Actually talk to a few artists and you will quickly find a number of them who were already hurt by NFTs via art theft or spam and scam.
NFTs and the guys pushing them were only out to hurt artists and exploit them, and nothing else. If they weren't out to scam them, they were out there just stealing the art.
It was not "a nice idea" and the fact that people still try to tie them to "but what about the artists" narrative is a disgrace. I'm sorry, but there is no "but" here.
Yes something for artists would be nice, everyone agrees. NFTs were never that, not even a little bit. It was not "an attempt to provide artists with revenue", it was an attempt to use artists for revenue.
You make a difference between what you say, and the people cheering for NFTs, but the whole "yeah but what if it works" or "yeah but wouldn't it be nice if..." angle is exactly the type of crowbar all the cryptocurrency/NFT scammers used and still use to stay relevant.
NFTs and the guys pushing them were only out to hurt artists and exploit them, and nothing else. If they weren't out to scam them, they were out there just stealing the art.
It was not "a nice idea" and the fact that people still try to tie them to "but what about the artists" narrative is a disgrace. I'm sorry, but there is no "but" here.
Yes something for artists would be nice, everyone agrees. NFTs were never that, not even a little bit. It was not "an attempt to provide artists with revenue", it was an attempt to use artists for revenue.
You make a difference between what you say, and the people cheering for NFTs, but the whole "yeah but what if it works" or "yeah but wouldn't it be nice if..." angle is exactly the type of crowbar all the cryptocurrency/NFT scammers used and still use to stay relevant.
The artists don't matter. The art on the bored ape whatever was never the value. Artists pushing crypto are just looking to grift off their fanbase and are either stupid or malicious - in both cases reason for normal people to stay away.
Most artists using NFTs for revenue are not using IG, so are unaffected by this news.
This is dead in the water in any app, anyways. Apple charges 30% fee on all in-app NFT sales, and on top of that Apple ToS prohibits any “functional” use of NFT tech in their apps. [1]
[1] https://twitter.com/wongmjane/status/1584609845570768897?s=2...
This is dead in the water in any app, anyways. Apple charges 30% fee on all in-app NFT sales, and on top of that Apple ToS prohibits any “functional” use of NFT tech in their apps. [1]
[1] https://twitter.com/wongmjane/status/1584609845570768897?s=2...
Thanks, Apple! No, seriously.
Hooray for tech monopolies prohibiting the use of open source payment protocols and continuing to force a ridiculous rent on users and developers? Typical HN view, at least.
Thanks for nipping scams in the bud, and thanks for crushing Flash, Apple!
Semioj(3)
I'll be honest, it hurts me to see people shit on something, likely because of the sentiment towards NFTs at the moment. It's definitely not the first time I've seen a lot of smart people on HN look at things in an off-way. There are bad actors, there are bad actors everywhere with any physical goods as well. I'm just trying to build something I enjoy and others will too. That something happens to use NFTs.
Sorry, as someone who is fascinated with cryptographgy I have to say that NFTs are a technology nobody could explain me the benefits of. Most of them who tried were either naive (and lost money on NFTs) or bad actors trying to sell me something.
The fact that I have not met a single knowledgable person who managed to convince me that NFTs are a good technology that solves problems that need solving in elegant ways doesn't speak about me, it speaks about the topic at hand.
To me NFTs look like this: Somebody was like "how can we make money off the internet if people just can copy everything? We need to limit the supply somehow!" and then they tried to market it to artists "you will earn money this way". I don't even agree that copyability of data is a problem, and the argument of "we can make money by owning and not putting in a lot of work" attracts exactly the kind of bad actor you talked about.
Any technology doesn't live in isolation from society, especially not something like NFTs that makes the extraordinary claim to introduce something as fundamental as ownership within a system that has been built on free copying of data. That means bad actors need to be factored in, especially if you're marketing the thing in the style of a get rich quick scheme.
Maybe you can explain why this is something we want and why this is the technology that solves it?
The fact that I have not met a single knowledgable person who managed to convince me that NFTs are a good technology that solves problems that need solving in elegant ways doesn't speak about me, it speaks about the topic at hand.
To me NFTs look like this: Somebody was like "how can we make money off the internet if people just can copy everything? We need to limit the supply somehow!" and then they tried to market it to artists "you will earn money this way". I don't even agree that copyability of data is a problem, and the argument of "we can make money by owning and not putting in a lot of work" attracts exactly the kind of bad actor you talked about.
Any technology doesn't live in isolation from society, especially not something like NFTs that makes the extraordinary claim to introduce something as fundamental as ownership within a system that has been built on free copying of data. That means bad actors need to be factored in, especially if you're marketing the thing in the style of a get rich quick scheme.
Maybe you can explain why this is something we want and why this is the technology that solves it?
NFTs are probably best thought of as ownership records or certificates for items that could be either digital goods or physical goods. If you want NFTs to be useful as an ownership record for a physical good, then there will need to be some authority in the physical world that agrees to use the NFTs on a specific blockchain as the system of record for transactions of that good. (e.g. local municipalities using NFTs on Ethereum to represent property deeds)
Some benefits of NFTs in the property deed example would be:
Some benefits of NFTs in the property deed example would be:
- The elimination of the need for municipalities to maintain proprietary databases to hold property deeds
- 24/7 globally accessible property information. (No downtime)
- Standardized and globally interoperable property records across municipalities and potentially countries
- Easy to prove and verify ownership of properties, which could be used to grant access to third party services for homeowners. (e.g. HELOCs)
- Dapps could allow property owners to post the NFT deed as collateral and automate the loan application process to reduce processing costs.This is impossible. Basically you MUST have a centralised DB at the municipality storing all the data at before (because it is impossible to do so on chain, due to chain tech limitations). Plus you have a useless NFT chain on the side, where NFTs are primitive URLs to the centralised DB (CDB). Even more - they are one way links. So that CDB doesn't know anything about blockchain state and NFTs. Next problem - no person owns NFTs, they are owned by wallets. Therefore these wallet must be deanonimised and registered at the municipality and in the CDB, so that there is at least one place to show who owns a deed.
Now some potential scenarios:
1. A sells deed to B. So now they do in on chain and NFT is sold from wallet X to Y. All of that is registered in the CDB and confirmed with paper documents, contracts and stuff. Maaaybe that can work, but as we see NFTs are useless fifth leg in a horse here.
2. Inheritance. Deed is inherited by law by person C (with or wihtout wallet Z), but chain doesn't know about it and thinks wallet X still owns NFT. CDB has actual data and overrides "wallet X" line, so that chain now useless and outdated.
3. Law enforces deed transfer from A to B. Again, NFT is not sold and chain is not updated.
The list of situations can go on and on.
And last note - these so called "dapps", which are neither smart nor contracts, are the most stupidly delusional thing you can introduce into a valuable commodities market. Only people not familiar with the scale and rate of exploits caused by usage of these dumb and badly designed programs can suggest it. Or the one profiteering from this. Phishing is over the top and even experienced users at r/CC are regularly losing everything due to a single click mistakes. This is not how housing market worked and will work. Not how any market works actually.
Now some potential scenarios:
1. A sells deed to B. So now they do in on chain and NFT is sold from wallet X to Y. All of that is registered in the CDB and confirmed with paper documents, contracts and stuff. Maaaybe that can work, but as we see NFTs are useless fifth leg in a horse here.
2. Inheritance. Deed is inherited by law by person C (with or wihtout wallet Z), but chain doesn't know about it and thinks wallet X still owns NFT. CDB has actual data and overrides "wallet X" line, so that chain now useless and outdated.
3. Law enforces deed transfer from A to B. Again, NFT is not sold and chain is not updated.
The list of situations can go on and on.
And last note - these so called "dapps", which are neither smart nor contracts, are the most stupidly delusional thing you can introduce into a valuable commodities market. Only people not familiar with the scale and rate of exploits caused by usage of these dumb and badly designed programs can suggest it. Or the one profiteering from this. Phishing is over the top and even experienced users at r/CC are regularly losing everything due to a single click mistakes. This is not how housing market worked and will work. Not how any market works actually.
No, it's not impossible. You don't need to store all state on chain. You will just need to store a hash of the off-chain data on chain. The supplemental off-chain data can be stored in standardized storage systems, which they themselves might be highly distributed and standardized. (e.g. IPFS)
> You don't need to store all state on chain. You will just need to store a hash of the off-chain data on chain. The supplemental off-chain data can be stored in standardized storage systems
It amazes me how people say this with straight face. "Just store all the data off-chain!". Then the chain isn't needed.
It amazes me how people say this with straight face. "Just store all the data off-chain!". Then the chain isn't needed.
I'm not sure how you made that jump in logic. The chain is absolutely needed as it stores and establishes cryptographic proof of ownership. This is the entire premise behind validity rollups for layer 2 networks.
> I'm not sure how you made that jump in logic.
What jump? You literally said that all the data is stored somewhere else.
> stores and establishes cryptographic proof of ownership.
It stores some unenforceable token that is only valid as long as those who actually enforce ownership agree that it proves anything.
So:
- all data is stored elsewhere, on centralised servers
- proof of ownership is enforced by centralised entities (governments, courts, police, etc.)
Great application of blockchains.
What jump? You literally said that all the data is stored somewhere else.
> stores and establishes cryptographic proof of ownership.
It stores some unenforceable token that is only valid as long as those who actually enforce ownership agree that it proves anything.
So:
- all data is stored elsewhere, on centralised servers
- proof of ownership is enforced by centralised entities (governments, courts, police, etc.)
Great application of blockchains.
> You literally said that all the data is stored somewhere else.
No, I didn't. The NFT would be stored on chain and inside the NFT would be hash of the data that is stored off chain. Anyone can then source the off chain data from any location and then compute the hash of that data and compare it with what is stored on chain.
> It stores some unenforceable token that is only valid as long as those who actually enforce ownership agree that it proves anything.
This is no different than any other system. What makes that Oracle database that your property assessor uses to store your parcel information in enforceable? Oh yeah, the government.
No, I didn't. The NFT would be stored on chain and inside the NFT would be hash of the data that is stored off chain. Anyone can then source the off chain data from any location and then compute the hash of that data and compare it with what is stored on chain.
> It stores some unenforceable token that is only valid as long as those who actually enforce ownership agree that it proves anything.
This is no different than any other system. What makes that Oracle database that your property assessor uses to store your parcel information in enforceable? Oh yeah, the government.
> > You literally said that all the data is stored somewhere else.
> No, I didn't... NFT would be hash of the data that is stored off chain.
Yes. You literally said all the data would be stored somewhere else.
> This is no different than any other system.
If this is no different than any other system, then it has no benefits of any other system.
> What makes that Oracle database that your property assessor uses to store your parcel information in enforceable? Oh yeah, the government.
Indeed, the government.
Who makes your fantasy tokens referring to physical objects enforceable? Oh right. No one.
> No, I didn't... NFT would be hash of the data that is stored off chain.
Yes. You literally said all the data would be stored somewhere else.
> This is no different than any other system.
If this is no different than any other system, then it has no benefits of any other system.
> What makes that Oracle database that your property assessor uses to store your parcel information in enforceable? Oh yeah, the government.
Indeed, the government.
Who makes your fantasy tokens referring to physical objects enforceable? Oh right. No one.
> Yes. You literally said all the data would be stored somewhere else.
Meta data (ownership data) is stored on-chain. (supplemental data is stored off-chain) So again, no I did not say that all data is stored somewhere else. The meta data that is stored on-chain serves an important role.
> If this is no different than any other system, then it has no benefits of any other system.
We are talking about the enforceability. Governments can choose to embrace a blockchain as their system of record. If they do, then NFT deeds are as enforceable as traditional property deeds.
> Who makes your fantasy tokens referring to physical objects enforceable? Oh right. No one.
The government would in this particular case. Maybe in other cases it would be a company and in still other cases it could be an on-chain contract.
Meta data (ownership data) is stored on-chain. (supplemental data is stored off-chain) So again, no I did not say that all data is stored somewhere else. The meta data that is stored on-chain serves an important role.
> If this is no different than any other system, then it has no benefits of any other system.
We are talking about the enforceability. Governments can choose to embrace a blockchain as their system of record. If they do, then NFT deeds are as enforceable as traditional property deeds.
> Who makes your fantasy tokens referring to physical objects enforceable? Oh right. No one.
The government would in this particular case. Maybe in other cases it would be a company and in still other cases it could be an on-chain contract.
> So again, no I did not say that all data is stored somewhere else.
This is splitting hairs. Actual data that is actually relevant to the property, is stored somewhere else. Which is ironic because elsewhere you stated: "but they no longer need to maintain their own database and IT application."
Oh look. They have to maintain their own database for the actual data
> The government would in this particular case.
Not in this particular case. But in all cases.
> Maybe in other cases it would be a company
So. You need central entities to verify and enforce rights to physical objects. You need central entities to store the actual data pertaining to objects and people.
So the point of blockchain in all this is...?
This is splitting hairs. Actual data that is actually relevant to the property, is stored somewhere else. Which is ironic because elsewhere you stated: "but they no longer need to maintain their own database and IT application."
Oh look. They have to maintain their own database for the actual data
> The government would in this particular case.
Not in this particular case. But in all cases.
> Maybe in other cases it would be a company
So. You need central entities to verify and enforce rights to physical objects. You need central entities to store the actual data pertaining to objects and people.
So the point of blockchain in all this is...?
Ownership data is not stored on chain because it is technically impossible. Chain only knows which wallet owns which URL-hash, and nothing else. Which real life person owns which real life physical or digital off-chain artifact (like deed, or picture, or a key), chain doesn't know and can't know. This info is stored in the centralised DBs managed my centralised entities like a company or government.
> The NFT would be stored on chain and inside the NFT would be hash of the data that is stored off chain
Ok, but what's the benefit of doing that?
Ok, but what's the benefit of doing that?
> as it stores and establishes cryptographic proof of ownership.
But if the entity that is charged with keeping track of who owns what needs to keep a central database anyway, what value does keeping the ownership records elsewhere bring? I see doing that as accomplishing nothing but increasing the number of things that can go wrong.
When it comes to things like real estate, the "proof of ownership" is completely without meaning unless you also have the extra data beyond that. Things like where the land is, what the boundaries of the property are, etc.
But if the entity that is charged with keeping track of who owns what needs to keep a central database anyway, what value does keeping the ownership records elsewhere bring? I see doing that as accomplishing nothing but increasing the number of things that can go wrong.
When it comes to things like real estate, the "proof of ownership" is completely without meaning unless you also have the extra data beyond that. Things like where the land is, what the boundaries of the property are, etc.
The hash literally changes nothing except for maybe verifying integrity of the data, and that is debatable. Add hash in the examples above and literally nothing will change. You can't just throw technojargon term at everything and see where it sticks.
The hash is critical as it is what enables you to verify that the off-chain data is correct. What exactly did you think was technojargon? I'll be happy to elaborate.
That's I wrote. Sure, it enables data integrity (maybe, but let's be charitable). Now what? How does the fact that token knows about external data prevents that data from being manipulated if needed? Or do you propose banning inheritances, lawsuits and other actions which apply to the real world artifacts just because blockchain can't deal with that? :)
That won't happen.
It doesn't prevent the manipulation, but it does assist in detecting it. If someone manipulates the off-chain data, then when that off-chain data is hashed and re-verified against the hash stored in the NFT on-chain then there will be a mismatch in the hash values.
Let's suppose that the off-chain data is a PDF containing all the information for the property deed. If the hash values don't match then it means the PDF should be disregarded. If the off-chain data was kept in multiple locations, then one could potentially still retrieve a good copy of the PDF whose hash matches and then can be trusted.
Now, just because a blockchain can be used as the system of record for property deeds does not mean one wouldn't need to still have laws and other organizations enforcing that system of record. The blockchain is just a tool that makes some aspects of the record keeping easier and opens up some interesting possibilities as I've outlined in other comments of this thread.
Let's suppose that the off-chain data is a PDF containing all the information for the property deed. If the hash values don't match then it means the PDF should be disregarded. If the off-chain data was kept in multiple locations, then one could potentially still retrieve a good copy of the PDF whose hash matches and then can be trusted.
Now, just because a blockchain can be used as the system of record for property deeds does not mean one wouldn't need to still have laws and other organizations enforcing that system of record. The blockchain is just a tool that makes some aspects of the record keeping easier and opens up some interesting possibilities as I've outlined in other comments of this thread.
We don't need detecting unwanted manipulation (clarification, we do, but that is a small and rare problem), we need to deal with expected manipulation.
Let's say I was phished and some tokenbro across the globe now owns the NFT with a deed to my house, initially this info also got propagated into the centralised DB with stores actual data with deeds and related stuff. I go to police, then to the court and they reaffirm my ownership of the house. Then they restore correct information in the CDB. Now everything is all right, excep that blockchain is now outdated and show a tokenbro as an owner of NFT pointing to deed for my house, and hash is of course not matching now. Now what?
Code is not law (surprise), and blockchain doesn't override laws. It is technically useless for this task.
Why not just check the off-chain database and sidestep the hash stuff in the first place?
If the off-chain data is "incorrect", what are you going to do? Can anybody mint those NFTs? What's the point then? The government is the only one who can kick you out of that house irl.
If the off-chain data is "incorrect", what are you going to do? Can anybody mint those NFTs? What's the point then? The government is the only one who can kick you out of that house irl.
Since the on-chain hash is part of an immutable object that no one can change, then anyone can use it to verify that the off-chain data is valid at anytime. (No one needs to go ask someone else whether it is valid they can check for themselves) If the off-chain data was found to be invalid, then a correct version of that off-chain data would need to be provided or a process would have to be developed that would handle exceptions where the document is no longer available and now a new NFT would need to be minted.
The minting process could be managed by the government or some entity using an on-chain contract or it could just be a manual process that the government does in conjunction with banks. The enforcement of the ownership records would still be held with the government. The point of having property records as NFT on-chain data is it enables easy to verify ownership of property records, transparency/auditability of property records, and easy transfers of property records to new owners.
The minting process could be managed by the government or some entity using an on-chain contract or it could just be a manual process that the government does in conjunction with banks. The enforcement of the ownership records would still be held with the government. The point of having property records as NFT on-chain data is it enables easy to verify ownership of property records, transparency/auditability of property records, and easy transfers of property records to new owners.
> then a correct version of that off-chain data would need to be provided
Correct, which means that there has to be an ultimate source of truth that everyone agrees on that is independent of the blockchain. Which means there has to be an authoritative central agency of some sort to handle that. Which means that the blockchain has not, in fact, accomplished the stated goal.
Correct, which means that there has to be an ultimate source of truth that everyone agrees on that is independent of the blockchain. Which means there has to be an authoritative central agency of some sort to handle that. Which means that the blockchain has not, in fact, accomplished the stated goal.
The purpose of having property deeds represented as NFTs on a blockchain is not to eliminate the need for a governing body, but to make the ownership transparent, trivially verifiable, and easy to transfer. I've outlined this many times in this thread at this point. In the event, that a valid copy of off-chain data could not be recovered, then the governing body could use a longer and more manual process to identify the rightful owner and mint a new NFT.
Perhaps the difficulty is that how deeds are handled right now already makes ownership transparent and easily verifiable, and not much more difficult to transfer ownership of (because transferring the "token" of ownership isn't where the friction is).
So those don't look like things that NFTs make better in this space.
So those don't look like things that NFTs make better in this space.
It's possible to intentionally alter data that a hash has been computed from in such a way that it still computes to the same hash. Hashing alone is a weak way of ensuring that data has not been altered.
It is extremely hard to break cryptographic hash functions to the point it is considered impossible. If you could do that, then you could be breaking into all sorts of systems. Cryptographic one-way hash functions are actually the preferred way to secure passwords.
It isn't trivial, but it's not as hard as you make out. In the case of real estate which is often worth a great deal of money, plenty of people will be willing to put the effort in to do this.
> If you could do that, then you could be breaking into all sorts of systems.
Absolutely. And this is one of the methods that is used to do just that. I'm not talking about a theoretical security issue here, this is a weakness that has been leveraged in the real world for a long time.
> Cryptographic one-way hash functions are actually the preferred way to secure passwords.
Yes, but they're also not considered bulletproof. They're a bit of a compromise effort. That's why the leaking of password files is considered a security problem even when the passwords are salted hashes.
And, like with password hashes, it's not actually necessary to break the hash in order to alter the hashed record while maintaining the same hash. There are mathematical shortcuts to doing this, but you can even just brute force it if you have enough computing power or time.
> If you could do that, then you could be breaking into all sorts of systems.
Absolutely. And this is one of the methods that is used to do just that. I'm not talking about a theoretical security issue here, this is a weakness that has been leveraged in the real world for a long time.
> Cryptographic one-way hash functions are actually the preferred way to secure passwords.
Yes, but they're also not considered bulletproof. They're a bit of a compromise effort. That's why the leaking of password files is considered a security problem even when the passwords are salted hashes.
And, like with password hashes, it's not actually necessary to break the hash in order to alter the hashed record while maintaining the same hash. There are mathematical shortcuts to doing this, but you can even just brute force it if you have enough computing power or time.
> Absolutely. And this is one of the methods that is used to do just that. I'm not talking about a theoretical security issue here, this is a weakness that has been leveraged in the real world for a long time.
Oh really? Care to share some examples of SHA-256 and SHA-3 collisions?
Oh really? Care to share some examples of SHA-256 and SHA-3 collisions?
Not sure what would count as examples here, honestly. The ones I know of were what I encountered when I was working in cryptographic security, and I don't think any of those incidents were made publicly available.
That said, there are readily available tools that use things like rainbow tables to "crack" SHA-256 salted password hashes. By "crack", I mean to come up with a password that hashes to the same value.
These tools are in successful use every day.
That said, there are readily available tools that use things like rainbow tables to "crack" SHA-256 salted password hashes. By "crack", I mean to come up with a password that hashes to the same value.
These tools are in successful use every day.
All of this is literally easier and cheaper to do without NFT woo. The reason why it doesn't already exist is that there's practically no need for it.
>Dapps could allow property owners to post the NFT deed as collateral and automate the loan application process to reduce processing costs. Do you not see how this is a bad idea? What value is the NFT deed? The house has the value - what's the NFT worth? If you have the NFT deed, are you the house owner? Bruh.
>Dapps could allow property owners to post the NFT deed as collateral and automate the loan application process to reduce processing costs. Do you not see how this is a bad idea? What value is the NFT deed? The house has the value - what's the NFT worth? If you have the NFT deed, are you the house owner? Bruh.
How would you design an HA system that has literally 0 downtime and accessible from anywhere in the world that people can cryptographically prove ownership of a property? How would you prevent DDoS attacks of that system? Further, how would you keep costs low enough that a typical small city or township could afford said HA property system?
What value is the property deed? The house has the value - what's the property deed worth? If you have the property deed, are you the house owner?
What value is the property deed? The house has the value - what's the property deed worth? If you have the property deed, are you the house owner?
> How would you design an HA system that has literally 0 downtime
When you ask a question like that I can't help but asking back: How would you design any system that has "literally 0 downtime" and why do you think it is only possible to achive it using a blockchain?
As for the second part: proving some digital data is originating from someone is what we have been doing using cryptographic signatures for quite a while now. How to do so in a stable fashion that resists changes to the original data e.g. editing, cropping, color-manipulation, pitch shifting, etc is the challenge. This is called fingerprinting.
To proove ownership of a material you just need a list of fingerprints and a reference to the entity that owns the rights. How to do reliable databases is a problem that we sort of know how to deal with in 2023.
The question is, why would you need a blockchain for that problem? The hard part is not trusting the entity that stores the data, the hard part is trusting the data that is entered into that database. And for this kind of problem the best construction we have found so far is dedicating some institution to that purpose and have copyright-holders proove their ownership of their data to that institution. But if you have an institution that you already need to trust with data entry you can also trust them with data storage or not?
Not sure how a blockchain helps when some guy claims the song I have written on another blockchain. In the end it will be governments who will have to recognize my ownership so I can sue and by that point you can safe yourself the trouble of using a blockchain in the first place.
When you ask a question like that I can't help but asking back: How would you design any system that has "literally 0 downtime" and why do you think it is only possible to achive it using a blockchain?
As for the second part: proving some digital data is originating from someone is what we have been doing using cryptographic signatures for quite a while now. How to do so in a stable fashion that resists changes to the original data e.g. editing, cropping, color-manipulation, pitch shifting, etc is the challenge. This is called fingerprinting.
To proove ownership of a material you just need a list of fingerprints and a reference to the entity that owns the rights. How to do reliable databases is a problem that we sort of know how to deal with in 2023.
The question is, why would you need a blockchain for that problem? The hard part is not trusting the entity that stores the data, the hard part is trusting the data that is entered into that database. And for this kind of problem the best construction we have found so far is dedicating some institution to that purpose and have copyright-holders proove their ownership of their data to that institution. But if you have an institution that you already need to trust with data entry you can also trust them with data storage or not?
Not sure how a blockchain helps when some guy claims the song I have written on another blockchain. In the end it will be governments who will have to recognize my ownership so I can sue and by that point you can safe yourself the trouble of using a blockchain in the first place.
Blockchains are highly distributed systems. At least the good ones are ;-). Blockchains have the ultimate uptime b/c every full node has a copy of the database that houses the state and in large blockchain networks (e.g. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Chia) there is always a node available. It's definitely possible to build other HA systems that are not blockchains, but even spending top dollar for 99.99% availability you probably can't approach the uptime of a one of these blockchain networks and especially if you are running your own infra and not doing it on a public cloud provider.
Blockchains are great for proving ownership because you can provide a signature for verification and then that can be cross-referenced to see if that same signature also owns the on-chain data.
There is no getting around the fact that the government chooses the system of record and property owners have to abide that choice. If the government though chose to use a blockchain as the system of record (for all the benefits I listed previously), then you don't need to worry about other blockchains, because that's not the one the government cares about.
Blockchains are great for proving ownership because you can provide a signature for verification and then that can be cross-referenced to see if that same signature also owns the on-chain data.
There is no getting around the fact that the government chooses the system of record and property owners have to abide that choice. If the government though chose to use a blockchain as the system of record (for all the benefits I listed previously), then you don't need to worry about other blockchains, because that's not the one the government cares about.
Create a stanardised piece of FOSS software that can be hosted in (who cares, azure|aws|heroku), a small city then just needs to pay the hosting fees and digitise their records. Now it's as good as 0 downtime for the real world, certainly not even blockchains have 0 downtime. And you don't have the issues of gas wars either.
Oh, the real hard problems are creating the standardised representation of a property deed and getting everyone to use it. Something not at all addressed by use of blockchain!
>Cryptographically prove ownership of a property literally no one is asking for this except the sellers of cryptographic proof.
Oh, the real hard problems are creating the standardised representation of a property deed and getting everyone to use it. Something not at all addressed by use of blockchain!
>Cryptographically prove ownership of a property literally no one is asking for this except the sellers of cryptographic proof.
Just because you host on AWS doesn't mean you get 0 downtime. AWS regions do go down occasionally. Compare that to a hundred thousand node globally distributed network -> https://dashboard.chia.net/d/em15uQ47k/peer-info?orgId=1
> Oh, the real hard problems are creating the standardised representation of a property deed and getting everyone to use it. Something not at all addressed by use of blockchain!
And Oracle databases addressed this? Standardizing property deeds is more of an application level concern not core blockchain infra.
>Cryptographically prove ownership of a property literally no one is asking for this except the sellers of cryptographic proof.
A good UI/UX would make this a push button capability from a wallet. No need for the general public to understand the technology powering push button verification. :)
> Oh, the real hard problems are creating the standardised representation of a property deed and getting everyone to use it. Something not at all addressed by use of blockchain!
And Oracle databases addressed this? Standardizing property deeds is more of an application level concern not core blockchain infra.
>Cryptographically prove ownership of a property literally no one is asking for this except the sellers of cryptographic proof.
A good UI/UX would make this a push button capability from a wallet. No need for the general public to understand the technology powering push button verification. :)
>Standardizing property deeds is more of an application level concern not core blockchain infra.
You claimed it as a benefit! There's no reason that NFTs for property deeds would: Be standardised, or be on the same chain. That's more an application level concern, so please take that point back.
>Just because you host on AWS doesn't mean you get 0 downtime.
You get as near to 0 downtime as anyone needs for transacting property.
Also, still no one is asking for cryptographic proof of property ownership, even if you make it a single button push. No one needs it now, what does it add? Why is what we have now in need of cryptographic verification? Crypto boosters want it because they're selling it, directly or indirectly. You have not answered this question.
You claimed it as a benefit! There's no reason that NFTs for property deeds would: Be standardised, or be on the same chain. That's more an application level concern, so please take that point back.
>Just because you host on AWS doesn't mean you get 0 downtime.
You get as near to 0 downtime as anyone needs for transacting property.
Also, still no one is asking for cryptographic proof of property ownership, even if you make it a single button push. No one needs it now, what does it add? Why is what we have now in need of cryptographic verification? Crypto boosters want it because they're selling it, directly or indirectly. You have not answered this question.
> You claimed it as a benefit! There's no reason that NFTs for property deeds would: Be standardised, or be on the same chain. That's more an application level concern, so please take that point back.
There's different standard levels right? I'm talking about when you build a property deed NFT you'd have to adhere to the on-chain standard for how NFTs are created on that particular blockchain. Then once those NFTs existed other people could integrate them. If you want the property deeds to have a set of standard specifications of how they deal with particular situations that might arise through inheritance, multiple parties, lost keys, etc. then that would be an application level specification.
> Also, still no one is asking for cryptographic proof of property ownership, even if you make it a single button push. No one needs it now, what does it add? Why is what we have now in need of cryptographic verification? Crypto boosters want it because they're selling it, directly or indirectly. You have not answered this question.
I'm asking for it and I'm sure others would like to have it to. :) Having cryptographic verification provides an ability to quickly prove ownership from an application and then that verification could unlock certain home owner benefits (e.g. HELOCs)
There's different standard levels right? I'm talking about when you build a property deed NFT you'd have to adhere to the on-chain standard for how NFTs are created on that particular blockchain. Then once those NFTs existed other people could integrate them. If you want the property deeds to have a set of standard specifications of how they deal with particular situations that might arise through inheritance, multiple parties, lost keys, etc. then that would be an application level specification.
> Also, still no one is asking for cryptographic proof of property ownership, even if you make it a single button push. No one needs it now, what does it add? Why is what we have now in need of cryptographic verification? Crypto boosters want it because they're selling it, directly or indirectly. You have not answered this question.
I'm asking for it and I'm sure others would like to have it to. :) Having cryptographic verification provides an ability to quickly prove ownership from an application and then that verification could unlock certain home owner benefits (e.g. HELOCs)
So what you want is faster access to HELOCs, and why does an NFT allow that? How does cryptography proof that you own it? Because you know a private key attached to a wallet address with the NFT in it? Okay, and how does that NFT relate to actually owning something? What if you get hacked, does the hacker now own it? And if the hacker takes out the line of credit, fail to pay, does the defi protocol they borrowed from now own your house?
Why would you want to make house deeds easy to hack?
>There's different standard levels right? I'm talking about when you build a property deed NFT you'd have to adhere to the on-chain standard for how NFTs are created on that particular blockchain.
Okay, why bother with that particular blockchain standard then, and not the hypothetical FOSS software for hosting a property deed database? Because then you have the same benefits, but also don't need the blockchain?
Why would you want to make house deeds easy to hack?
>There's different standard levels right? I'm talking about when you build a property deed NFT you'd have to adhere to the on-chain standard for how NFTs are created on that particular blockchain.
Okay, why bother with that particular blockchain standard then, and not the hypothetical FOSS software for hosting a property deed database? Because then you have the same benefits, but also don't need the blockchain?
> So what you want is faster access to HELOCs, and why does an NFT allow that?
It helps facilitate more automated approval b/c if you were to complete an application with your wallet then the system could check for the presence of the NFT to indicate ownership.
> How does cryptography proof that you own it?
The presence of the NFT in your wallet.
> Because you know a private key attached to a wallet address with the NFT in it?
Yes
> Okay, and how does that NFT relate to actually owning something?
If the government decides to use a blockchain as its system of record for property deeds, then the NFTs on that blockchain would be just as legitimate as paper property deeds. The NFTs hold the hash of any off-chain data whose validity could be verified.
> What if you get hacked, does the hacker now own it?
Perhaps in a poor implementation. I would expect clawbacks to be implemented for property deed NFTs.
> And if the hacker takes out the line of credit, fail to pay, does the defi protocol they borrowed from now own your house?
Hopefully that user is using a hardware wallet and again clawbacks are implemented, so that doesn't happen. If it did, then you'd probably seek resolution through the courts as needed.
> Why would you want to make house deeds easy to hack?
It's very hard to steal NFTs from a hardware wallet with clawback support. Good luck!
> Okay, why bother with that particular blockchain standard then, and not the hypothetical FOSS software for hosting a property deed database? Because then you have the same benefits, but also don't need the blockchain?
Because a FOSS property deed database could be censored and cannot be independently verified outside of the governing body easily. I would expect the uptime to be slower. It would also become a central point of failure for all property deeds and would need to protect against DDoS attacks.
It helps facilitate more automated approval b/c if you were to complete an application with your wallet then the system could check for the presence of the NFT to indicate ownership.
> How does cryptography proof that you own it?
The presence of the NFT in your wallet.
> Because you know a private key attached to a wallet address with the NFT in it?
Yes
> Okay, and how does that NFT relate to actually owning something?
If the government decides to use a blockchain as its system of record for property deeds, then the NFTs on that blockchain would be just as legitimate as paper property deeds. The NFTs hold the hash of any off-chain data whose validity could be verified.
> What if you get hacked, does the hacker now own it?
Perhaps in a poor implementation. I would expect clawbacks to be implemented for property deed NFTs.
> And if the hacker takes out the line of credit, fail to pay, does the defi protocol they borrowed from now own your house?
Hopefully that user is using a hardware wallet and again clawbacks are implemented, so that doesn't happen. If it did, then you'd probably seek resolution through the courts as needed.
> Why would you want to make house deeds easy to hack?
It's very hard to steal NFTs from a hardware wallet with clawback support. Good luck!
> Okay, why bother with that particular blockchain standard then, and not the hypothetical FOSS software for hosting a property deed database? Because then you have the same benefits, but also don't need the blockchain?
Because a FOSS property deed database could be censored and cannot be independently verified outside of the governing body easily. I would expect the uptime to be slower. It would also become a central point of failure for all property deeds and would need to protect against DDoS attacks.
>with clawback support
Does this exist? What would it look like? Can you force a wallet to release an NFT? Or is it just governmental - centralized! - approved reminting of an NFT?
Also your security model is "I hope users use a hardware wallet" - not a great track record of this! Even among professional cryptocurrency developers!
>Because a FOSS property deed database could be censored and cannot be independently verified outside of the governing body easily. I would expect the uptime to be slower. It would also become a central point of failure for all property deeds This is the state of play today and it's... fine? Like I know many, many, many people buying houses and the hard part is not the record keeping of the deeds. That wouldn't even make a top 10 problem. And I know several people who've remortgaged or taken out credit against their house. They managed! Generally, taking out a big loan doesn't need to be fast - you don't do it that often.
Not exactly crying out for this solution, is it?
So, in summary, this use case isn't a high priority for nearly anyone (HELOCs already exist and can be accessed, and in any case, who needs them to be much faster? how often do they take out credit against their house?) and requires either centralized authority OR a future improvement to a blockchain (clawback!) and still requires the courts to looks at analog paper deeds (otherwise, how could seek resolution through the courts) in any case.
Does this exist? What would it look like? Can you force a wallet to release an NFT? Or is it just governmental - centralized! - approved reminting of an NFT?
Also your security model is "I hope users use a hardware wallet" - not a great track record of this! Even among professional cryptocurrency developers!
>Because a FOSS property deed database could be censored and cannot be independently verified outside of the governing body easily. I would expect the uptime to be slower. It would also become a central point of failure for all property deeds This is the state of play today and it's... fine? Like I know many, many, many people buying houses and the hard part is not the record keeping of the deeds. That wouldn't even make a top 10 problem. And I know several people who've remortgaged or taken out credit against their house. They managed! Generally, taking out a big loan doesn't need to be fast - you don't do it that often.
Not exactly crying out for this solution, is it?
So, in summary, this use case isn't a high priority for nearly anyone (HELOCs already exist and can be accessed, and in any case, who needs them to be much faster? how often do they take out credit against their house?) and requires either centralized authority OR a future improvement to a blockchain (clawback!) and still requires the courts to looks at analog paper deeds (otherwise, how could seek resolution through the courts) in any case.
Who needs deed information to be available 24/7/365? Why does there need to be a central system that is at risk of DDoS attacks? Why would a city/town/county pay for a system that isn't needed?
I think pretty much anyone would like systems to be available as much as possible, no? Any website (which nowadays most property assessors have sites) is vulnerable to DDoS attacks and even worse would be ransomware attacks. The system would be an improvement over their existing system and would likely be cheaper. Most city/town/county would pay for such a system as TCO is important to them.
I doubt that many people particularly care if property records are available 24/7, or are demanding the ability to update records outside of business hours. Individual pieces of property aren't bought and sold frequently enough to need to be able to be done instantaneously or at any time. Governments have a vested interest in being able to verify that transactions are legal and that identities are known so as to be able collect taxes.
Ransomware or other attacks are always going to be a risk, and the more municipalities that use a single system, the bigger a target it becomes, so smaller but properly secured and backed up systems have advantages.
Ransomware or other attacks are always going to be a risk, and the more municipalities that use a single system, the bigger a target it becomes, so smaller but properly secured and backed up systems have advantages.
> I doubt that many people particularly care if property records are available 24/7, or are demanding the ability to update records outside of business hours. Individual pieces of property aren't bought and sold frequently enough to need to be able to be done instantaneously or at any time. Governments have a vested interest in being able to verify that transactions are legal and that identities are known so as to be able collect taxes.
Cryptographic signatures paired with identity information makes all transactions easily verifiable for tax collection purposes. There are purposes such as proving ownership of a record anytime someone needs to that would be convenient if the records are accessible 24/7.
> Ransomware or other attacks are always going to be a risk, and the more municipalities that use a single system, the bigger a target it becomes, so smaller but properly secured and backed up systems have advantages.
If the past is any indication, local governments and small businesses have had a heck of time securing their IT systems. I would much prefer a hardened blockchain system to secure my property ownership record, than the current situation.
Cryptographic signatures paired with identity information makes all transactions easily verifiable for tax collection purposes. There are purposes such as proving ownership of a record anytime someone needs to that would be convenient if the records are accessible 24/7.
> Ransomware or other attacks are always going to be a risk, and the more municipalities that use a single system, the bigger a target it becomes, so smaller but properly secured and backed up systems have advantages.
If the past is any indication, local governments and small businesses have had a heck of time securing their IT systems. I would much prefer a hardened blockchain system to secure my property ownership record, than the current situation.
> Cryptographic signatures paired with identity information makes all transactions easily verifiable for tax collection purposes.
I don’t think they even care who pays the tax as long as it gets paid. They aren’t going to not take your money if they can’t verify you’re the legal owner.
> I would much prefer a hardened blockchain system to secure my property ownership record, than the current situation.
The current system isn’t even digital. There’s some sort of master book or something that records every title transaction since there’s been a legal claim on the property. I’m pretty sure the one for my house is archived with the title insurance company, probably something I should know.
I don’t think they even care who pays the tax as long as it gets paid. They aren’t going to not take your money if they can’t verify you’re the legal owner.
> I would much prefer a hardened blockchain system to secure my property ownership record, than the current situation.
The current system isn’t even digital. There’s some sort of master book or something that records every title transaction since there’s been a legal claim on the property. I’m pretty sure the one for my house is archived with the title insurance company, probably something I should know.
> What value is the property deed?
Its value is that it is proof of ownership certified by whichever county officer has the job to do these things.
> The house has the value - what's the property deed worth?
Literally nothing since anyone can show up at the county office and get a copy. They don’t even ask for ID because it’s a public record.
> If you have the property deed, are you the house owner?
No, the property deed is an official record of the property owner.
With the deed you can prove you own the property but even that isn’t ironclad which is the whole reason there’s a title insurance industry. Which, and I’ll give you this one, could be the only valid reason for “blockchain” in this whole argument but would require having every historic property transaction already on chain or you’d just be where we are today.
Its value is that it is proof of ownership certified by whichever county officer has the job to do these things.
> The house has the value - what's the property deed worth?
Literally nothing since anyone can show up at the county office and get a copy. They don’t even ask for ID because it’s a public record.
> If you have the property deed, are you the house owner?
No, the property deed is an official record of the property owner.
With the deed you can prove you own the property but even that isn’t ironclad which is the whole reason there’s a title insurance industry. Which, and I’ll give you this one, could be the only valid reason for “blockchain” in this whole argument but would require having every historic property transaction already on chain or you’d just be where we are today.
> If you have the property deed, are you the house owner?
That's a great question.
Riddle me this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27212564
That's a great question.
Riddle me this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27212564
I'm not sure what you think that proves? Government corruption has and will always exist. If anything, a public blockchain will make manipulation of property records more easily detectable.
> I'm not sure what you think that proves?
Your question was, quote, "If you have the property deed, are you the house owner?"
I gave you an example of a property deed, and issues that could arise around that property deed. Now, how exactly will blockchain help in the cases I described?
Your question was, quote, "If you have the property deed, are you the house owner?"
I gave you an example of a property deed, and issues that could arise around that property deed. Now, how exactly will blockchain help in the cases I described?
My original question illustrates that an NFT deed is interchangeable with a property deed. Public blockchains can help expose manipulations of property records because the history of record transactions are available for anyone to check. You don't get that with closed centralized property systems.
> My original question illustrates that an NFT deed is interchangeable with a property deed.
It's not. NFTs are non-enforceable.
> Public blockchains can help expose manipulations of property records
No they can't. I literally provided you with examples.
It's not. NFTs are non-enforceable.
> Public blockchains can help expose manipulations of property records
No they can't. I literally provided you with examples.
> It's not. NFTs are non-enforceable.
They are as non-enforceable as property deeds. (i.e. property deed enforce-ability relies on the government too)
> No they can't. I literally provided you with examples.
They absolutely can. If someone modifies the NFT on the blockchain you will see exactly when and by whom it was modified. This could be provided as evidence in court.
They are as non-enforceable as property deeds. (i.e. property deed enforce-ability relies on the government too)
> No they can't. I literally provided you with examples.
They absolutely can. If someone modifies the NFT on the blockchain you will see exactly when and by whom it was modified. This could be provided as evidence in court.
> They are as non-enforceable as property deeds. (i.e. property deed enforce-ability relies on the government too)
Translation: government enforces property deeds. They are enfoceable.
NFTs are not
> If someone modifies the NFT on the blockchain
The question isn't about modifying the NFT is it. Go and re-read the cases I provided.
Edit: What amazes me about all the cryptobros is their inability to look beyond the simplest of the most simplest of the most trivial of cases. Probably because of their childlike belief in the magic of blockchain.
Translation: government enforces property deeds. They are enfoceable.
NFTs are not
> If someone modifies the NFT on the blockchain
The question isn't about modifying the NFT is it. Go and re-read the cases I provided.
Edit: What amazes me about all the cryptobros is their inability to look beyond the simplest of the most simplest of the most trivial of cases. Probably because of their childlike belief in the magic of blockchain.
I can literally set up a blockchain that says I own the Mona Lisa. Me saying so, or me putting it on a blockchain doesn't make it so.
A blockchain solves the specific problem of how to track ownership of some piece of data in a decentralized fashion where multiple parties do not trust each other.
This, however is not the hard problem when we talk about ownership databases. The hard problem is ensuring the data entered into that database represents actual real world ownership and having the database universally recognized by everybody as a representation of ownership.
What purpose does a database like that serve, when the actual place where the rubber of ownership hits the road is somwhere else?
A blockchain solves the specific problem of how to track ownership of some piece of data in a decentralized fashion where multiple parties do not trust each other.
This, however is not the hard problem when we talk about ownership databases. The hard problem is ensuring the data entered into that database represents actual real world ownership and having the database universally recognized by everybody as a representation of ownership.
What purpose does a database like that serve, when the actual place where the rubber of ownership hits the road is somwhere else?
> I can literally set up a blockchain that says I own the Mona Lisa. Me saying so, or me putting it on a blockchain doesn't make it so.
Agreed. The parties that are interacting must agree on which blockchain to interact on first. More likely an industry, trade association, or government would say this chain is going to be the system of record of where transactions take place and then individuals and businesses are forced to abide by that. Then once that is decided, any transfer of ownership on that chain would expect to be honored by the transferring party. If not, then consequences would be enforced by the governing industry, trade association, government. etc.
> A blockchain solves the specific problem of how to track ownership of some piece of data in a decentralized fashion where multiple parties do not trust each other.
> This, however is not the hard problem when we talk about ownership databases. The hard problem is ensuring the data entered into that database represents actual real world ownership and having the database universally recognized by everybody as a representation of ownership.
> What purpose does a database like that serve, when the actual place where the rubber of ownership hits the road is somwhere else?
Yes, there is sort of a bootstrapping problem around how do you get people onboarded onto a particular blockchain. For that I think you need some novel use case(s). For Bitcoin it was being the first alternative monetary system. For Ethereum it was the ability to create on-chain programs. Zcash it was private transactions. etc. Once people are onboarded though, then you can use that system to agree on where ownership entry and change of ownership transactions take place. Then you can use the publicly auditable history to prove ownership. For a physical good, then that becomes evidence that can be presented to a third party presiding entity who settles disputes.
Agreed. The parties that are interacting must agree on which blockchain to interact on first. More likely an industry, trade association, or government would say this chain is going to be the system of record of where transactions take place and then individuals and businesses are forced to abide by that. Then once that is decided, any transfer of ownership on that chain would expect to be honored by the transferring party. If not, then consequences would be enforced by the governing industry, trade association, government. etc.
> A blockchain solves the specific problem of how to track ownership of some piece of data in a decentralized fashion where multiple parties do not trust each other.
> This, however is not the hard problem when we talk about ownership databases. The hard problem is ensuring the data entered into that database represents actual real world ownership and having the database universally recognized by everybody as a representation of ownership.
> What purpose does a database like that serve, when the actual place where the rubber of ownership hits the road is somwhere else?
Yes, there is sort of a bootstrapping problem around how do you get people onboarded onto a particular blockchain. For that I think you need some novel use case(s). For Bitcoin it was being the first alternative monetary system. For Ethereum it was the ability to create on-chain programs. Zcash it was private transactions. etc. Once people are onboarded though, then you can use that system to agree on where ownership entry and change of ownership transactions take place. Then you can use the publicly auditable history to prove ownership. For a physical good, then that becomes evidence that can be presented to a third party presiding entity who settles disputes.
> Yes, there is sort of a bootstrapping problem around how do you get people onboarded onto a particular blockchain.
Yeah, but would I like to do that? All these blockchains are literally some shady guy that tells me "trust me and my tech to manage that ownership for you". What is in it for me?
Yeah, but would I like to do that? All these blockchains are literally some shady guy that tells me "trust me and my tech to manage that ownership for you". What is in it for me?
> The elimination of the need for municipalities to maintain proprietary databases to hold property deeds
Of course it doesn't eliminate the need. Who's going to enter those records and enforce them?
> Standardized and globally interoperable property records across municipalities and potentially countries
Just because it's on blockchain doesn't mean it's standardised, or interoperable.
> Easy to prove and verify ownership of properties, which could be used to grant access to third party services for homeowners.
Yup. Until a corrupt government official puts his friend as the owner of your house and evicts you. Look, the proof is in the blockchain, and it's irrefutable, and cannot be amended.
> Dapps could allow property owners to post the NFT deed as collateral and automate the loan application process to reduce processing costs.
This is just a string off made-up terms that make no sense
Of course it doesn't eliminate the need. Who's going to enter those records and enforce them?
> Standardized and globally interoperable property records across municipalities and potentially countries
Just because it's on blockchain doesn't mean it's standardised, or interoperable.
> Easy to prove and verify ownership of properties, which could be used to grant access to third party services for homeowners.
Yup. Until a corrupt government official puts his friend as the owner of your house and evicts you. Look, the proof is in the blockchain, and it's irrefutable, and cannot be amended.
> Dapps could allow property owners to post the NFT deed as collateral and automate the loan application process to reduce processing costs.
This is just a string off made-up terms that make no sense
> Of course it doesn't eliminate the need. Who's going to enter those records and enforce them?
The staff still does what they do today, but they no longer need to maintain their own database and IT application.
> Just because it's on blockchain doesn't mean it's standardised, or interoperable.
Once it is on a blockchain it is conforming to a published standard for NFTs for that particular blockchain and others can interact with it and build additional systems that interoperate more easily.
> Yup. Until a corrupt government official puts his friend as the owner of your house and evicts you. Look, the proof is in the blockchain, and it's irrefutable, and cannot be amended.
Because corrupt government officials have never doctored official records that weren't on the blockchain?
> This is just a string off made-up terms that make no sense
No, it's not. A Dapp stands for a "decentralized application" and posting property deeds as collateral is a real thing. Further, being able to do that digitally will likely lower processing costs.
The staff still does what they do today, but they no longer need to maintain their own database and IT application.
> Just because it's on blockchain doesn't mean it's standardised, or interoperable.
Once it is on a blockchain it is conforming to a published standard for NFTs for that particular blockchain and others can interact with it and build additional systems that interoperate more easily.
> Yup. Until a corrupt government official puts his friend as the owner of your house and evicts you. Look, the proof is in the blockchain, and it's irrefutable, and cannot be amended.
Because corrupt government officials have never doctored official records that weren't on the blockchain?
> This is just a string off made-up terms that make no sense
No, it's not. A Dapp stands for a "decentralized application" and posting property deeds as collateral is a real thing. Further, being able to do that digitally will likely lower processing costs.
> The staff still does what they do today, but they no longer need to maintain their own database and IT application.
That's a very minor thing to maintain as compared to the multiple issues that blockchains bring into the mix.
And of course they will need to maintain an IT application: they will need secure wallet implementations, data entry applications to interact with blockchains, security audits for the shitty programs people keep calling "smart contracts" etc.
> Once it is on a blockchain it is conforming to a published standard for NFTs
Ah yes. It automagically conforms to some standard. Just because it's on blockchain.
> Because corrupt government officials have never doctored official records that weren't on the blockchain?
And how is blockchain helping you in this case? Or in the cases I linked: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27212564 and that you even failed to understand.
That's a very minor thing to maintain as compared to the multiple issues that blockchains bring into the mix.
And of course they will need to maintain an IT application: they will need secure wallet implementations, data entry applications to interact with blockchains, security audits for the shitty programs people keep calling "smart contracts" etc.
> Once it is on a blockchain it is conforming to a published standard for NFTs
Ah yes. It automagically conforms to some standard. Just because it's on blockchain.
> Because corrupt government officials have never doctored official records that weren't on the blockchain?
And how is blockchain helping you in this case? Or in the cases I linked: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27212564 and that you even failed to understand.
> And of course they will need to maintain an IT application: they will need secure wallet implementations, data entry applications to interact with blockchains, security audits for the shitty programs people keep calling "smart contracts" etc.
Most likely a third party company will provide a standardized overlay that government's can tweak to suit their needs, but the bulk of the important data is now stored securely on chain. This should help reduce the security footprint and FTE overhead for governments.
> Ah yes. It automagically conforms to some standard. Just because it's on blockchain.
No magic involved. If you want your NFT to work say on the Chia Blockchain, then you need to conform to this standard -> https://www.chia.net/2022/06/29/1-4-0-introducing-the-chia-n...
> And how is blockchain helping you in this case? Or in the cases I linked: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27212564 and that you even failed to understand.
I've already explained this in another comment. No one is claiming blockchain is helping in that situation and that's okay! :)
Most likely a third party company will provide a standardized overlay that government's can tweak to suit their needs, but the bulk of the important data is now stored securely on chain. This should help reduce the security footprint and FTE overhead for governments.
> Ah yes. It automagically conforms to some standard. Just because it's on blockchain.
No magic involved. If you want your NFT to work say on the Chia Blockchain, then you need to conform to this standard -> https://www.chia.net/2022/06/29/1-4-0-introducing-the-chia-n...
> And how is blockchain helping you in this case? Or in the cases I linked: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27212564 and that you even failed to understand.
I've already explained this in another comment. No one is claiming blockchain is helping in that situation and that's okay! :)
> Most likely a third party company will provide a standardized overlay
So, we're squarely in the realm of magic and wishful thinking.
Some third party (who?) will provide some standardised way (which standards?) that governments will tweak (what? if tweaked, it's no longer standard).
> but the bulk of the important data is now stored securely on chain.
Of course not. Storing anything in bulk on-chain is prohibitively expensive. All you're proposing to store is a hash of off-chain data
> No magic involved. If you want your NFT to work say on the Chia Blockchain, then you need to conform to this standard
Why would government want a) NFT to b) work on Chia?
On top of that, you are literally saying: "You will just need to store a hash of the off-chain data on chain". What's the standard for that hash?
> I've already explained this in another comment.
You haven't
> No one is claiming blockchain is helping in that situation and that's okay! :)
No, it's not okay. You keep saying that blockchain is some solution for something, but every single case runs into "no, you don't use blockchain for that".
So, we're squarely in the realm of magic and wishful thinking.
Some third party (who?) will provide some standardised way (which standards?) that governments will tweak (what? if tweaked, it's no longer standard).
> but the bulk of the important data is now stored securely on chain.
Of course not. Storing anything in bulk on-chain is prohibitively expensive. All you're proposing to store is a hash of off-chain data
> No magic involved. If you want your NFT to work say on the Chia Blockchain, then you need to conform to this standard
Why would government want a) NFT to b) work on Chia?
On top of that, you are literally saying: "You will just need to store a hash of the off-chain data on chain". What's the standard for that hash?
> I've already explained this in another comment.
You haven't
> No one is claiming blockchain is helping in that situation and that's okay! :)
No, it's not okay. You keep saying that blockchain is some solution for something, but every single case runs into "no, you don't use blockchain for that".
[deleted]
> The fact that I have not met a single knowledgable person who managed to convince me that NFTs are a good technology that solves problems that need solving in elegant ways doesn't speak about me, it speaks about the topic at hand.
It doesn’t say anything about the correct answer to the question and all about your analysis process. Keep looking, good luck!
It doesn’t say anything about the correct answer to the question and all about your analysis process. Keep looking, good luck!
At some point, it's possible to draw conclusions from the fact that a whole bunch of generally intelligent people can't make a good argument for something's worth.
For example:
> The fact that I have not met a single knowledgable person who managed to convince me that eating poop is a good idea that solves problems that need solving in elegant ways doesn't speak about me, it speaks about the topic at hand.
Do we conclude that eating poop is a great idea, and that more looking is what's needed? Or can we conclude that there's probably a reason folks struggle to justify the concept?
For example:
> The fact that I have not met a single knowledgable person who managed to convince me that eating poop is a good idea that solves problems that need solving in elegant ways doesn't speak about me, it speaks about the topic at hand.
Do we conclude that eating poop is a great idea, and that more looking is what's needed? Or can we conclude that there's probably a reason folks struggle to justify the concept?
> It doesn’t say anything about the correct answer to the question
It doesn't necessarily say something about the correct answer to the question. That however doesn't automatically mean it never says something about the correct answer to the question.
I decided in this case, that it does.
It doesn't necessarily say something about the correct answer to the question. That however doesn't automatically mean it never says something about the correct answer to the question.
I decided in this case, that it does.
100% of people in the NFT space are bad actors because they deliberately lie to others. Or they honestly deluded themselves into the madness, makes no big difference really.
We can do an experiment here - you can describe what you think is an NFT and I can reply why is that technically impossible (because we have heard this broken record for a thousand times already) :)
We can do an experiment here - you can describe what you think is an NFT and I can reply why is that technically impossible (because we have heard this broken record for a thousand times already) :)
What is that thing you're building, and why does it use NFTs?
Something is off. Given Meta's ambitions with the metaverse, shutting this down seems contrary to how Meta is thinking of NFT art? Does this mean there's no place for NFT art in the metaverse? Or did something real shady happen in the plaftorm; data that shows people are susceptible to buying NFTs are exorbitant prices, and Instagram wants to stop this behaviours before market education kicks in?
Given Meta's ambitions with the metaverse..
Zuck announced that they're pivoting to AI, shuttering Reality Labs, and moving Oculus to a pure gaming platform. They have no ambitions for the metaverse any more.
Zuck announced that they're pivoting to AI, shuttering Reality Labs, and moving Oculus to a pure gaming platform. They have no ambitions for the metaverse any more.
So are they going to rename the company again?
They will save that card until the next privacy scandal. After it they will rename.
But what will I right-click-save-as now?
you couldn't do anything with it, just display it, what's the point then if you can't trade it or sell it.
If you don't want to look at it, why buy it in the first place? I mean, anybody needs to look at it, or all this stuff makes no sense...
Socialize all NFTs! Socialize Instagram and implement NFTs -- features that the world has waited for.
And nothing of value was lost.
[deleted]
>“You’re not thinking in the long run. What if you would have said goodbye to the internet when the bubble exploded back in the 2000s? There would be no Google. Or Meta whatsoever,” she said.
She says that like it would’ve been a bad thing.
She says that like it would’ve been a bad thing.
sebastien_b(2)
colesantiago(1)
This is good for bitcoin.
>This is a breaking story and was updated.
Really? Will nftnow.com be sending their helicopter to the Meta headquarters?
Really? Will nftnow.com be sending their helicopter to the Meta headquarters?
Nft is no longer fashionable among the intelligentsia of the internet
Most of the comments made in this thread about NFTs could also be made about digital signatures, HTTPS, Signal, PGP and traditional forms of crypto.
“I can open up devtools and change the words on this page. HTTPS has no value.“
“I can photoshop you digitally signing a different document. Digital signatures have no value.”
I fairly obviously disagree with those statements but if you do too - you may wish to put your pitchfork down for a moment and think deeper about the value of digitally signed artwork.
“I can open up devtools and change the words on this page. HTTPS has no value.“
“I can photoshop you digitally signing a different document. Digital signatures have no value.”
I fairly obviously disagree with those statements but if you do too - you may wish to put your pitchfork down for a moment and think deeper about the value of digitally signed artwork.
In most nft marketplaces the actual artwork was not signed. They signed a url, not even a fucking hash of the jpg.
That's not how it works. The url was ipfs, which is immutable and is a hash by itself.
>The url was ipfs, which is immutable and is a hash by itself.
1. For the majority (perhaps even vast majority) it was never pointing to ipfs, but to some server running somewhere.
2. On ipfs files will disappear eventually if there's no one to pay for their storage
1. For the majority (perhaps even vast majority) it was never pointing to ipfs, but to some server running somewhere.
2. On ipfs files will disappear eventually if there's no one to pay for their storage
1. Sites like https://nft.storage/ (which I dislike as they have a silly bug with content types) or Pinata also go to IPFS. Just because the https URL doesn't look like a well known IPFS HTTP gateway doesn't mean it's not on IPFS.
2. Good point. I haven't investigated this but I should.
2. Good point. I haven't investigated this but I should.
https://www.rightclicksave.com/article/how-many-nfts-are-act...
66.44% of NFTs are HTTP (centralised servers) and only 23.81% are on IPFS even when taking into account the gateways
66.44% of NFTs are HTTP (centralised servers) and only 23.81% are on IPFS even when taking into account the gateways
That’s not what that report says:
> Put simply, ~10% of NFTs are on-chain, ~40% of NFTs are on private servers and are doomed, and ~50% remaining are on IPFS.
40% is the doomed figure. Which is way too high but there’s a lot of idiots minting shitty NFTs. Since the study wasn’t limited to NFTs on marketplaces (like we’re discussing here) that doesn’t surprise me.
> Put simply, ~10% of NFTs are on-chain, ~40% of NFTs are on private servers and are doomed, and ~50% remaining are on IPFS.
40% is the doomed figure. Which is way too high but there’s a lot of idiots minting shitty NFTs. Since the study wasn’t limited to NFTs on marketplaces (like we’re discussing here) that doesn’t surprise me.
Yes, I misread that.
Still, due to how IPFS operates, the majority of those assets will be gone, too.
Example from infura: https://community.infura.io/t/does-data-that-hasnt-been-used...
--- start quote ---
if the data you’ve pinned to IPFS is not accessed within the 6 month period, our garbage collecting system will delete the data. In order to keep data around indefinitely, you will need to access it somehow at least every 6 months.
--- end quote ---
And more on Hedera: https://hedera.com/blog/nft-storage-why-it-matters
I can't find the article now. IIRC someone crawled through OpenSea NFTs and the majority of the assets were gone.
Still, due to how IPFS operates, the majority of those assets will be gone, too.
Example from infura: https://community.infura.io/t/does-data-that-hasnt-been-used...
--- start quote ---
if the data you’ve pinned to IPFS is not accessed within the 6 month period, our garbage collecting system will delete the data. In order to keep data around indefinitely, you will need to access it somehow at least every 6 months.
--- end quote ---
And more on Hedera: https://hedera.com/blog/nft-storage-why-it-matters
I can't find the article now. IIRC someone crawled through OpenSea NFTs and the majority of the assets were gone.
The URL usually lives on arweave, which is a binary blockchain.
metaplex defaults to arweave for uploads.
metaplex defaults to arweave for uploads.
You might want to provide evidence for "usually".
Just a reminder: NFTs that link to an image is a simple use case for the NFT token standard, and most of the time it didn't make any sense.
NFTs make more sense when representing ownership of digital assets that grant some utility.
I am a believer in the idea that in-game assets will become NFTs. Playing video games professsionally is like being a tradesperson, and just like a carpenter doesn't need to use a different hammer for each job, a gamer shouldn't need to get new stats or weapons for each game they play.
Just like a famous musician might, a gamer should be able to sell the gun they used professionally to a fan and that fan can have that represented in any game (using that game's native assets).
I see a lot of value in an open registry of digital items I own, each with a cryptographic proof of provenance, and which doesnt require a centralized entity to control and decide which games can and can't participate. This can be done without a blockchain, but then there's no central proof of who owns what (I can own the item, sell it, but still submit old proofs to a game to keep using the item).
I may think this way because I own a lot of digital goods that are stored in private databases which will someday shutdown. At that point, I'll loose all of those items.
NFTs make more sense when representing ownership of digital assets that grant some utility.
I am a believer in the idea that in-game assets will become NFTs. Playing video games professsionally is like being a tradesperson, and just like a carpenter doesn't need to use a different hammer for each job, a gamer shouldn't need to get new stats or weapons for each game they play.
Just like a famous musician might, a gamer should be able to sell the gun they used professionally to a fan and that fan can have that represented in any game (using that game's native assets).
I see a lot of value in an open registry of digital items I own, each with a cryptographic proof of provenance, and which doesnt require a centralized entity to control and decide which games can and can't participate. This can be done without a blockchain, but then there's no central proof of who owns what (I can own the item, sell it, but still submit old proofs to a game to keep using the item).
I may think this way because I own a lot of digital goods that are stored in private databases which will someday shutdown. At that point, I'll loose all of those items.
Why would any game developer ever implement that?
- If they want money, NFTs are directly competing with microtransactions/loot boxes. Any NFT imported is money the developer isn't making off their own content.
- If they want a good game, allowing users to import random items from other games is going to be impossible to balance.
- If they want a free for all, they can already implement mods and steam workshop without the crypto aspects.
As an aside, if the goal is simply trading items between players, that's better done with a traditional market. Allowing real money to enter the game tends to incentivise all the worst player behaviors and ruin the experience, as Blizzard discovered with the Diablo auction house.
- If they want money, NFTs are directly competing with microtransactions/loot boxes. Any NFT imported is money the developer isn't making off their own content.
- If they want a good game, allowing users to import random items from other games is going to be impossible to balance.
- If they want a free for all, they can already implement mods and steam workshop without the crypto aspects.
As an aside, if the goal is simply trading items between players, that's better done with a traditional market. Allowing real money to enter the game tends to incentivise all the worst player behaviors and ruin the experience, as Blizzard discovered with the Diablo auction house.
NFT, like 99% of blockchain tech, are a solution looking for a problem. They have absolutely zero practical use in the real world. The only people getting rich with NFT are the people selling ETH.
“Imagine if you gave up on the Internet in 2000”. This again.
This is how distorted people’s perceptions become when they live their whole life in echo chambers.
Leaving the obvious aside, It genuinely seems like a lot of those still pushing this are utterly unaware of the harms their whole mess has caused.
Also, they’ve made it way harder to teach non-techies how to stay safe online in the future by co-opting the term “crypto”. They immediately think any use of the term crypto is related to this stuff. Your Digital ponzi scam != cryptography.
The worst part is how the public now thinks if you’re involved in software you must be a massive believer in cc/NFTs because they keep hearing about it so all techies must think it’s awesome, right!?
It’s exhausting.