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I’m 100% genuinely confused - what’s the point of NFT’s again?

Alebrije

Member
I don't even know WTF an NFT is
pet_rock_nft.jpeg
 

Amory

Member
Its digital art, right? Like, in the real world it'd be like if you owned an original painting and everyone else just had a copy of that painting.

It's fucking stupid, imo, but I think that's the basic concept

I'm still lukewarm on the idea of having a portion of my investment portfolio dedicated to crypto, but I know 1000% that I will never pay for an NFT. The concept is so profoundly idiotic to me that I don't even care if I miss out. It's a risk I'll take.
 
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dcll

Banned
My son and his friend are all in on this crap. They stay on these discord chats all the time and have bought a couple. The latest was some nft where they claim they are building schools in Africa, I don't know the first thing about it all but seems like a scheme
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
My son and his friend are all in on this crap. They stay on these discord chats all the time and have bought a couple. The latest was some nft where they claim they are building schools in Africa, I don't know the first thing about it all but seems like a scheme
Like anything there's gonna be people making shit loads of money. It's not like any of these NFT makers are doing anything more than getting some graphic designer to make some art and then a webmaster/ecom guy uploads it to some blockchain universe.

At the beginning, I thought NFTs were high ticket unique stuff like when some NBA players were doing one-off NFT deals. Then it turns out its not so unique and UBI is selling gamers the same grey assault rifle NFT to 20 people. It probably would had been 200 or 2000, but it seemed nobody gave a shit about UBI NFTs when they launched it.
 

MrFunSocks

Banned
Money laundering and selling literally pointless things to dumb people. That’s pretty much it.

Dumb person: “Hey look at this awesome NFT I bought! Only cost me $400!”

Me: *Right click save*

Me: “hey look at this awesome picture I found and now own!”

As for the comparison to real world art, it falls down because with art there is actually an original that differs to all the copies. NFTs have no difference, they’re literally exact copies.
 
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nkarafo

Member
The way i picture it is like buying a collectible card that isn't normally rare and everyone else could have or copy, but yours is "special" because some celebrity had it some time ago or something.

That "uniqueness" is represented by a code that you buy and it's value is determined by everyone who agrees that code has value.

Also, it's digital on some server you can't really control.
 
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TrebleShot

Member
Someone somewhere right now is figuring out how to use these In some crazy way and in 10 years time well all wish it had been us but up until now, nope, I dont get it.
 

EpochZero

Neo Member
Unique digital ownership expressed via decentralized protocol/consensus (as opposed to a centralized scheme). It turns out humans really like collecting/having shit - so standards like NFTs caught on quickly after the thing people love even more: fungible currencies.

We're in the "geocities sites with blink tags" stage of blockchain/decentralized protocol expression at a foundational level. Don't judge the foundational potential of this technology based on Toby's geocities site.
 

rob305

Member
Think of them as digital Pokemon trading cards. You can right click and save them, but you wont be able to trade any of them with others unless you are the legitimate owner (in theory, one big problem are fakes being sold but thats a different issue)
 

Bogeyman

Banned
Nothing. Its just a token really. It doesn't grant you any legal rights, nor is it necessarily exclusive (I could make my own NFTs for "ownership" of some jpg that somebody else has already created an NFT for).

So why do people spend money on something that has no intrinsic value, nor entitle you to anything in particular?

Well, for a start, because money itself has (almost) no intrinsic value, nor does it really legally entitle you to much.
The intrinsic value of it is just the paper its printed on.
If the shopkeeper tomorrow decides to stop selling you bread and butter for your money, you won't really have any legal claim to demand him to do so - you're out of luck.

Money gets is value from people believing in its value, nothing more, nothing less.
Same with NFTs. They have a value because people believe they do. Arguably, proof of "ownership" is a bit easier though; if I steal a $100 bill from you, you might have trouble proving it was yours in the first place. I can't really steal an NFT for you though.

(By the way, I still think they're extremely silly - but then again, I guess not intrinsically any sillier than any of our other currencies)
 
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Dr_Salt

Member
Nothing. Its just a token really. It doesn't grant you any legal rights, nor is it necessarily exclusive (I could make my own NFTs for "ownership" of some jpg that somebody else has already created an NFT for).

So why do people spend money on something that has no intrinsic value, nor entitle you to anything in particular?

Well, for a start, because money itself has (almost) no intrinsic value, nor does it really legally entitle you to much.
The intrinsic value of it is just the paper its printed on.
If the shopkeeper tomorrow decides to stop selling you bread and butter for your money, you won't really have any legal claim to demand him to do so - you're out of luck.

Money gets is value from people believing in its value, nothing more, nothing less.
Same with NFTs. They have a value because people believe they do. Arguably, proof of "ownership" is a bit easier though; if I steal a $100 bill from you, you might have trouble proving it was yours in the first place. I can't really steal an NFT for you though.

(By the way, I still think they're extremely silly - but then again, I guess not intrinsically any sillier than any of our other currencies)

Money used to be an IOU backed by gold so its not the same thing. In modern times it has lost its real meaning because of the fed printing machine and keynesian economics but its not like it originally was made out of the blue.
 
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Hari Seldon

Member
Nothing. Its just a token really. It doesn't grant you any legal rights, nor is it necessarily exclusive (I could make my own NFTs for "ownership" of some jpg that somebody else has already created an NFT for).

So why do people spend money on something that has no intrinsic value, nor entitle you to anything in particular?

Well, for a start, because money itself has (almost) no intrinsic value, nor does it really legally entitle you to much.
The intrinsic value of it is just the paper its printed on.
If the shopkeeper tomorrow decides to stop selling you bread and butter for your money, you won't really have any legal claim to demand him to do so - you're out of luck.

Money gets is value from people believing in its value, nothing more, nothing less.
Same with NFTs. They have a value because people believe they do. Arguably, proof of "ownership" is a bit easier though; if I steal a $100 bill from you, you might have trouble proving it was yours in the first place. I can't really steal an NFT for you though.

(By the way, I still think they're extremely silly - but then again, I guess not intrinsically any sillier than any of our other currencies)
You are almost correct in your assessment. The missing piece is that the NFT people took a look at the cryptobros and realized that with a bit of marketing they could have all these people pumping the shit out of NFTs. It is basically a legalized version of a Penny Stock pump and dump. It is a grift from top to bottom, although it is a grift were probably 90% of the people realize it is a grift, and are all just hoping that the last 10% hold the bag long enough for everyone else to make money and get out.
 

Bogeyman

Banned
Money used to be an IOU backed by gold so its not the same thing. In modern times it has lost its real meaning because of the fed printing machine and keynesian economics but its not like it originally was made out of the blue.

Well, first of all, precisely as you say: It used to be.

Second, gold itself is a token with very limited intrinsic value. What can you really do with it? And even more so back when the gold standard was still a thing, i.e. probably without most use cases in electronics and such.
It looks pretty as jewellery, and that's about it - not really a fantastic intrinsic value, I'd argue. The main thing it has going for itself is that supply is inherently limited (not entirely unlike the principle of cryptocurrencies; different story for NFTs of course)
 
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i'm not sure if it's 100% accurate but since you asked what i understand (it confuses me too) is that it's something like this:

i take a photo of my cat (saved to my phone). i sell this photo of my cat and someone pays me say $5,000 for it. they get a copy (or maybe even they DON'T get a copy and can just view it?) and some kind of receipt that proves they bought/own it. meanwhile, i still have the original file and if i want i could sell it to more people. another example would be say you go to the shop and buy a tin of beans. you own that tin of beans you bought and a receipt to prove it. but thousands of other people might buy that same brand of beans. you don't truly own it because the manfacturer does and they can keep making more.

i think there are different kinds. maybe you can sell multiple copies of the same item but some are rare. say i took another picture of my cat but this time with a cute hat on it and i promised not to sell it to more than 1 person. maybe i could get more money for it. that person who paid me $10,000 would be able to access it but still it's still just a copy.

in games i think it's just the same. there was that game that sold land as an NFT (or maybe i'm wrong). so what i understand is that the NFT is just a space, which is basically a randomly generated map, that the buyer can play in. all the other players will have their own space to play in so it's not unique. so instead of giving all the players the same map to play in they developer says OK we'll generate a random map (something like minecraft) and make people pay for it.

fuck knows really. maybe i'm too old. if i'm wrong then i'd love to be corrected so i can understand this madness but that's how i understand it right now whether or not it's right lol.
 
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In 2012, a used Sega Saturn copy of Radiant Silvergun on eBay would run you about $250.

At the rate things are going, in 2022, $250 will get you... An NFT of a digital picture of the front cover of the Saturn version of Radiant Silvergun.

😂
 

daveonezero

Banned
I’m someone into crypto currency and I think NFTs are stupid.

This is the best and only explanation I’ve listened to from a crypto genius.

He basically says they are worthless.


 

TonyK

Member
You're not exaggerating, I'm in the exact same position. I informed myself and talked with friends and nobody of us understand the purpose of NFT.
 

RJMacready73

Simps for Amouranth
A mate of mine sold a picture on some nft website and some utter fucking moron bought it for $1000... There are plenty of idiots out there with money to burn or accumulating for the next digital gold rush and he's happy to exploit these stupid cunts and the biggest head scratcher of all is that's he's just an ok artist and the picture itself was pretty mediocre, hell a small Google search would've brought up a shit ton of similar but far far better pictures yet it still sold for a grand, methinks money laundering or tax dodging, but the site he hosted it on had loads going for all sorts of money... A quick right click save as and you can have them all for free....
 

Lunarorbit

Member
This is something I heard elsewhere but perfectly describe NFT.

Basically imagine you have a wife and she is getting drilled by every other men out there and you can't do shit .

The only different is you have a marriage certificate. That's your NFT

A NFT is like having a wife that everyone is fucking and you can’t do a thing about it, however you have a marriage certificate.
You both have very specific ideas about what an nft is.
 

Porcile

Member
Seems like right now it's a social experiment in the digital era of who can sell the least compelling item for the most amount of money. There is a reason a lot of these artists never made a dime on their work prior to this. Not saying their work is bad, it's just that it never really demanded large sums of money. Now we will see if TwitterArtist876 is the next Picasso or not. Hint: they aren't.

It's no surprise that the game companies with the least compelling product are the first ones to jump in i.e Ubisoft and Konami.
 

EekTheKat

Member
As far as I know - it's "Aritficial Scarcity" or "scarcity" being applied to a digital resource or asset on the internet that in reality should not very scarce at all.

On a low level it appears to literally be a link to an asset that is bound to a "smart contract" stored on a blockchain. But this appears to be what an NFT is at a surface level.

The scam part comes from people exploiting the system to absurd levels. The value of an NFT could be defined by how much it was sold for on the market - and that value could be fairly easily inflated by people savvy enough to do so.

At a basic level it's fairly easy to game the system as established and exploit the desperation that exists in a lot of people.

I'll let the more technically and legally knowledgeable people fill in the blank, as I'm pretty sure there are a lot of huge blanks to fill in here.

The fact that some larger corporate entities are looking into or just flat out embracing this is somewhat frightening, as it implies that it passed through the desks of their lawyers and they gave them the green light to go ahead with this.

tl;dr - taking financial advice from millionaire celebrities and internet influencers is generally a horrible idea.

Hell taking financial advice from anonymous personalities over the internet is generally not a great idea.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
So the news of Konami releasing NFT’s for Castlevania’s anniversary got me questioning the purpose of these again (and Googling the definition to make sure I understand), as it genuinely doesn’t make sense to me. Not like in that exaggerated way where you ignore the obvious to make your point, I literally don’t get why you’d spend money on them.

Unless I’ve got it twisted?

So you buy an NFT that is some artwork for example. But you can’t actually have a copy of that artwork for yourself, to look at whenever you wish, correct? It’s just that you’ve “bought” that artwork, and nobody else (including yourself apparently) can do anything with it?

What if it was a music track? How do you listen to it? Can you listen to it whenever and wherever you want?

Help me understand GAF, because I’d like to get think, for my own sanity, that there is more to it.
The old school of collectibles is something like art prints or baseball cards or autographs. Actual physical collectibles.

NFTs arent really any different except two key things I see:

1. It's a digital world, so it's aimed at millennials as an extension of their social media/blockchain/digital life. Mom and dad collecting antiques would buy an actual 200 year old vase. An NFT collector would buy a digital image of that vase.

2. Whomever creates the NFT can churn this shit out fast - ideas and quantity. It's not like wanting an autograph from Mike Tyson as a collectible. Who knows how easy that is to get or what the hell even has his autograph on it. And there's literally only so many he would actually sign. But if a company says were launching NFTs, suddenly it can be promoted everywhere fast and they can easily ramp up or ramp down NFTs to sell. UBI was selling weapon skins that first day and sold 20 of the exact same looking grey assault rifle skins. Who knows how many UBI even had to sell. Maybe it was 1000s. Maybe there system would have an infinite number to sell even if 100,000 people wanted to buy it day one.
 
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Possibly a dumb question, but im cloudy on NFTs.

Cant we NFT tag digital games and then have a second hand market to help push away from physical?
 
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