NFTs – what do we know about them?

mulletsaison

@colonel_mustard said:

@AudioGus said:

@Hmtx said:

@NeuM said:
Anyone who can convince another person to part with their money to buy a GIF... I gotta respect the con job. It's quite a scam.

For sure. The hype around the current NFT gif craze makes no sense to me. Worse, it seems to take away from the actual value of the idea of art on the blockchain, which is absolutely the future. I wish I had the brain capacity/time/space to get into this more… maybe someday.

@u0421793 why did you decide against Audius?

I just assumed that beeple bubble burst already. Does it still have momentum?

It’s been 6 months since a single grey pixel was sold for $1.36M.
https://artreview.com/crypto-artist-pak-single-grey-pixel-nft-sold-for-1-36-million-dollars/

I recommend minting a solid beige banner ad, to catch the stragglers.

This whole thing reminds me of the KLF burning £1M.

Spot on comparison between the KLF and arguably the best NFTs now. It’s a really fascinating idea, and you can see where it could lead when the hype dies down. It can almost be a Kickstarter with upside beyond a discount for musicians, not just for limited edition products. I’ll look for the article I read about a guy engaging with his NFT crazed fans in a very traditional artist to fans social media, just that it all results in NFTs. Fans get to give him advice on mixes and things like that… I know I could never be that guy, but there really is some interesting signal here along with the tons of noise and bullshit.

mulletsaison

@dendy said:

@ervin said:
Here's a creative way to make some money on NFTs -

https://therecord.media/hacker-abuses-opensea-to-buy-nfts-at-older-cheaper-prices/

smart guy

this is why i don't like 90% of all NFT market - it's centralised shit which stands and falls with central authority which manages all transactions and physically stores data (OpenSea in this case).

Just recently learned that SOME NFTs works different way than majority of dumb pictures of apes, and are really physically stored directly on blockchain - for example CryptoKitties or CryptoPunks - although there is limitation of size so they can be really just very small, literally few pixels / bytes ...

but still, this is interesting and may be considered as another form of digital scarcity ..

Also there is possibility to store some CODE instead of image on blockchain, which then in realtime generates visual art (something like smart few kilobytes demos in 90's demoscene) - which may be interesting too - i'm starting to be a little bit interested in these little islands of something interesting and kinda inovative hidden in vast ocean of NFT shit swamp ..

I see some other secure storage for product; blockchain will either be incapable or expensive for something that is easily achievable with traditional mainstream tech. A new DAO or other 3rd party (which probably already exist) will become the vault to ensure security and provenance, I reckon.

u0421793

The general solution that most people involved in this sort of area are aware of is IPFS – InterPlanetary File System. This in my opinion might not necessarily evolve to become the way of doing it, but for now it has the most mindshare. There are competitors (including at a conceptual level, http) but one of the things to take into account is that IPFS is driven by one company at this stage.

Another interesting similar but not overlapping tech is The Internet Computer, which doesn’t do the storage side of things.

The tech I’m following the most nowadays is Hyperledger, which focuses more on developing Distributed Ledger Technology and doesn’t really consider cryptocurrency at all.

This is in keeping with my stance that all the coins and tokens, the speculation, the money making and losing, is essentially a nonsense distraction and isn’t the important thing. Similarly that sort of thinking has infected the idea of an NFT, which one could think of as the swing tag or the receipt but not the product it relates to, and now we witness the insane craziness of chasing scarcity on purpose to the effect that the receipt has now become the product. It’s like paying for an old master painting, throwing that away and exhibiting the receipt for it and then selling the receipt.

I expect this ludicrous phase will pass. The idea that an NFT can denote authenticity (which is what makes the NFT notion a valuable one to develop) is stupidly being subverted now such that if it’s an NFT it probably relates to ripped-off stolen art. This will generalise in the public’s mind to equating NFTs with counterfeit goods. That’s not a good thing, in fact it’s the opposite of what’s supposed to have happened.

waka_x

Line Goes Up – The Problem With NFTs

u0421793

@waka_x said:
Line Goes Up – The Problem With NFTs
…

Whilst this is a particularly good if lengthy analysis, there’s no need to keep having it posted in this discussion so regularly

ExAsperis99

Probably more immediately important to musicians is the dubious NFT startup HitPiece (with MC Serch, of 3rd Bass fame, on the board). This company apparently scraped a bunch of artists on Spotify and minted their songs as NFTs without telling them.

Most of what I've read is on Twitter and kind of hard to piece together, but here's the Slate piece, which provides a good overview.

“This Is Not the F–king Way to Do It”
How the NFT startup HitPiece managed to piss off hundreds of musical artists at once.

NeuM

@ExAsperis99 said:
Probably more immediately important to musicians is the dubious NFT startup HitPiece (with MC Serch, of 3rd Bass fame, on the board). This company apparently scraped a bunch of artists on Spotify and minted their songs as NFTs without telling them.

Most of what I've read is on Twitter and kind of hard to piece together, but here's the Slate piece, which provides a good overview.

“This Is Not the F–king Way to Do It”
How the NFT startup HitPiece managed to piss off hundreds of musical artists at once.

That’s fraud and their founders should be arrested.

NoiseFloored

What would it even mean to own an NFT of a song?

dendy

@NoiseFloored said:
What would it even mean to own an NFT of a song?

literally that you own something like this : "f1d3f1c468077b0f37bb39f805dd552a" , which is actually just dentifier of database record at some sever (most likely hosted at Amazon AWS lol), owned by some company, where is stored that song

u0421793

What it should mean to own an NFT of a song is as follows:

• I bought the song (akin to buying a record in the old days)
• The shop selling me the song gave me the song, and a receipt (the NFT) to prove I have paid for it
• The receipt is more than a paper receipt, it also indicates to the MCPS and PRS (or similar bodies in other countries) that a sale has occurred, of this particular song, so they can account for how many sales this song has accrued so far

• The receipt also allows resale, I might sell the song I bought to someone else (like I might with a record, in the old days) – I would expect the secondhand song to cost less than it did when I bought it, after all, if the person I’m selling a secondhand song to wants to they could buy it new, like I did

  (the exception to the above secondhand lower pricing would be if the song is a limited edition or out of print, but why would that ever happen with a digital good? That’s just false scarcity and therefore bullshit – I suggest people pirate it instead, it’s about as honest either way)

• A further functionality might be where the MCPS and PRS can follow how many times I play it, if that’s somehow important (and this implies the smart contract is somehow bound to the music file – they usually aren’t, if I play the file and the smart contract doesn’t know I played it)

• The MCPS and PRS can pay the artist and writer and other people, same as in the old days when the record company would pay the artist and writer out of what’s left over from the huge pile of money they made from putting up a huge pile of money up front to record and press the records in the first place

That’s about all. Is that too much to ask?

u0421793

By the way what I just said above doesn’t imply the use of any kind of cryptocurrency at all – the goods can be paid for with ordinary money, you get a digital receipt that is an NFT but without being told it’s an NFT you probably wouldn’t know, nor care.

The digital receipt for your physical goods paid for with real money could end up being sent to your bank account (if you paid for it that way) and the bank might have a special place where your digital receipts are kept (and tallied with your spending) (this doesn’t yet but should happen now anyway, every time I spend money in Asda I use the Asda app, logged in as me, and at the checkout I pay using Apple Pay, so it knows full well who I am twice, and instead of brainlessly asking if I want a receipt (of course I do you cretin) and extruding a slip of thermal paper, I want it to in future send the digital receipt to my bank) (Decathlon goes halfway by emailing me the digital receipt) (I want to find my receipts at my bank).

I’m using normal money, the NFT (the receipt) goes to my normal bank. This violates the cryptocurrency kiddies sensibility, but ffs, grow up, this is how it should work.

Also, the DLT used by the record companies / whole record industry doesn’t have to be decentralised at all. It doesn’t have to be publicly accessible at all. It can, or it needn’t be. It is probably better if it is a private net, or set of private nets with inter workable APIs.

All of this is already happening behind the scenes in serious grown-up industry domains such as supply chain management. An NFT can track the authenticity and other events of an item up and down the supply chain. It doesn’t have to be world-wide accessible or public, only within that industry and within that particular supply chain’s participants. It doesn’t have to have an associated crypto ‘coin’ or token. It doesn’t have to be worth anything as an NFT. It doesn’t have to be permanent.

The demise of the record shop / record label / sales reporting / radio play reporting system of music publishing that we had since the start of the 20th century has certainly left a much-needed gap that people are trying to fill, and I do think DLT / NFT tech has a part to play here, but now I’m really not so sure. Private nets using NFTs in an industrial SCM context are unaffected, but I think as far as the public’s mindset is concerned, during 2022 we’ll see an association along the lines of: “if it’s an NFT, it’s stolen or fake”, which is exactly the opposite of what it should’ve been if greed hadn’t gamed the system. I blame art dealers.

richardyot

@u0421793 said:
but I think as far as the public’s mindset is concerned, during 2022 we’ll see an association along the lines of: “if it’s an NFT, it’s stolen or fake”, which is exactly the opposite of what it should’ve been if greed hadn’t gamed the system. I blame art dealers.

The reason this is happening is simply a feature of the whole construct IMO. The blockchain is nothing but a distributed database, and literally the only benefit of a distributed database (compared to a centralised one) is that it removes the need for a trusted party to maintain it and enforce whatever rules are required. With a blockchain, the idea is that the rules are enforced by the algorithm.

But of course this comes with two enormous problems: firstly algorithms are just fallible as the humans who write them, so any bug in the code can lead to catastrophic failures in the system, and secondly no algorithm can remove the need for human governance. No algorithm can actually enforce rules or resolve conflicts.

So inevitably what happens is that crooks and scammers quickly invade the space, since its main feature is that there is no legal (human) enforcement.

Without a legal system to enforce the rules, there is no way to ensure that the entries on the ledger are legitimate. There's nothing stopping me from taking someone's art and minting it as my own - the algorithm doesn't care.

dendy

@richardyot said:

@u0421793 said:
but I think as far as the public’s mindset is concerned, during 2022 we’ll see an association along the lines of: “if it’s an NFT, it’s stolen or fake”, which is exactly the opposite of what it should’ve been if greed hadn’t gamed the system. I blame art dealers.

The reason this is happening is simply a feature of the whole construct IMO. The blockchain is nothing but a distributed database, and literally the only benefit of a distributed database (compared to a centralised one) is that it removes the need for a trusted party to maintain it and enforce whatever rules are required. With a blockchain, the idea is that the rules are enforced by the algorithm.

But of course this comes with two enormous problems: firstly algorithms are just fallible as the humans who write them, so any bug in the code can lead to catastrophic failures in the system, and secondly no algorithm can remove the need for human governance. No algorithm can actually enforce rules or resolve conflicts.

So inevitably what happens is that crooks and scammers quickly invade the space, since its main feature is that there is no legal (human) enforcement.

Without a legal system to enforce the rules, there is no way to ensure that the entries on the ledger are legitimate. There's nothing stopping me from taking someone's art and minting it as my own - the algorithm doesn't care.

I have to add that what you wrote above is valid in NFT case, from very simple basic reason - with NFTs, we are trying to store / manipulate on blockchain data which are actually somehow connected with data which exists OUTSIDE of blockchain.

This js MAJOR flaw in thinking of people who are trying use blockchain for anything different that for what it was primary designed (money, or literally "digital cash" when i had to quote Bitcoin whitepaper).

Blockchain simply cannot ensure "truth" if there is not fullfiled main premise - that all data which are expected to be manage doesn't exist entirely only on blockchain.

If there are ANY data/information existing outside blockchain, it makes zero sense to use blockchain for managing part of those data - in that case classic distributed database is way much better option.

So. Basically. Only meaningful application of blockchain are MONEY.

richardyot

NFT platform shuts down due to the proliferation of scams and plagiarism:

https://www.engadget.com/cents-suspends-nft-trading-232134673.html?src=rss

https://twitter.com/emrys_s/status/1492711387906420737

https://twitter.com/hackylawyER/status/1492837087032356866

AudioGus

Wow, no one saw this coming.

wim

😂

NeuM

@AudioGus said:
Wow, no one saw this coming.

Fraud happens in every industry, and I had my doubts connecting real-world things to their digital counterpart could be completely controlled. When things remain in the digital realm on a blockchain, they can be accounted for. Not so for NFT images or sounds, which can easily be recaptured and resold by fraudsters.

wim

I blame Apple.

u0421793

Why worry? Each of us is wearing an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on his back.

NeuM

@u0421793 said:
Why worry? Each of us is wearing an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on his back.

Ghostbusters!

waka_x

Kewe_Esse

So, I attended some clubhouse and twitter space meetings with visual artists and devs around the time of the Cardano Alonzo hard fork, re: NFT marketplaces. I did not maintain regular contacts in the space.

My take homes, summarised:

• An NFT is essentially a digital receipt or ticket, representing ownership of pretty much anything, from digital art to concert tickets to property deeds to security tokens and beyond…
• Some artists are making interesting inroads to what can be accomplished by means of an NFT, including (but not limited to) hidden content that only the NFT holder/s has/have access to
• Many artists are making what can only be described as crap art, selling the NFT and riding the hype… and if it results in sales for them, what’s wrong with that?
• There is a lot of dev activity going on in this area, especially for online gaming.
• It’s intellectually stimulating to think about, in terms of form, function and application.
• It’s not my day job, so I don’t have time to devote to it.
• I am well up for further discussion with respect to audio/AV applications, but again, I don’t have lots of time to actually do stuff.

u0421793

@waka_x said:
…

As I’ve said before, there’s no need to keep posting this same video over and over in this one thread – the first time was good enough

knewspeak

Materialism ++ you’ll own nothing and be happy.

u0421793

@Kewe_Esse said:
…

• Many artists are making what can only be described as crap art, selling the NFT and riding the hype… and if it results in sales for them, what’s wrong with that?

Yes, a lot of people in crypto seemed to ignore or miss that the NFT is merely the receipt, or swing tag, of a product, and began erroneously treating the NFT as if it itself were the product. This isn’t sustainable, it’s just fast-moving hype.

• There is a lot of dev activity going on in this area, especially for online gaming.

True, and it’s here that I think we’ll see the turn around in steering to treat digital goods as the product and the NFT the means of identifying, transferring, tracking, etc. Over time the idea that there’s an “NFT” involved will be no more exciting than knowing the technical details of the plumbing to your sink.

…

I agree with what you’re saying. I think until we’re past this idiotic hype phase where everybody deeply involved thinks they’re going to get rich, and into a phase where the plumbing is invisible and nobody cares as long as it works, it’s probably too early (for me) to dabble with releasing music as NFTs. Mainly because I don’t want to limit my audience to crypto nerds.

Kewe_Esse

@u0421793 said:
True, and it’s here that I think we’ll see the turn around in steering to
I agree with what you’re saying. I think until we’re past this idiotic hype phase where everybody deeply involved thinks they’re going to get rich, and into a phase where the plumbing is invisible and nobody cares as long as it works, it’s probably too early (for me) to dabble with releasing music as NFTs. Mainly because I don’t want to limit my audience to crypto nerds.

But def check out the music category on opensea! There is some really cool stuff on there, which you can preview in full for free, or of course pay to support the artist if you choose… but check it anyway!

Kewe_Esse

Also, this is a thing now, just for the sake of interest:

https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/07/26/biggie-smalls-estate-goes-crypto-with-music-license-nfts/

Henryharvey

I know my reply is a bit late, but I’d like to share my two cents. Certainly, there are steps to release music as NFTs, but personally, I'm a bit cautious about it. The crypto market is incredibly volatile, and NFT values can fluctuate wildly. Plus, the inflated prices of NFTs often seem like speculation rather than genuine value for art. In my view, overcharging for art doesn't sit well. Instead, I believe that smart trading in the crypto market, considering trends and using reliable automated trading tools like quantumaitrading.net, can genuinely help you make more profitable trades and significantly boost your income. It's essential to explore various options and strategies in this ever-changing landscape.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

u0421793

That’s interesting – the message before the prior one, is a reply to one of my messages which quotes me in full, and then replies with a lot of fairly passive agreement which I thought at the time was a bit flavourless but could be legit

I’ve just now noticed that where it quotes me, it’s inserted a sentence into the quote which I didn’t write, and which itself contains a link which I know nothing about