A. I don’t actually feel bad for anyone because if you’re involved in NFTs in any way, you’re begging to be scammed. There is no legitimate use for NFTs.
B. This seems like blatant illegal fraud. You can’t just advertise “get this cut of all transactions forever” to get people to join, then say “just kidding” once they include their “art” in your shitty scam. They’re entitled to their shitty cut of your shitty transaction, and you can’t hand wave it away by pointing to fine print when you sold the product very clearly making that claim.
There are uses for NFT, but it is clearly not what they are famous for.
NFT aren’t pictures of monke, they are a way to authenticate something in a decentralised way, so no trust in another entity needed.
The picture isn’t the NFT, and that is why you can just right click-copy it.
You can’t however just copy the NFT, the actual token. Having a token that’s verifiably owned by someone is useful for certain things. It’s like a certificate of authenticity, but digital.
Digital certificates has already existed for half a century. There’s nothing new. A certificate doesn’t get any more legitimate just because it’s recorded on a blockchain.
TOFU - trust on first use - save the certificate print first access and remember it so you know if it gets changed
WoT - web of trust - other certificate holders verify the certificate and hopefully you find a chain to someone you trust.
Central authority - the most popular. A central entity verifies and goes good for the identity.
In all three you need to trust someone, and ask three are a pain to transfer something to new owner.
NFT gives a fundamentally new option here, that’s transferable and doesn’t require trust. That it’s been used for and gotten known for monkey scams is a shame.
And how do you verify that the NFT can be trusted? With any of the 3 methods you mentioned!
Blockchain doesn’t circumvent this need of trust.
The thing blockchain eliminates is the need of a timestamp authority when doing transactions. Satoshi even called his invention “distributed timestamp server” before people started to call it blockchain. You don’t need timestamps when verifying the authenticity of an NFT.
These are the same promises the emergence of the blockchain gave us. We’re now nearly a decade later, and the most useful application has been get-rich-quick schemes. Yet, all these listed applications are still not in use, and/or better than their non-blockchain counterparts.
There is a lot of talk, for example, in the sustainability space where things like emissions allowances, carbon offsets, etc. are traded the old fashioned way where a digital ledger using NFTs would be both instantaneous and transparent/easily auditable.
But the most obvious example is security exchanges, e.g. stocks, bonds, etc. (which would be a massive threat to the existing financial institutions) because it could allow for instantaneous settlement and fully transparent markets.
HUGE HOWEVER, not all NFT systems would be equally useful for that kind of thing. What we saw with FTX, for example, was a blockchain exchange for tokenized securities where the blockchain aspects served no real useful purpose - it was a centralized, controlled, opaque use case. The distributed ledger model (which I think casual observers of blockchain assume all blockchain systems are) can correct for those failures. I personally think part of what made the FTX story so big was a combination of moves by major financial market players to get out in front of tokenization of securities by created the existing system again but with a blockchain coat of paint on top that then failed under its own scam at lightning speed which then gave the ammo to a whole “blockchain a scam, NFT an even bigger scam” narrative. They are just software utilities that can be used effectively or not just like any others.
Whenever I see someone identify a jpeg as an NFT, or put SBF’s face on a news story about it, I think about how successful the astroturfing of these narratives has been.
There are tons of people (actual serious people, not like SBF) working in this space and building these things now, so they are definitely more than theoretical, but they are not at the mass adoption stage.
And no offense, but this response has echoes of people saying federation would never work. But it’s just a different utility to accomplish similar goals to centralized forums. And when the old-fashioned, centralized alternatives really start to self-destruct because of their inherent flaws, the merits of the decentralized version become more obvious.
I’m actually pretty shocked that Lemmy/the Fediverse beats the same tired old drums about NFTs (ape jpegs being the most obvious), since they are red herring arguments. A tokenized jpeg has no value because a jpeg has no value. A tokenized security has the value of the underlying security. The token is just there to eliminate the need for accountants since the open ledger shows its work and the entire chain of custody.
it’s quite frustrating how much bandwagon hate and resistance there is to the basic concept of a trustworthy and decentralized system for proof of ownership. i find your thoughts to be very well written, patient and insightful.
yes, the initial and popular use case for NFTs has not been ideal as digital art is easy to copy. but it is not difficult to think of other applications that are far more useful - stocks/securities being the easiest one. almost any product of value could and should have an NFT associated with it. this would make validating authenticity and ownership extremely easy and cut out tons of brokering fees for certain things.
A tokenized security is the same thing as a tokenized jpeg. Blockchain has no control over what happens outside it.
I could create a token and say it refers to my Ferrari. Obviously I don’t own a Ferrari, but what can the blockchain do about it? To ensure the token is legitimate, some trusted authority must ensure the Ferrari really exists in the physical reality. Suddenly blockchain doesn’t “eliminate the need for accountants”.
And whenever I want to sell the token, someone must ensure I still own the Ferrari. Who knows, maybe I crashed the Ferrari somewhere in the forest?
Same goes for any asset - including carbon offsets, stocks and bonds. Blockchain is completely unable to say anything about the state of the physical reality.
We still beat the same tired old drums about NFTs because if it doesn’t work for jpegs, it doesn’t work for anything.
But the same could be said for almost anything, for instance a car’s engine is non-theoretical but could be otherwise done with a horse instead. I will still prefer the more advanced technology, but of course you do you
No, automobiles and mass transit were a massive innovation that drastically changed everyone’s way of life. Look at the current state of global logistics. You can essentially order any fruit from home and have it fresh at your doorstep at any time of year. You can’t do that without engines.
A. I don’t actually feel bad for anyone because if you’re involved in NFTs in any way, you’re begging to be scammed. There is no legitimate use for NFTs.
B. This seems like blatant illegal fraud. You can’t just advertise “get this cut of all transactions forever” to get people to join, then say “just kidding” once they include their “art” in your shitty scam. They’re entitled to their shitty cut of your shitty transaction, and you can’t hand wave it away by pointing to fine print when you sold the product very clearly making that claim.
There are uses for NFT, but it is clearly not what they are famous for.
NFT aren’t pictures of monke, they are a way to authenticate something in a decentralised way, so no trust in another entity needed. The picture isn’t the NFT, and that is why you can just right click-copy it.
You can’t however just copy the NFT, the actual token. Having a token that’s verifiably owned by someone is useful for certain things. It’s like a certificate of authenticity, but digital.
Digital certificates has already existed for half a century. There’s nothing new. A certificate doesn’t get any more legitimate just because it’s recorded on a blockchain.
There’s basically 3 ways to verify a certificate.
In all three you need to trust someone, and ask three are a pain to transfer something to new owner.
NFT gives a fundamentally new option here, that’s transferable and doesn’t require trust. That it’s been used for and gotten known for monkey scams is a shame.
And how do you verify that the NFT can be trusted? With any of the 3 methods you mentioned!
Blockchain doesn’t circumvent this need of trust.
The thing blockchain eliminates is the need of a timestamp authority when doing transactions. Satoshi even called his invention “distributed timestamp server” before people started to call it blockchain. You don’t need timestamps when verifying the authenticity of an NFT.
Are there any practical (non-theoretical) uses for NFTs that couldn’t be done
otherwiseeasier/better without them though?Edited to make it easier for NFTs to show their worth.
https://www.hongkiat.com/blog/nft-use-cases/
It is just a tool, it’s what you do with it that gives its worth. Monkey pictures… Well that’s not worth anything
These are the same promises the emergence of the blockchain gave us. We’re now nearly a decade later, and the most useful application has been get-rich-quick schemes. Yet, all these listed applications are still not in use, and/or better than their non-blockchain counterparts.
Hell, if you know why electronic voting is not, and will never be a good idea, you definitely wouldn’t want them as an NFT.
Basically anything that is currently traded on any digital or quasi-digital exchange but relies ultimately on a paper/manual backend.
Can you give a real life example of that being applied?
Monkey pictures!
There is a lot of talk, for example, in the sustainability space where things like emissions allowances, carbon offsets, etc. are traded the old fashioned way where a digital ledger using NFTs would be both instantaneous and transparent/easily auditable.
But the most obvious example is security exchanges, e.g. stocks, bonds, etc. (which would be a massive threat to the existing financial institutions) because it could allow for instantaneous settlement and fully transparent markets.
HUGE HOWEVER, not all NFT systems would be equally useful for that kind of thing. What we saw with FTX, for example, was a blockchain exchange for tokenized securities where the blockchain aspects served no real useful purpose - it was a centralized, controlled, opaque use case. The distributed ledger model (which I think casual observers of blockchain assume all blockchain systems are) can correct for those failures. I personally think part of what made the FTX story so big was a combination of moves by major financial market players to get out in front of tokenization of securities by created the existing system again but with a blockchain coat of paint on top that then failed under its own scam at lightning speed which then gave the ammo to a whole “blockchain a scam, NFT an even bigger scam” narrative. They are just software utilities that can be used effectively or not just like any others.
Whenever I see someone identify a jpeg as an NFT, or put SBF’s face on a news story about it, I think about how successful the astroturfing of these narratives has been.
So… Just theoretical applications so far?
There are tons of people (actual serious people, not like SBF) working in this space and building these things now, so they are definitely more than theoretical, but they are not at the mass adoption stage.
And no offense, but this response has echoes of people saying federation would never work. But it’s just a different utility to accomplish similar goals to centralized forums. And when the old-fashioned, centralized alternatives really start to self-destruct because of their inherent flaws, the merits of the decentralized version become more obvious.
I’m actually pretty shocked that Lemmy/the Fediverse beats the same tired old drums about NFTs (ape jpegs being the most obvious), since they are red herring arguments. A tokenized jpeg has no value because a jpeg has no value. A tokenized security has the value of the underlying security. The token is just there to eliminate the need for accountants since the open ledger shows its work and the entire chain of custody.
it’s quite frustrating how much bandwagon hate and resistance there is to the basic concept of a trustworthy and decentralized system for proof of ownership. i find your thoughts to be very well written, patient and insightful.
yes, the initial and popular use case for NFTs has not been ideal as digital art is easy to copy. but it is not difficult to think of other applications that are far more useful - stocks/securities being the easiest one. almost any product of value could and should have an NFT associated with it. this would make validating authenticity and ownership extremely easy and cut out tons of brokering fees for certain things.
No it isn’t. Just because both things are “decentralized” doesn’t make them the same thing.
A tokenized security is the same thing as a tokenized jpeg. Blockchain has no control over what happens outside it.
I could create a token and say it refers to my Ferrari. Obviously I don’t own a Ferrari, but what can the blockchain do about it? To ensure the token is legitimate, some trusted authority must ensure the Ferrari really exists in the physical reality. Suddenly blockchain doesn’t “eliminate the need for accountants”.
And whenever I want to sell the token, someone must ensure I still own the Ferrari. Who knows, maybe I crashed the Ferrari somewhere in the forest?
Same goes for any asset - including carbon offsets, stocks and bonds. Blockchain is completely unable to say anything about the state of the physical reality.
We still beat the same tired old drums about NFTs because if it doesn’t work for jpegs, it doesn’t work for anything.
But the same could be said for almost anything, for instance a car’s engine is non-theoretical but could be otherwise done with a horse instead. I will still prefer the more advanced technology, but of course you do you
You’re right. I’ve edited my question to make it easier for NFTs to qualify. After all, cars do the same as horses, but a whole lot better.
So what is a practical application of NFTs that, now that it’s implemented, makes someone’s life so much better?
So…“No”
No, automobiles and mass transit were a massive innovation that drastically changed everyone’s way of life. Look at the current state of global logistics. You can essentially order any fruit from home and have it fresh at your doorstep at any time of year. You can’t do that without engines.
This still works because cars ruined Western society in the guise of “advancement”, so that’s cool
NFTs have never once not been very blatant fraud.
NFT aren’t monkey pictures.
I know what they are. They’re a “solution” to a problem that doesn’t exist and very probably never will exist.
They have never once been used for anything even neutral. Every single case has been outright malicious.
It’s called a database.