Twenty percent of a picture of a dog(bloomberg.com)
bloomberg.com
Twenty percent of a picture of a dog
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-09-09/twenty-percent-of-a-picture-of-a-dog
158 comments
https://archive.is/dXBD1
Am I the only one who sees the interest in NFTs as an indictment of the whole crypo scene? NFTs abandon all the arguments that crypto people have usually used to argue why cryptocurrencies have value. People are dropping all pretext and openly admitting that these things only have value because they are artificially scarce and therefore maybe someone else will pay you more for it in the future. There is no other value. And now that we see that alone is enough to drive up prices, I start to wonder if anyone really believed all those arguments for cryptocurrencies or they were just too scared to admit that this was always all about trying to ride the artificial bubble for as long as possible.
I'm pretty sure the end game is either exerting social or even legal pressure to KEEP the value going up, simply because so much money is involved.
It's like 'because this is ridiculous, it is therefore obvious that it's only about the money invested in it, not in any sense what it's 'about'. Therefore, the money has to keep getting more valuable. Because money, that's why.
If that argument holds, then it is money, full stop. No matter what else it is or isn't. The entire difference between it being a weird speculative prank, and it being money in the weightiest possible sense of the word, is how it's treated by society and any governments that have jurisdiction.
It's like 'because this is ridiculous, it is therefore obvious that it's only about the money invested in it, not in any sense what it's 'about'. Therefore, the money has to keep getting more valuable. Because money, that's why.
If that argument holds, then it is money, full stop. No matter what else it is or isn't. The entire difference between it being a weird speculative prank, and it being money in the weightiest possible sense of the word, is how it's treated by society and any governments that have jurisdiction.
>I'm pretty sure the end game is either exerting social or even legal pressure to KEEP the value going up, simply because so much money is involved.
This just reminds me of how society screwed over future generations once the decision was made to treat housing as an investment. There is now a tremendous amount of social, political, and legal pressure to keep values going up in order to protect the financial health of a good percentage of people which is diametrically opposed with the financial health of a separate group of people who cannot afford those rising costs.
This just reminds me of how society screwed over future generations once the decision was made to treat housing as an investment. There is now a tremendous amount of social, political, and legal pressure to keep values going up in order to protect the financial health of a good percentage of people which is diametrically opposed with the financial health of a separate group of people who cannot afford those rising costs.
How would that pressure work exactly? Markets can remain irrational for a long time, but over a sufficiently long period they eventually revert to fundamental value. There is a limited supply of "greater fools" and they don't have infinite cash. Market values for other types of collectibles like ceramic figurines or stuffed animals have dropped significantly in recent years; sometimes there are no buyers at any price.
My hope, personally, is that the pressure would NOT work.
Market dynamics are fine in their place, even useful, but nothing about them is inherently free from exploit. Crypto and finance operate in a context that's set by law and custom. We agree 'if your crypto fails, hard luck, you lost money'.
If it was beneficial to literally threaten government until they changed the rule to 'if your crypto fails, but you are entity X, Y or Z, then you are to apply to the government and they will make you whole, printing 'money' if necessary'. This would be pitched in the name of 'stability' but it'd be a straight power play. The benefit to X, Y, and Z is obvious.
Doesn't matter much what kind of pressure they would impose, only the end result matters. It could be negotiation, blackmail, threat of physical harm: view this pressure as stepping outside the rules of the system to rig the rules of the system, secretly or explicitly. The idea is to legislate that markets can't be irrational, because (if you're X, Y, or Z) markets will be guaranteed to do what you want. No risk. Therefore, rational.
Market dynamics are fine in their place, even useful, but nothing about them is inherently free from exploit. Crypto and finance operate in a context that's set by law and custom. We agree 'if your crypto fails, hard luck, you lost money'.
If it was beneficial to literally threaten government until they changed the rule to 'if your crypto fails, but you are entity X, Y or Z, then you are to apply to the government and they will make you whole, printing 'money' if necessary'. This would be pitched in the name of 'stability' but it'd be a straight power play. The benefit to X, Y, and Z is obvious.
Doesn't matter much what kind of pressure they would impose, only the end result matters. It could be negotiation, blackmail, threat of physical harm: view this pressure as stepping outside the rules of the system to rig the rules of the system, secretly or explicitly. The idea is to legislate that markets can't be irrational, because (if you're X, Y, or Z) markets will be guaranteed to do what you want. No risk. Therefore, rational.
NFTs have value because people who have been into crypto are rich now and any activity surrounding them is now a rich persons game.
“How can you have money,” demanded Ford, “if none of you actually produces anything? It doesn't grow on trees you know.”
“If you would allow me to continue..."
Ford nodded dejectedly.
“Thank you. Since we decided a few weeks ago to adopt the leaf as legal tender, we have, of course, all become immensely rich.”
-Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/685739-if-the-management-co...
“If you would allow me to continue..."
Ford nodded dejectedly.
“Thank you. Since we decided a few weeks ago to adopt the leaf as legal tender, we have, of course, all become immensely rich.”
-Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/685739-if-the-management-co...
Artificial scarcity has always been a key part of the argument.
NFTs are just a new name for a concept that's been around in bitcoin since the very early years: Colored coins https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Colored_Coins
NFTs are just a new name for a concept that's been around in bitcoin since the very early years: Colored coins https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Colored_Coins
Well, I'm a firm believer in cryptocurrency but I have yet to find legit use cases for NFTs, so you can be pro-currency and nft-skeptical.
I think the previous poster's point is that if an NFT is useless but is still worth a boatload of money, shouldn't that make us skeptical of the fact that a Bitcoin is worth a boatload of money also? Like perhaps Bitcoin's value is actually as detached from its utility as the NFT's.
I cannot come to that conclusion, because NFT came after the cryptocurrency upsurge. People saw the monetary value of crypto go up, and that same value has been associated with NFTs. To me, just because people are aiming for a second lucky ticket, doesn't mean the first was a fake.
It certainly don't demonstrate that the value of bitcoin is similarly baseless, it just suggests that the contrapositive - the idea the high value of bitcoin shows that bitcoin is useful - is not a solid argument.
Exactly. NFTs seem to be an admission that the utility of cryptocurrencies was not the driver of either prices or excitement.
[deleted]
The best use case for NFT, and possibly all crypto, is money laundering. But, yes, it's not legit.
NFT's represent a rather beautiful but whacky idea: that money supply is controlled by the critical reception of new artwork. Not the opinion of the snobby art world, but a completely democratic market for art populi - where the aesthetic leans meme - think less MOMA and more favorite contestant on American Idol.
This means NFT's have the ability of dynamically change the money supply based on the prevaliling Keynsian animal spirits across society, versus bitcoins pre-determined money supply schedule. This is a novel feature to the crypto ecosystem: in a way it's moving the activity of mining for block rewards from a robotic and silicon-based process into a creative human process of mining for memetic uptake.
Another interesting opportunity is for patronage to sponsor our society's artists. Just like Florentine status competitions of religious paintings supported Da Vinci's works, our crypto merchants could be supporting the man who will still be going viral five hundred years later. Let me know if you find him.
This means NFT's have the ability of dynamically change the money supply based on the prevaliling Keynsian animal spirits across society, versus bitcoins pre-determined money supply schedule. This is a novel feature to the crypto ecosystem: in a way it's moving the activity of mining for block rewards from a robotic and silicon-based process into a creative human process of mining for memetic uptake.
Another interesting opportunity is for patronage to sponsor our society's artists. Just like Florentine status competitions of religious paintings supported Da Vinci's works, our crypto merchants could be supporting the man who will still be going viral five hundred years later. Let me know if you find him.
I’m unsure either way.
On the one hand, I regard crypto-foo in general as a failure to grok foo for all foo other than “graphy” and “nomicon”.
On the other, NFTs seem to fit into the same category as all other collectibles: I have no interest in used stamps, my dad collected them; original paintings and sculptures from famous artists fetch high prices, if I wanted one I’d get a (2D or 3D) print; autographs fetch vast sums and have zero valence for me.
Pretty much the only thing I care to collect are achievement badges in games and gamified educational services.
Which of these NFTs represent — magical thinking or collectibility — I do not know.
On the one hand, I regard crypto-foo in general as a failure to grok foo for all foo other than “graphy” and “nomicon”.
On the other, NFTs seem to fit into the same category as all other collectibles: I have no interest in used stamps, my dad collected them; original paintings and sculptures from famous artists fetch high prices, if I wanted one I’d get a (2D or 3D) print; autographs fetch vast sums and have zero valence for me.
Pretty much the only thing I care to collect are achievement badges in games and gamified educational services.
Which of these NFTs represent — magical thinking or collectibility — I do not know.
I'm really tempted to take one of these famous NFTs and use it as a Twitter avatar, without owning it. I guess I could have copyright issues with it, but I doubt I would (why would the original artist care anyways? did s/he even package up the copyright rights to travel along with the NFT token as it's traded? maybe...).
You can own it and say it's rare, but it's not actually rare.
You can own it and say it's rare, but it's not actually rare.
Nobody would care anymore than the owner of a Van Gogh would care about you printing a copy of the painting and hanging it up on your wall. The value isn’t in the raw image, it’s in the status and prestige of socially recognized ownership.
If I buy a Van Gogh, I have a Van Gogh hanging in my living room. You don't (not the same one, anyways).
People buy NFT JPEGs and then put them as their Twitter avatars. Anyone can do that.
People buy NFT JPEGs and then put them as their Twitter avatars. Anyone can do that.
Digital replications of paintings are perfect. So it’s just as easy to say:
If I buy an NFT, I have a monkey as my Twitter avatar. You don’t (not the same monkey, anyway).
If I buy an NFT, I have a monkey as my Twitter avatar. You don’t (not the same monkey, anyway).
Everyone can have the exact same monkey down to each bit, it’s just that you have a note on a blockchain that says you bought the monkey and no one else did.
It’s like if we had matter replicators from the Star Trek universe and anyone could print a van goh copy down to the same molecular structure and hang it on their wall, but you bought an impractical-to-forge piece of paper that says yours is the original.
It’s like if we had matter replicators from the Star Trek universe and anyone could print a van goh copy down to the same molecular structure and hang it on their wall, but you bought an impractical-to-forge piece of paper that says yours is the original.
I could write "I bought the monkey picture" on a piece of paper and put it in a sealed envelope and hide it in a drawer - same effect.
It only matters to people that it matters to. Anyone unconnected to the blockchain that stores this information doesn't give a monkey's about it.
Imagine that I and the monkey-picture-owner use the monkey picture as an avatar. They say "you can't use that, I bought it - look at this blockchain". I say "no I bought it - look at this piece of paper in the drawer". In general in society we would then have a court case and a judge would decide, and the police would enforce it. In this case - nothing. There's literally nothing the "owner" can do. If you can't enforce your ownership, in what sense do you own anything?
It only matters to people that it matters to. Anyone unconnected to the blockchain that stores this information doesn't give a monkey's about it.
Imagine that I and the monkey-picture-owner use the monkey picture as an avatar. They say "you can't use that, I bought it - look at this blockchain". I say "no I bought it - look at this piece of paper in the drawer". In general in society we would then have a court case and a judge would decide, and the police would enforce it. In this case - nothing. There's literally nothing the "owner" can do. If you can't enforce your ownership, in what sense do you own anything?
Similarly, you can get a reproduction of a Van Gogh which would functionally be the same painting hanging on the wall. One of the fundamental value propositions in art is the history, in that discrete examples of art are representations of cultural history and historical artifacts themselves. By purchasing a piece of history the buyer becomes part of the history through its provenance. That is the difference between owning an original and a copy that is attempted to be emulated by art nfts.
Whether or not it will be successful is a different question, though the most prominent ones will probably remain collectable to some degree purely because they represent the first iteration of a historical precedent (digital scarcity in art).
Whether or not it will be successful is a different question, though the most prominent ones will probably remain collectable to some degree purely because they represent the first iteration of a historical precedent (digital scarcity in art).
There's an interesting documentary on Netflix called Made You Look that deals with a lot of similar issues to this subthread.
Basically a scammer hired a master forger to create new/"original" paintings in the style of a few abstract expressionists (Rothko, Pollack, Motherwell). They came up with a fake provenance and sold them to a prestigious New York gallery for 25 years, making millions of dollars. The gallery then resold them to rich people for even more money.
They consulted the top experts in the world to authenticate them and no one raised any doubts.
Everyone was happy for a long time until the scam fell apart. They interviewed one of the people who purchased a fake painting and had hung it on her wall for years. She was furious.
As a nice little kicker, one of the attorneys on the case has a bunch of these paintings (which had been sold for millions a piece) hanging in his office.
There's a little blurb here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knoedler#Art_fraud_scandal_and...
Basically a scammer hired a master forger to create new/"original" paintings in the style of a few abstract expressionists (Rothko, Pollack, Motherwell). They came up with a fake provenance and sold them to a prestigious New York gallery for 25 years, making millions of dollars. The gallery then resold them to rich people for even more money.
They consulted the top experts in the world to authenticate them and no one raised any doubts.
Everyone was happy for a long time until the scam fell apart. They interviewed one of the people who purchased a fake painting and had hung it on her wall for years. She was furious.
As a nice little kicker, one of the attorneys on the case has a bunch of these paintings (which had been sold for millions a piece) hanging in his office.
There's a little blurb here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knoedler#Art_fraud_scandal_and...
Go ahead, the people who own the NFT don’t have copyright over the underlying image, and afaict usually don’t have any special rights to the image at all.
In 2021, I don't think you can treat NFTs and GME and other confusing/contrived aspects of the economy as separate in any way.
The reality is that money, on the whole, is becoming more and more meaningless.
The world still needs something that fulfills the promise of cryptocurrency, even if it's a little distracted right now.
The reality is that money, on the whole, is becoming more and more meaningless.
The world still needs something that fulfills the promise of cryptocurrency, even if it's a little distracted right now.
> The reality is that money, on the whole, is becoming more and more meaningless.
Probably because of low interest rates, huge QE and now the public knows the system is rigged against them.
Probably because of low interest rates, huge QE and now the public knows the system is rigged against them.
Yes! All crypto people are 100% behind NFTs. Therfore i can say: 'Am I the only one who sees the interest in NFTs as an indictment of the whole crypo scene?'
You are not even trying. Lets change crypto to apples and NFTs to thieving.
"Thieves were caught eating apples ==> All apple eater are behind thievery."
You are not even trying. Lets change crypto to apples and NFTs to thieving.
"Thieves were caught eating apples ==> All apple eater are behind thievery."
> things only have value because they are artificially scarce
Of course scarcity can (rightly) influence value, on the other hand, think of tulip bulbs and the year 1637.
Of course scarcity can (rightly) influence value, on the other hand, think of tulip bulbs and the year 1637.
The word "value" is wrong.
E.g. oxygen has value, even if not scarce.
I wish economists refrained from using the word "value" for concepts that are not that.
E.g. oxygen has value, even if not scarce.
I wish economists refrained from using the word "value" for concepts that are not that.
> oxygen has value, even if not scarce
Q: How much did you pay for the oxygen you personally used in the last 24h?
Q: How much did you pay for the oxygen you personally used in the last 24h?
> Economic value is not the same as market price, nor is economic value the same thing as market value. If a consumer is willing to buy a good, it implies that the customer places a higher value on the good than the market price. The difference between the value to the consumer and the market price is called "consumer surplus". It is easy to see situations where the actual value is considerably larger than the market price: purchase of drinking water is one example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_(economics)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_(economics)
> It is easy to see situations where the actual value is considerably larger than the market price
Unless you are poorly and/or in hospital, there is no price for (breathing) oxygen? If there's zero price how would one propose to determine the value?
Unless you are poorly and/or in hospital, there is no price for (breathing) oxygen? If there's zero price how would one propose to determine the value?
If I am deprived of oxygen I'd spend all of my available resources on getting it. Same for water, food etc.
You're using the word "artificial" in at least two different ways here.
The US dollar is artificially scarce. What inherent value does it have?
The US dollar is artificially scarce. What inherent value does it have?
The inherent value is that if you pay taxes in the US you need dollars to pay them with.
Not only that, but any debt in the US can be paid in dollars. Like, I can bring a stack of $20s to my landlord and they just have to accept them. They don't have to accept BTC or ETH or even Mastercard.
This is also part of the "artificial" value of the dollar in the sense that it requires enforcement by the US gov and banking systems to remain useful. In-game currency is also useful, but that does not give it inherent value, in any meaningful sense of the word.
I mean, sure. But if we're only saying things are valuable because the US government enforces it, that's a strange bar. So movies and tv shows aren't valuable?
My issue was with the original comment's ambiguous use of artificial, not really value. He was drawing a connection between crypto as "artificially scarce" and an "artificial bubble".
I agree that people can value movies and tv shows, which in some sense therefore actually has more inherent value than the dollar.
I agree that people can value movies and tv shows, which in some sense therefore actually has more inherent value than the dollar.
I see it differently. Are online casinos an indictment of the internet? NFTs are just an application.
At least crypto kitties was fun
The NFT (Erc721) technology has started and will continue to disrupt so many parts of life that it is nearly unfathomable.
The technology was championed through artistic channels and we're still very early which is why it is the majority of the attention.
Some of these NFTs have intrinsic value simply for being the firsts/help create upon a technology that will continue to permeate through our culture and livelihood.
The technology was championed through artistic channels and we're still very early which is why it is the majority of the attention.
Some of these NFTs have intrinsic value simply for being the firsts/help create upon a technology that will continue to permeate through our culture and livelihood.
disrupt how?
In the most general way I would say NFTs allow for a more granular monetization of things. If you look at the history of finance it's a step by step progression to monetize smaller and more abstract things. It went from monetizing parcels of land (farmers paying a tithe), goods (farmers selling their own crops), services (people selling their labour), financial assets (selling future cash flows of a company or person), royalties (ownership rights to art, technology, patents, etc) down to ideas and bits of code (NFTs).
As you say we've been doing this for centuries. Why do we need NFTs? What specific problem(s) do they solve?
I bought a house. I paid an escrow company a hefty fee to essentially hold a pile of money in a trusted way while the property was under contract.
Now imagine we transfer ownership of the house to a DAO tied to an NFT. American law allows corporations to be governed by software. So the house is nominally owned by a Wyoming DAO LLC, which gives management rights to whoever holds an NFT on the blockchain.
We’ve legally tied control of the property to an NFT. If you want to sell me the house, we no longer need to transfer control of the property, we just exchange the NFT. Instead of using an escrow company, we can use an off the shelf smart contract which holds the escrow and automatically governs most common cases.
The escrow smart contract can defer any out-of-band disputes to a mutually agreed upon private arbitration entity. We’re not confined to local law, and can choose whatever private legal system we want from anywhere in the world. Simply point the smart contract at the arbitrator’s public address. Imagine being able to use Delaware Chancery Courts instead of a corrupt Louisiana rural parish.
When the property is an NFT, we can now borrow against it by directly accessing a global market of DeFi capital. No more paying the bank and mortgage services 1%+ of spread. Simply construct the mortgage as a smart contract, which controls ownership over the NFT. No more worrying about local judges interfering with foreclosures. Default on the mortgage is now a much simpler and faster eviction process since the homeowner is legally just a tenant of the DAO.
Those individual mortgage smart contracts can now be packaged and pooled, with the risk tranches in such a way to maximize capital efficiency. Again none of the massive frictions that existed n 2008, where foreclosures went slow as molasses because formal title and liens got lost in byzantine county clerks across the country. No fraud where banks and mortgage brokers stuff structured credit pools with crap. Every mortgage pool is instantly auditable but anyone using on-chain data. Foreclosures can be executed in real time and capital rebalanced instantly. That drastically reduces the risk of a cascading series of failures from a hidden pool of risk that we saw in 2008. It also allows for much higher leverage in the financial system, as margin calls can be made much faster and 24/7.
Now imagine we transfer ownership of the house to a DAO tied to an NFT. American law allows corporations to be governed by software. So the house is nominally owned by a Wyoming DAO LLC, which gives management rights to whoever holds an NFT on the blockchain.
We’ve legally tied control of the property to an NFT. If you want to sell me the house, we no longer need to transfer control of the property, we just exchange the NFT. Instead of using an escrow company, we can use an off the shelf smart contract which holds the escrow and automatically governs most common cases.
The escrow smart contract can defer any out-of-band disputes to a mutually agreed upon private arbitration entity. We’re not confined to local law, and can choose whatever private legal system we want from anywhere in the world. Simply point the smart contract at the arbitrator’s public address. Imagine being able to use Delaware Chancery Courts instead of a corrupt Louisiana rural parish.
When the property is an NFT, we can now borrow against it by directly accessing a global market of DeFi capital. No more paying the bank and mortgage services 1%+ of spread. Simply construct the mortgage as a smart contract, which controls ownership over the NFT. No more worrying about local judges interfering with foreclosures. Default on the mortgage is now a much simpler and faster eviction process since the homeowner is legally just a tenant of the DAO.
Those individual mortgage smart contracts can now be packaged and pooled, with the risk tranches in such a way to maximize capital efficiency. Again none of the massive frictions that existed n 2008, where foreclosures went slow as molasses because formal title and liens got lost in byzantine county clerks across the country. No fraud where banks and mortgage brokers stuff structured credit pools with crap. Every mortgage pool is instantly auditable but anyone using on-chain data. Foreclosures can be executed in real time and capital rebalanced instantly. That drastically reduces the risk of a cascading series of failures from a hidden pool of risk that we saw in 2008. It also allows for much higher leverage in the financial system, as margin calls can be made much faster and 24/7.
This falls into the central conceit of crypto "I can avoid laws" I think you'll find that laws are harder than you think, and less forgiving of clever loopholes like this.
Frankly, I don't know why less regulation on most people's largest purchase is considered a good thing.
You also don't really understand the cost drivers. The escrow company should have cost maybe 1%. You didn't have to do that at all. You could have offered to skip escrow, given cash directly to the seller and recover from them if the contract goes sideways.
You also don't understand real estate law. >Default on the mortgage is now a much simpler and faster eviction process since the homeowner is legally just a tenant of the DAO.
It is easier to evict a foreclosee than a tenant in most jurisdictions.
> one of the massive frictions that existed n 2008, where foreclosures went slow as molasses because formal title and liens got lost in byzantine county clerks across the country.
2008 moved slowly for two main reasons. 1, politically, no one wanted to move fast. 2, the mortguages were all chopped up, sub contracted, etc, and it was unclear who had rights to forclose on the house because of teh mounds of subsequent obligations.
Frankly, I don't know why less regulation on most people's largest purchase is considered a good thing.
You also don't really understand the cost drivers. The escrow company should have cost maybe 1%. You didn't have to do that at all. You could have offered to skip escrow, given cash directly to the seller and recover from them if the contract goes sideways.
You also don't understand real estate law. >Default on the mortgage is now a much simpler and faster eviction process since the homeowner is legally just a tenant of the DAO.
It is easier to evict a foreclosee than a tenant in most jurisdictions.
> one of the massive frictions that existed n 2008, where foreclosures went slow as molasses because formal title and liens got lost in byzantine county clerks across the country.
2008 moved slowly for two main reasons. 1, politically, no one wanted to move fast. 2, the mortguages were all chopped up, sub contracted, etc, and it was unclear who had rights to forclose on the house because of teh mounds of subsequent obligations.
>No more worrying about local judges interfering with foreclosures.
What stops the judge from just saying "this smart contract is unenforceable, the NFT doesn't decide who owns the house"?
What stops the judge from just saying "this smart contract is unenforceable, the NFT doesn't decide who owns the house"?
Said judge would be overturning 50 years of American corporate law, which gives LLCs extremely wide leeway in determining their bylaws.
Could some two bit local judge try it? Sure, but it would ultimately get taken to the Supreme Court. And given the current composition of SCOTUS it’s very unlikely they’d vote to weaken corporate property rights.
If you’re worried about legally recognized LLC DAOs losing their rights to residential property, than you should also be worried about private equity firms who are buying residential SFHs also having their property appropriated. Seems like a pretty big long shot to me. This is America, property rights are pretty sacrosanct.
Could some two bit local judge try it? Sure, but it would ultimately get taken to the Supreme Court. And given the current composition of SCOTUS it’s very unlikely they’d vote to weaken corporate property rights.
If you’re worried about legally recognized LLC DAOs losing their rights to residential property, than you should also be worried about private equity firms who are buying residential SFHs also having their property appropriated. Seems like a pretty big long shot to me. This is America, property rights are pretty sacrosanct.
> it would ultimately get taken to the Supreme Court
If the SCOTUS takes your case. Which it doesn't do often.
If the SCOTUS takes your case. Which it doesn't do often.
Sure, but if I'm worried about a "corrupt Louisiana rural parish", it doesn't seem like an NFT shields me much. I can get relief by taking my case to a higher court, but that's the same thing I can do with a regular mortgage. That corrupt judge isn't going to be like "oh, you have an NFT, my hands are tied" - if he wants to mistreat you, an entry in a distributed ledger isn't going to stop him.
A judge is a lot more likely to twist the language in a legal contract than he is to outright appropriate property that's not even being legally transferred. The latter would be immediately reversed by an injunction in a higher court, and the lower judge would be remanded, possibly removed from office.
I can't find a single instance in American history of real property being outright appropriated by a court outside eminent domain.
I can't find a single instance in American history of real property being outright appropriated by a court outside eminent domain.
But won't there also be a legal contract in the NFT case, defining who is allowed to live in the house, what their obligations are, and under what circumstances they can be evicted?
No. There's only an LLC who's bylaws state that the managing member is whoever the holder of record on the blockchain is. Effective transfer of the property is affected purely in crypto space through transfer of the NFT, possibly within a smart contract.
(Of course the smart contract can be coded with the option to defer to a human arbitrator in the case of dispute, but that doesn't even have to be a duly appointed judge. It's just an address on the blockchain that we point to. Almost certainly we'd pick an arbitrator that respects crypto title.)
The only way for the fiat legal system to pierce this scheme is to either invalidate the LLC in the Wyoming court system or to directly appropriate title to the real property from the LLC in the local county. Both are pretty unlikely.
(Of course the smart contract can be coded with the option to defer to a human arbitrator in the case of dispute, but that doesn't even have to be a duly appointed judge. It's just an address on the blockchain that we point to. Almost certainly we'd pick an arbitrator that respects crypto title.)
The only way for the fiat legal system to pierce this scheme is to either invalidate the LLC in the Wyoming court system or to directly appropriate title to the real property from the LLC in the local county. Both are pretty unlikely.
They are not solving a problem. They are creating a new market. Maybe in the long term this new type of market will be a benefit to society or maybe people will lose interest.
There are many ways, right now the media focuses on the artistic disruptions.
https://twitter.com/darrenrovell/status/1435967697913880580
Never before have artists had this much control of their ip.
https://twitter.com/darrenrovell/status/1435967697913880580
Never before have artists had this much control of their ip.
I'm not following your argument unless your definition of "disrupt" is simply "to make more expensive".
Then you are not interested in finding out answers that do not agree with you. It is very clear that IP ownership has been disrupted with several positive, value-added mechanisms. This is no longer an opinion.
Yeah, I still just don't get it. That whole twitter feeds looks like a hunt for a greater fool.
This doesn't seem like artists controlling their IP, to me it seems like another method of sales that lets them tap into essentially a pineapple fund. Those who made money in crypto, sloshing around the excess, making it look bigger and bigger.
This doesn't seem like artists controlling their IP, to me it seems like another method of sales that lets them tap into essentially a pineapple fund. Those who made money in crypto, sloshing around the excess, making it look bigger and bigger.
Sending some people to jail, probably.
Large NFT purchases are between shills [1]. If you ever find yourself thinking "wow I could make some money" then you are the mark.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-card_Monte
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-card_Monte
I know this isn't a new concept but this is also happening heavily in the retro video game industry as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvLFEh7V18A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvLFEh7V18A
That is a pretty eye opening video, and it certainly looks like major media are complicit in pumping the retro-videogame market, while fraud (lying about directors rating and selling games, auction shilling by the house & sellers, and previous $1M FTC fines for pump-dump of the auction house owners) is committed by a highly connected group of insiders.
I bet they wish they had bought/mined bitcoin!
I bet they wish they had bought/mined bitcoin!
The price I paid for learning this lesson was thousands of RuneScape gold pieces. I am sad for the current generations that have to learn this lesson much more expensively via crypto scams...
> You don’t own the picture of the dog, you don’t own 20% of the picture of the dog, it is just, like, you come in every day and someone is playing a new weird game and you try to get the high score in today’s game and tomorrow will be a different game.
Say what you will about crypto more broadly, but this is a wonderful perspective on these sort of flash-in-the-pan financial manias.
Say what you will about crypto more broadly, but this is a wonderful perspective on these sort of flash-in-the-pan financial manias.
It's funny... I listened to a "crypto podcast" the other day... They were chatting about some new, emerging currencies, and how they try to "incentivise" people to hold/trade/use them (e.g. by providing high, double-, even triple-digit yields), I guess that's the only way to achieve any kind of adoption these days.
Literally industrialized and scaled Ponzi.
Literally industrialized and scaled Ponzi.
This is finance, writ large.
Understanding that is important, especially now. And it's a bad thing because there's serious undesirable consequences to it, but understanding the reality of it is still important. Just because it's a hallucination doesn't mean those in the physical world aren't affected. Crypto just makes it more explicitly a hallucination.
Understanding that is important, especially now. And it's a bad thing because there's serious undesirable consequences to it, but understanding the reality of it is still important. Just because it's a hallucination doesn't mean those in the physical world aren't affected. Crypto just makes it more explicitly a hallucination.
>This is finance, writ large.
Please explain; it's not my experience of finance.
Please explain; it's not my experience of finance.
I used to play Eve Online. I wasn't anyone important, but all the drama, intrigue, constant conflict was fascinating - it was fun just to participate and watch. Just to "be there", so to speak.
The biggest ships cost thousands of dollars' worth of in-game currency. Currency aside, they also took massive amounts of effort and coordination from many players to even build them. Trading or buying one was its own metagame, with its own power players and politics.
Large battles could easily destroy five figures' worth of USD, and kill leaderboards would track the dollar values for destroyed ships. Ridiculous amounts of money, really, for a space spreadsheet game - but hey, it's all in-game currency so it's not real, right? With some hustling, some scamming, and some influx of real USD you could always get more and keep the drama going. The investment of time and real money was really to participate in the story and events unfolding.
Anyway, the only way I can make sense of crypto is it's basically the biggest live-action MMO the world has ever seen (and I'd throw NFTs and GME in that category too).
"Welcome to Whose Line Is It Anyway, where everything is made up and the points don't matter!"
The biggest ships cost thousands of dollars' worth of in-game currency. Currency aside, they also took massive amounts of effort and coordination from many players to even build them. Trading or buying one was its own metagame, with its own power players and politics.
Large battles could easily destroy five figures' worth of USD, and kill leaderboards would track the dollar values for destroyed ships. Ridiculous amounts of money, really, for a space spreadsheet game - but hey, it's all in-game currency so it's not real, right? With some hustling, some scamming, and some influx of real USD you could always get more and keep the drama going. The investment of time and real money was really to participate in the story and events unfolding.
Anyway, the only way I can make sense of crypto is it's basically the biggest live-action MMO the world has ever seen (and I'd throw NFTs and GME in that category too).
"Welcome to Whose Line Is It Anyway, where everything is made up and the points don't matter!"
I had not thought of it in this way. Crypto culture exists almost entirely online, so it is reasonable to think that NFT mania is a situation that couldn't have occurred in meatspace . Doubly so because no real money is changing hands.
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>In a fractionalized NFT you have a slightly richer context:
> Owner/securitizer: I bought this unique pointer to an image of a dog for $4 million.
> The public: Ahahaha good one, congrats, money well spent.
> Owner/securitizer: Also I will sell fractional ownership interests in it for like $225 million.
> The public: Ahahaha another good one, that joke is worth $225 million to us, here you go.
>It’s two jokes so it’s worth 55 times as much. I don’t know!
>Also it doubled the next day?
Can someone give me the scenario that this ISN'T some derivation or form of money laundering? Honestly asking, because I just don't see it. It's too ridiculous.
Could it really be "just" out of control speculation and "jokes"? It seems to me the money behind these things isn't as "funny" as it would have to be for speculation. These are pretty serious amounts.
> Owner/securitizer: I bought this unique pointer to an image of a dog for $4 million.
> The public: Ahahaha good one, congrats, money well spent.
> Owner/securitizer: Also I will sell fractional ownership interests in it for like $225 million.
> The public: Ahahaha another good one, that joke is worth $225 million to us, here you go.
>It’s two jokes so it’s worth 55 times as much. I don’t know!
>Also it doubled the next day?
Can someone give me the scenario that this ISN'T some derivation or form of money laundering? Honestly asking, because I just don't see it. It's too ridiculous.
Could it really be "just" out of control speculation and "jokes"? It seems to me the money behind these things isn't as "funny" as it would have to be for speculation. These are pretty serious amounts.
Art as a whole is already a commonly used laundering scheme, so I don't see this being much different.
Its called early investors having tons of cash to burn
I suppose this could be some cunning types betting on a pump and dump. That wouldn't be money laundering but just as scummy.
But I'm skeptical there are so many people betting on something so ridiculous with so much money.
But I'm skeptical there are so many people betting on something so ridiculous with so much money.
How would NFTs enable money laundering?
Let's say you are a criminal with $1M to launder. You create an NFT and sell it to you buddy for $1M. Hopefully your buddy is also a criminal mastermind* that already did some laundering, so it's not inconceivable that s/he has a legit looking $1M to spend. Now your buddy doesn't actually send you the cash, instead you deposit the $1M in ill-gotten goods you had laying around. Now you have a legitimate $1M in income to cover the illegal gains.
Don't try this at home. I'm sure there are probably some gotchas in the above scheme.
* Actually if you just find a legitimate rich person with low morals, they probably wouldn't mind participating for the usual launderer's fee.
Don't try this at home. I'm sure there are probably some gotchas in the above scheme.
* Actually if you just find a legitimate rich person with low morals, they probably wouldn't mind participating for the usual launderer's fee.
They are a trivially transferable value store with no overhead, little over site, and no verifiable value; they are merely a vehicle for hard-to-scrutinize, unreported movement of [large amounts of] money.
Any widely flex-priceable commodity is good for money laundering and taking losses on money laundering seperate from transaction taxes neccessary to make the money clean. How can auditor spot something wrong when it is all bullshit in prices?
I am actually supportive of NFTs although the majority of the traffic (especially now with low cost minting exploding the ETH gas cost on a daily basis) I don't care about.
Sales for NFTs > 100k seem absurd to me & fractionalization really breaks it for me.
I understand why someone would want to buy an NFT to support an artist and I support that behavior.
I understand why someone would want to buy an NFT to sell it for more later and I'm ambivalent about that behavior.
I understand why someone would fractionalize an NFT as a scheme to extract more money from suckers, but I don't get why someone would pay $ for owning a small portion of an NFT.
It seems like selling spoons labeled as small shovels during a gold rush.
Sales for NFTs > 100k seem absurd to me & fractionalization really breaks it for me.
I understand why someone would want to buy an NFT to support an artist and I support that behavior.
I understand why someone would want to buy an NFT to sell it for more later and I'm ambivalent about that behavior.
I understand why someone would fractionalize an NFT as a scheme to extract more money from suckers, but I don't get why someone would pay $ for owning a small portion of an NFT.
It seems like selling spoons labeled as small shovels during a gold rush.
> I understand why someone would want to buy an NFT to support an artist and I support that behavior.
If you want to give money to an artist, then... give money to that artist. Cut out the massive extra fees to crypto middlemen and staggering environmental damage, and just send them some money.
If you want to give money to an artist, then... give money to that artist. Cut out the massive extra fees to crypto middlemen and staggering environmental damage, and just send them some money.
I use patreon as well.
Do you regularly just send $ to artists you like?
Do you regularly just send $ to artists you like?
> Cut out the massive extra fees to crypto middlemen and staggering environmental damage
Neither of these are necessary for NFTs; it's perfectly possible for artists to mint the NFTs themselves (thus cutting out middlemen entirely) using blockchains that don't rely on mining at all (namely, anything built on proof-of-stake).
Neither of these are necessary for NFTs; it's perfectly possible for artists to mint the NFTs themselves (thus cutting out middlemen entirely) using blockchains that don't rely on mining at all (namely, anything built on proof-of-stake).
> I understand why someone would fractionalize an NFT as a scheme to extract more money from suckers, but I don't get why someone would pay $ for owning a small portion of an NFT.
Maybe these "suckers" do not understand what they are doing:
1) they heard that blockchain and NFT is the future,
2) they do not understand why, but they trust these who understand and evangelize,
3) they want to try riding their luck, just in case this miraculously works.
Imagine people purchasing lottery tickets, just in case they miraculously win.
Maybe these "suckers" do not understand what they are doing:
1) they heard that blockchain and NFT is the future,
2) they do not understand why, but they trust these who understand and evangelize,
3) they want to try riding their luck, just in case this miraculously works.
Imagine people purchasing lottery tickets, just in case they miraculously win.
Who's actually buying fractions of an NFT? It feels like an effective way to pump and dump. Make a large initial "investment" by generating headlines off the price, get some buddies to buy some shares to legitimize it, and then wait for articles like this one to publicize it.
Further in the article there's also a bit about ESGs:
> If you hire a few extra white men this quarter, that makes it less likely that you will hit your ESG targets, which makes it more likely you’ll pay more interest in the future, which increases the value of your liability (the amount you owe), which reduces your earnings for this quarter.
Is this a real thing?
Further in the article there's also a bit about ESGs:
> If you hire a few extra white men this quarter, that makes it less likely that you will hit your ESG targets, which makes it more likely you’ll pay more interest in the future, which increases the value of your liability (the amount you owe), which reduces your earnings for this quarter.
Is this a real thing?
The dog picture NFT falls into the category of gambling rather than finance. It's a form of gambling on the blockchain where everyone throws their money into a pile for the right to own X% of the pile, and they hope that the size of the cash pile will increase so they can cash out at the optimal time.
As with all gambling, the house will always win. The cash pile can lose value without anyone ever cashing out, and the house probably gave themselves a huge percentage before the game started.
As with all gambling, the house will always win. The cash pile can lose value without anyone ever cashing out, and the house probably gave themselves a huge percentage before the game started.
I really like this and how it explained current events re: NFTs.
But then I read this paragraph and it's so incorrect that I can't trust the rest of the article:
> ... One thing that I like to think about short selling is that it creates new shares of a company, and to some extent those shares compete with the shares issued by the company. If you short a bunch of oil-company stock, someone who wants to buy oil-company stock might buy it from you instead of from the company. In the limit, if enough people embrace the idea of shorting oil stocks, they will crowd out the oil companies; it will be impossible to finance oil drilling because any money you put into oil stocks will go to short sellers, not drilling.
But then I read this paragraph and it's so incorrect that I can't trust the rest of the article:
> ... One thing that I like to think about short selling is that it creates new shares of a company, and to some extent those shares compete with the shares issued by the company. If you short a bunch of oil-company stock, someone who wants to buy oil-company stock might buy it from you instead of from the company. In the limit, if enough people embrace the idea of shorting oil stocks, they will crowd out the oil companies; it will be impossible to finance oil drilling because any money you put into oil stocks will go to short sellers, not drilling.
That seems broadly correct to me. What do you find wrong about it?
The share the short sellers are selling are borrowed from the available share. That is, if I want to short GME, I am borrowing someone else's GME shares to do it (and will repay them in GME shares). So the total demand should also be going up.
Imagine this situation. You are super bullish. I am super bearish. So I short 50% of the company directly to you. Okay, $$$ has changed hands, but you have the same number of shares and I have the same number of shares. You just also have a promise that I will deliver more shares to you in the future. I might make or lose a fortune delivering them, but I haven't altered the total amount of shares in the world.
Imagine this situation. You are super bullish. I am super bearish. So I short 50% of the company directly to you. Okay, $$$ has changed hands, but you have the same number of shares and I have the same number of shares. You just also have a promise that I will deliver more shares to you in the future. I might make or lose a fortune delivering them, but I haven't altered the total amount of shares in the world.
NFT's sound royally stupid as is; but I feel like I saw a bit of leaning toward an idea I liked which would be something a bit more "divisible" and maybe fungible? Lol? The idea I'm thinking is something like "shares in a work", or better yet "shares in an artist."
Something to essentially say, I like this artists' work and want to support, possibly with the potential for profit. I remember seeing Eminem when he was merely the opener for other artists and was wearing all black and a hat (i.e. somewhat obscuring that he was white) . And I kind of saw it, and offhandedly thought, "he's gonna be big, I wish I could buy stock in him or something."
Something to essentially say, I like this artists' work and want to support, possibly with the potential for profit. I remember seeing Eminem when he was merely the opener for other artists and was wearing all black and a hat (i.e. somewhat obscuring that he was white) . And I kind of saw it, and offhandedly thought, "he's gonna be big, I wish I could buy stock in him or something."
But why do you need blockchain-y stuff for that? In that scenario, you have a central trustworthy authority, namely Eminem. You can just buy a share direct from Eminem, who will record that fact in his authoritative database.
If you don't trust Eminem, this use case kind of falls apart.
If you don't trust Eminem, this use case kind of falls apart.
You don't; but also, as I've seen it -- it appears to be difficult for our present creative culture to strip itself of this idea of "it's perfectly reasonable, even the default, that when an artist is big and famous, it makes sense that the actual OWNER of all they do is a company that they may not even like."
It's ALL weird, I was just kind of throwing something out there.
It's ALL weird, I was just kind of throwing something out there.
> who will record that fact in his authoritative database.
What happens if Eminem loses your record?
What happens if Eminem loses your record?
That will teach me that I shouldn't have trusted him. I suppose it's similar to what happens if one of the common crypto-currency scams du jour happens. Except with less moving parts.
> That will teach me that I shouldn't have trusted him.
Then you've answered your own question re: why you might need/want "blockchain-y stuff": that "blockchain-y stuff" makes it so that you don't have to trust him.
Then you've answered your own question re: why you might need/want "blockchain-y stuff": that "blockchain-y stuff" makes it so that you don't have to trust him.
Maybe it's just me, but if I didn't trust him, I wouldn't want to invest. I can't really imagine the case where one would.
> NFT's sound royally stupid as is
Why? It's the same thing as buying art, or baseball cards, or anything that relies on scarcity except instead of having a real-world thing you just have an abstract token. We already do that with money, why not do it with the rest?
Why? It's the same thing as buying art, or baseball cards, or anything that relies on scarcity except instead of having a real-world thing you just have an abstract token. We already do that with money, why not do it with the rest?
- I have a piece of art
- I too want that piece of art
You either become or hire an expert art imitator to imperfectly recreate that same piece of art or you can't have it. vs - I have an NFT for a png - I also want that PNG
You download that PNG
You either become or hire an expert art imitator to imperfectly recreate that same piece of art or you can't have it. vs - I have an NFT for a png - I also want that PNG
You download that PNG
This is like saying, I now own a million BTC because I forked the Bitcoin blockchain and moved all of Satoshi’s holdings to my wallet.
Ownership is just a social construct. Society now recognizes cryoto keys on the blockchain as a form of ownership. The attitude of “just copy the JPEG” is a little bit like the Native Americans who were happy to trade Manhattan for beads because they thought it was ridiculous that anyone could “own” land.
The world has fundamentally changed. You might not like it. You might think it’s stupid. You might even think that it will snap to its senses sooner or later. But the reality is this is the world we live in now, and scoffing at the new reality doesn’t change the facts that JPEGs of monkeys on the blockchain are now worth more than Picassos.
Ownership is just a social construct. Society now recognizes cryoto keys on the blockchain as a form of ownership. The attitude of “just copy the JPEG” is a little bit like the Native Americans who were happy to trade Manhattan for beads because they thought it was ridiculous that anyone could “own” land.
The world has fundamentally changed. You might not like it. You might think it’s stupid. You might even think that it will snap to its senses sooner or later. But the reality is this is the world we live in now, and scoffing at the new reality doesn’t change the facts that JPEGs of monkeys on the blockchain are now worth more than Picassos.
The blockchain allows me to cryptographically prove that I knew some information at a certain time.
If I was the first person to record that I knew this information, that's a pretty good proxy to proof that I created it. That makes me the author, artist, or inventor of this information.
If other people find this information valuable, then they might want to pay me because I released this information. Because I was the first person to sign the information on the blockchain, they know the right person to pay.
So the blockchain provides a way of tracking the author of information, which is not controlled by any company or government.
If I was the first person to record that I knew this information, that's a pretty good proxy to proof that I created it. That makes me the author, artist, or inventor of this information.
If other people find this information valuable, then they might want to pay me because I released this information. Because I was the first person to sign the information on the blockchain, they know the right person to pay.
So the blockchain provides a way of tracking the author of information, which is not controlled by any company or government.
> Society now recognizes cryoto keys on the blockchain as a form of ownership
It really doesn't.
> The world has fundamentally changed
It really hasn't.
It really doesn't.
> The world has fundamentally changed
It really hasn't.
Are you saying someone's going to stop my from downloading the JPEG with guns?
Everyone will follow the rules. You wouldn't download a car, would you?
Knock knock. It's the MPAA.
Copies of art usually have not that much value because the value is in possessing the original.
Digital art is constantly stolen. Artists share designs online, and it's not much work copy the image and convert it into a T-shirt.
Which is why NFT have a value, because you can't copy them like you can copy a PNG file.
Or I could just buy the T-shirt at a fraction of the cost, and not care that it's not carrying a cryptographic signature.
Most NFTs that I've seen are incredibly flimsy-looking digital 'pieces', if I can even call them that. Their value itself is just as questionable, considering the artsts are unknown, the art is not a limited edition, and the cost to reproduce it is zero.
Maybe the market for NFTs is purely the '1000 true fans' types, the followers who will always pay for what you put out. But the majority of people are unlikely to have that relationship with the artist, even if they like what they saw on a transient Twitter post one day.
Most NFTs that I've seen are incredibly flimsy-looking digital 'pieces', if I can even call them that. Their value itself is just as questionable, considering the artsts are unknown, the art is not a limited edition, and the cost to reproduce it is zero.
Maybe the market for NFTs is purely the '1000 true fans' types, the followers who will always pay for what you put out. But the majority of people are unlikely to have that relationship with the artist, even if they like what they saw on a transient Twitter post one day.
Right? My idea above is sort of -- let's assume NFTs more or less work for the "1000 true fans," could the idea be tweaked for the smaller or more divisible for the "100,000 casual" fans?
> Or I could just buy the T-shirt at a fraction of the cost, and not care that it's not carrying a cryptographic signature.
Sure, if you want to have that T-shirt, or support the artist, or something. But the goal of NFTs is to guarantee the uniqueness of what you bought, usually (probably 99% of the time) because people want to invest in them. So a T-shirt won't do.
I see NFTs as the "ultimate abstraction" of all speculation. It's not anymore about the value of the thing itself, it's just that you can buy it, prove that you have it and resell it.
> Most NFTs that I've seen are incredibly flimsy-looking digital 'pieces', if I can even call them that. Their value itself is just as questionable, considering the artsts are unknown, the art is not a limited edition, and the cost to reproduce it is zero.
I agree with that, but still, you can speculate on the NFT so some people will do that. Again, I don't think the cost to reproduce being zero is a problem for NFTs. If you could make a copy of any Picasso painting for free, people would still buy and sell the original for millions.
> Maybe the market for NFTs is purely the '1000 true fans' types, the followers who will always pay for what you put out. But the majority of people are unlikely to have that relationship with the artist, even if they like what they saw on a transient Twitter post one day.
I think the artist doesn't even matter. NFTs today are a bit like shitcoins, some people just want to speculate/gamble.
I'm really crypto-skeptic in general, mostly because I can't see a use for any of those things. But I can see why the concept of NFTs is useful.
Sure, if you want to have that T-shirt, or support the artist, or something. But the goal of NFTs is to guarantee the uniqueness of what you bought, usually (probably 99% of the time) because people want to invest in them. So a T-shirt won't do.
I see NFTs as the "ultimate abstraction" of all speculation. It's not anymore about the value of the thing itself, it's just that you can buy it, prove that you have it and resell it.
> Most NFTs that I've seen are incredibly flimsy-looking digital 'pieces', if I can even call them that. Their value itself is just as questionable, considering the artsts are unknown, the art is not a limited edition, and the cost to reproduce it is zero.
I agree with that, but still, you can speculate on the NFT so some people will do that. Again, I don't think the cost to reproduce being zero is a problem for NFTs. If you could make a copy of any Picasso painting for free, people would still buy and sell the original for millions.
> Maybe the market for NFTs is purely the '1000 true fans' types, the followers who will always pay for what you put out. But the majority of people are unlikely to have that relationship with the artist, even if they like what they saw on a transient Twitter post one day.
I think the artist doesn't even matter. NFTs today are a bit like shitcoins, some people just want to speculate/gamble.
I'm really crypto-skeptic in general, mostly because I can't see a use for any of those things. But I can see why the concept of NFTs is useful.
Sure. I'd say all of those things eventually reach stupid once the numbers get big enough. I'm not saying I never engage in some of this stupidity myself, I do. But the degree of stupid scales in proportion to the amount of money involved.
And then NFT's just add a whole new special layer. Again, what I suggested above was perhaps a way to parlay this very stupid thing into something perhaps less stupid (the ultimate goal being to find a way to support artists, but one that "relies on scarcity" in a way at least might get more people other than "obviously stupidly rich people with money to burn" involved.)
And then NFT's just add a whole new special layer. Again, what I suggested above was perhaps a way to parlay this very stupid thing into something perhaps less stupid (the ultimate goal being to find a way to support artists, but one that "relies on scarcity" in a way at least might get more people other than "obviously stupidly rich people with money to burn" involved.)
The best explanation I've come across so far on the existence and likely persistence of the NFT market is that its effectively a way to move money laundering through artworks online. The current offline art market essentially has the same characteristics (artificial value and scarcity and so on) but continues to exist through a mixture of rich people truly wanting to own the work for whatever reason and money laundering / tax-evasion needs.
[deleted]
Are these the type of products and instrument wall st would come up with if it weren’t regulated?
[deleted]
Yeah, this whole thing is absurd. Using your millions to start a new business? meh
There are two alternatives here:
a. This is art, in which case this is maybe ok?
b. This is not art and people buy NFTs only with expectation that it will go up... In other words pure speculation.
I think majority of the NFTs are b, but people pretend it's a for complex reasons. The rest of NFTs are jokes/memes.
I think majority of the NFTs are b, but people pretend it's a for complex reasons. The rest of NFTs are jokes/memes.
c. Money laundering.
d. Capital flight.
d. Capital flight.
e. ponzi scheme (there can't be speculation because there is no scarcity from which to create a true market. It isn't like Babe Ruth's jersey, this is a picture of a tree that Babe Ruth looked at once.)
It's the idea of a picture of a tree that a Hacker News poster used as a metaphor one day.
If you can define it as a concept, you can sell crypto 'of it'. Doesn't matter if it was your tree idea metaphor: I can sell crypto of your idea of a tree of a metaphor, if and only if I can get people to do such a silly thing along with me for the purpose of manipulating the IDEA of the idea of a tree of a metaphor, as money.
Makes perfect sense that the sillier it is, the more it works.
If you can define it as a concept, you can sell crypto 'of it'. Doesn't matter if it was your tree idea metaphor: I can sell crypto of your idea of a tree of a metaphor, if and only if I can get people to do such a silly thing along with me for the purpose of manipulating the IDEA of the idea of a tree of a metaphor, as money.
Makes perfect sense that the sillier it is, the more it works.
NFTs might not seem so glamorous in the real world, but in a virtual world in VR they could be so much more, they can be a proof of a tournament win that you could decorate your home with. It could be an exclusive sword/clothing. Since VR puts your in the digital world, it puts you in a world with the item such that you can interact with it. In the real world... you can watch it on a flat screen.
My takeaway from this is that (with the right hook and the right news coverage) it's easy to get a relatively large number of people to contribute a relatively small amount of money to be part of a phenomenon.
c.f. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Million_Dollar_Homepage
c.f. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Million_Dollar_Homepage
Q: Was there a second (and a third, and a fourth, and an Nth) "Million Dollar Homepage"?
ETH is not fungible to $ in large amounts.
People who have a lot of ETH buy weird fake stuff with it because they can't just liquidate it into fiat money to buy real things. If they do, the value of ETH will crash. So instead, they engage in speculative pump and dumps while waiting for a chance to cash out.
People who have a lot of ETH buy weird fake stuff with it because they can't just liquidate it into fiat money to buy real things. If they do, the value of ETH will crash. So instead, they engage in speculative pump and dumps while waiting for a chance to cash out.
Sales of fractional shares can be padded by using all the "money" you receive from them to buy more.
This site is f*cking unusable on mobile.
The cookie banner pops up and is half the screen.
Then an offer pops up and takes 30% of the screen.
Before I can even figure out where the X button is - probably behind the inexplicable "copy link" button - a newsletter subscription modal pops up.
Clicking the X wasn't responding.
Then the tab froze.
https://i.imgur.com/wMEcI93.jpg
The cookie banner pops up and is half the screen.
Then an offer pops up and takes 30% of the screen.
Before I can even figure out where the X button is - probably behind the inexplicable "copy link" button - a newsletter subscription modal pops up.
Clicking the X wasn't responding.
Then the tab froze.
https://i.imgur.com/wMEcI93.jpg
I didn't downvote you, but I suspect others are doing so because your comment goes against one of HN's guidelines:
> Please don't complain about website formatting, back-button breakage, and similar annoyances. They're too common to be interesting.
> Please don't complain about website formatting, back-button breakage, and similar annoyances. They're too common to be interesting.
You're right, thanks for pointing it out.
Normally don't even bother with these but it was an exceptionally bad instance.
Normally don't even bother with these but it was an exceptionally bad instance.
> They're too common to be interesting.
This alone feels like a good reason why people should vocally object to such annoyances. "They're common and therefore we shouldn't bother talking about them" only lets the problem continue to fester.
This alone feels like a good reason why people should vocally object to such annoyances. "They're common and therefore we shouldn't bother talking about them" only lets the problem continue to fester.
And if you don't enable javascript you only get two paragraphs of text. Yet the article's complete HTML is hidden in the page as a quoted string in a javascript object. Brilliant!
Firefox's reader mode makes it readable.
The first two paragraphs, at least.
I'm assuming that's the entirety of the article because it's fucking 2021 and I therefore really can't be assed to put up with Reader-Mode-incompatible web design.
I'm assuming that's the entirety of the article because it's fucking 2021 and I therefore really can't be assed to put up with Reader-Mode-incompatible web design.
Is it possible to use NFTs to confirm identity of FOSS projects?
I only recently discovered Matt Levine's writing, and I love it. He makes complex topics understandable and (to my mind, anyway) has an excellent sense of humor to boot.
20% of a Tulip
If you feel the urge to buy or sell NFTs I feel bad for you son, I got ninety-nine problems, but this nonsense is none.
> If you feel the urge to buy or sell NFTs
I think it's a sort of performance art. It's also just a fun way to donate to charity in many cases.
I think it's a sort of performance art. It's also just a fun way to donate to charity in many cases.
One of my friends is part of PleasrDAO, dodge NFT is working out really well for him...
EDIT: not saying I support it, just that ponzi schemes work for the people on top
EDIT: not saying I support it, just that ponzi schemes work for the people on top
The first people into a ponzi scheme always do well. Is he going to HODL until retirement? I doubt that will work out so well.
Yeah I agree with you, all of crypto is 100% a ponzi scheme and it's weird seeing him promote this stuff. I was just saying for the people pushing these coins it's still a very profitable venture. They got the dodge NFT for like 4mil and sold off 20% at like a 400mil valuation...
>But most of the electricity that you use, most of the time, is free, or at least “free.”
This paragraph is absurd. Charging phones and laptops is a few orders of magnitude less energy than keeping your house warm/cool or cooking and storing food.
This paragraph is absurd. Charging phones and laptops is a few orders of magnitude less energy than keeping your house warm/cool or cooking and storing food.
A share is a fractional ownership of a company. So what. Fractional ownership of planes and houses already exists.