"tall columns of money" isn't a convincing argument IMO
What metrics are there that indicate long term trust in NFTs? How many % NFTs no longer point to any existant information? How many % NFTs legally relate to ownership of something?
People acting like saying "I own this house, signed, me" means that they are entitled to the entire value of a house, And well, sure, Dollars are like that with "I own X worth of gold not really, signed the government", but we already have funny fiat, we already have funny cryptocurrencies with zero backing value, now we have funny cryptocurrency thingamabobs with zero backing value.
How is this ever more than re-inventing a re-invented re-invented re-invented wheel? Why should one care this time, other than to ride the pump and dump?
> Another perspective is that we are watching the real time creation of a new status game. Each individual that would normally drop $50,000 to $1,000,000 to purchase a car, watch, house, boat, etc is now realizing that you can spend the same money on a digital good and flex in front of more people on the internet. Only so many friends can check out your house and be impressed. But millions of people a month will see your Twitter avatar.
I can't name a single person who spent 5 figures+ on an NFT. Unless twitter or insta create a badge verifying NFT ownership, I don't see how it's a flex. On the other hand, I can take a picture of myself wearing a 100k watch and people will be pretty sure I own that watch. For this reason many people reasonable assume it's mostly money laundering or inside dealing. I could create a series of NFTs and buy them from another account and drive up the prices or launder money. An interesting solution to this would be an NFT market that burns X% of the coins to ensure that there is a significant cost to this behavior.
My main issue with NFTs is that when people write about them they obfuscate what is actually being bought and sold. You're not buying a JPG. You're buying a number that some group says is a JPG. Calling it digital property is dishonest, unless that property is a 128 hex number on a particular blockchain that an arbitrary issuer claims is tied to some asset.
> But millions of people a month will see your Twitter avatar.
Except for the part that I can take the image, copy it and make it my Twitter avatar. NFTs do not offer any way to actually enforce uniqueness and ownership. I really can't take too seriously any article about NFTs that ignore this fact.
For all the other parts... NFTs are just a way to show ownership of a token (not necessarily the underlying asset) in a blockchain. If an AI bot or a changing image doesn't seem interesting, why would they be interesting when you add the "NFT" word?
I guess I'd buy an NFT from someone as a means of directly supporting their work, say as an alternative to a donation, patreon, twitch subscription...
Other than that I must be old because I don't see the point of the whole thing.
I think a whole generation of people has been conditioned to click and buy meaningless stuff through "free" games with digital purchases. I think part of the NFT craze hooks up to this impulse.
The goal is to disrupt the high-end art and Verblen goods money laundering scheme [1] and replace it with a digital (and thus more easily fungible and transferable and less trackable) one.
I think there's some good ideas in NFTs but people are going around like it's a magic pricing gun that imbues items with the value they stick on the label.
I can see the appeal to people who feel like owning the Original is far better than owning an indistinguishable copy, but someone really actually needs to want it. If your only concern is as an investment then it could just as easily have been a NFT connected to a different thing rendering it into a non-scarce commodity.
Would NFT make sense in trading of physical goods (wheat, cotton, oil, etc.) when there is a certification company (SGS, Bureau Veritas, etc)?
NFTs (PDFs) could validate that the goods match the requirements?
Or could NFTs be used in the land register?
(I am trying to understand NFTs outside obvious money laundering usecases....)
If you're a buyer, NFTs is another way of bag holding and telling everyone about it. Even worse if you bought it at the height of the euphoria and the market collapses.
Then you will be waiting years to find another fool willing to buy it off you for even higher.
I can always copy it for free. So why would I buy it off them at any price?
Money and property are backed by governments and law, not by math.
Until governments and law respect crypto, this is exceedingly dangerous sand to build your castles upon.
When your key leaks, gets phished, or is cracked by quantum or better algorithms, you're entirely out of luck. (In the latter scenario, the entire house of cards would crumble.)
Is the US government going to protect you and your losses?
> Is the US government going to protect you and your losses?
No, see civil asset forfeiture. US government is going to protect wall street fat cats, not american citizens, and especially not me, because I'm not an american citizen. My government would also like to have more of my money. It has my good(s) on it's mind the wole time.
its eerie to slowly see the emerging threats over the past couple of years from people who have put their faith in the governments and law, which is understandable as it brings them security and comfort. but there are many many people in the world who never had that security from their government and law, because they were born in the wrong place, or with the wrong desires.
I'm increasingly seeing people appealing to authorities re:crypto - "it needs to be outlawed", "they are morally wrong", "Stop them". People in the 1880s feared the mass production of clocks.
It wont solve everything, of course it wont, but we can work together, without borders, with these trustless systems. That underlying math is pretty great. Those who like the sound of that can opt it and participate. If you dont want to thats ok too.
(for the last point, most of us in the world are not in the US. and a lot of people working in crypto dont ever have any expectation of protection from the people at the top, nor do we want it. isnt that the point of "land of the free"?)
What metrics are there that indicate long term trust in NFTs? How many % NFTs no longer point to any existant information? How many % NFTs legally relate to ownership of something?
People acting like saying "I own this house, signed, me" means that they are entitled to the entire value of a house, And well, sure, Dollars are like that with "I own X worth of gold not really, signed the government", but we already have funny fiat, we already have funny cryptocurrencies with zero backing value, now we have funny cryptocurrency thingamabobs with zero backing value.
How is this ever more than re-inventing a re-invented re-invented re-invented wheel? Why should one care this time, other than to ride the pump and dump?