NFTs

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Woodchopper
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Re: NFTs

Post by Woodchopper » Sat Oct 09, 2021 10:26 am

sheldrake wrote:
Sat Oct 09, 2021 10:12 am
Imagine if the diamond never really existed, it's just that somebody on Twitter said that it did.
I expect that someone out there might be willing to pay for that as a concept. You should try it out, maybe make some money. Though you'll have to work hard to find that person.

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Re: NFTs

Post by sheldrake » Sat Oct 09, 2021 10:47 am

Woodchopper wrote:
Sat Oct 09, 2021 10:26 am
sheldrake wrote:
Sat Oct 09, 2021 10:12 am
Imagine if the diamond never really existed, it's just that somebody on Twitter said that it did.
I expect that someone out there might be willing to pay for that as a concept. You should try it out, maybe make some money. Though you'll have to work hard to find that person.
This is undoubtedly true. I have never believed in the Labour theory of value, it's marxist nonsense that can't account for the perception of the buyer, subjective things like beauty etc... Things are worth exactly what people are prepared to pay for them.

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Re: NFTs

Post by secret squirrel » Sat Oct 09, 2021 11:17 am

sheldrake wrote:
Sat Oct 09, 2021 10:47 am
This is undoubtedly true. I have never believed in the Labour theory of value, it's marxist nonsense that can't account for the perception of the buyer, subjective things like beauty etc... Things are worth exactly what people are prepared to pay for them.
It's the Labour theory of value, not the Labour theory of price. Marx himself was aware that it did not accurately describe prices, though exactly where that leaves the theory is unclear, at least to me. I think it's best understood as a kind of moral principle, but I believe Marx would have firmly rejected this view as he was keen to distance himself from 'idealistic' notions like this.

More relevant to the current discussion, I have seen crypto enthusiasts argue that e.g. bitcoin is valuable because of the resources burned while mining it, which is a similar idea. The more extreme version of this is that bitcoin is a kind of battery that somehow stores this consumed energy, though this is obviously totally insane.

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Re: NFTs

Post by sheldrake » Sat Oct 09, 2021 11:41 am

Back on crypto as you say; the idea that a bitcoin has value because mining it was painful is a bit mad as you say. The main thing the mining process does is assure their scarcity, which does impact price.

But it’s entirely possible to have a proof-of-stake currency that costs very little energy to process, that still has a fixed supply (e.g. Cardano)

The other problem bitcoins energy cost leads to is that mining is concentrated where electricity is cheap, e.g. approx half of all bitcoin mining happens in one industrial region of China. Mining being concentrated in regions controlled by authoritarian olgiarchies mean that the ‘51%’ attacks which could compromise the currency are actually much more likely.

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Re: NFTs

Post by secret squirrel » Sat Oct 09, 2021 11:56 am

sheldrake wrote:
Sat Oct 09, 2021 11:41 am
Back on crypto as you say; the idea that a bitcoin has value because mining it was painful is a bit mad as you say. The main thing the mining process does is assure their scarcity, which does impact price.

But it’s entirely possible to have a proof-of-stake currency that costs very little energy to process, that still has a fixed supply (e.g. Cardano)

The other problem bitcoins energy cost leads to is that mining is concentrated where electricity is cheap, e.g. approx half of all bitcoin mining happens in one industrial region of China. Mining being concentrated in regions controlled by authoritarian olgiarchies mean that the ‘51%’ attacks which could compromise the currency are actually much more likely.
The mining process doesn't really insure scarcity as I see it. Though the rate at which coins are mined controls the scarcity for e.g. bitcoin, you don't need a mining process with multiple miners for that. You could just e.g. write code that creates however many tokens automatically. What proof of work achieves, at great cost, is to make it inefficient for an actor to work on more than one branch of the ledger, thus insuring that there is always a canonical version. This is the main problem proof of stake implementations face, aside from the naked rent seeking nature of the basic mechanism.

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Re: NFTs

Post by sheldrake » Sat Oct 09, 2021 12:10 pm

secret squirrel wrote:
Sat Oct 09, 2021 11:56 am


The mining process doesn't really insure scarcity as I see it. Though the rate at which coins are mined controls the scarcity for e.g. bitcoin, you don't need a mining process with multiple miners for that.
Proof of work mining processes mean there's an energy cost to processing transactions and hence creating new coins, I agree that this is different from whether the upper bound of supply is capped or not. I'm just pointing out that Bitcoin believers see it that way because significant real world resources have to be expended to process their transactions (this is a problem, rather than a feature, from my perspective and I guess yours).
You could just e.g. write code that creates however many tokens automatically. What proof of work achieves, at great cost, is to make it inefficient for an actor to work on more than one branch of the ledger, thus insuring that there is always a canonical version.

This is the main problem proof of stake implementations face, aside from the naked rent seeking nature of the basic mechanism.
I don't think rent seeking is necessarily a problem here; people need an incentive to do the mining or why would they bother? what matters to me is whether or not the costs are competitive with traditional banking (in terms of cash and energy, although they're usually linked) and whether you can trust the ledger after each transaction.

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Re: NFTs

Post by dyqik » Sat Oct 09, 2021 1:56 pm

Ignore

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bjn
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Re: NFTs

Post by bjn » Sat Oct 09, 2021 2:23 pm

secret squirrel wrote:
Sat Oct 09, 2021 11:56 am
sheldrake wrote:
Sat Oct 09, 2021 11:41 am
Back on crypto as you say; the idea that a bitcoin has value because mining it was painful is a bit mad as you say. The main thing the mining process does is assure their scarcity, which does impact price.

But it’s entirely possible to have a proof-of-stake currency that costs very little energy to process, that still has a fixed supply (e.g. Cardano)

The other problem bitcoins energy cost leads to is that mining is concentrated where electricity is cheap, e.g. approx half of all bitcoin mining happens in one industrial region of China. Mining being concentrated in regions controlled by authoritarian olgiarchies mean that the ‘51%’ attacks which could compromise the currency are actually much more likely.
The mining process doesn't really insure scarcity as I see it. Though the rate at which coins are mined controls the scarcity for e.g. bitcoin, you don't need a mining process with multiple miners for that. You could just e.g. write code that creates however many tokens automatically. What proof of work achieves, at great cost, is to make it inefficient for an actor to work on more than one branch of the ledger, thus insuring that there is always a canonical version. This is the main problem proof of stake implementations face, aside from the naked rent seeking nature of the basic mechanism.
The rent seeking with bitcoins is a only a bit harder to see, it's built into its deflationary nature.

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Re: NFTs

Post by sheldrake » Sat Oct 09, 2021 2:27 pm

There's no investment or retirement without rent.

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Re: NFTs

Post by plodder » Mon Oct 11, 2021 9:51 pm

A simple explainer for all you sceptics:

https://www.grandedame.co.uk/2021/10/11 ... nft-space/

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bjn
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Re: NFTs

Post by bjn » Mon Oct 11, 2021 10:28 pm

What a giant word salad. Without any decent dressing either.

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Re: NFTs

Post by Bird on a Fire » Mon Oct 11, 2021 11:05 pm

plodder wrote:
Sat Oct 09, 2021 10:21 am
“This is not a pipe”
The K Foundation Burn a Million Quid

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_Found ... llion_Quid
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Re: NFTs

Post by Sciolus » Tue Oct 12, 2021 8:59 am


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Re: NFTs

Post by El Pollo Diablo » Tue Oct 12, 2021 9:37 pm

Does one need to own the thing in order to create one of these non tangible vulcans?

How does it work if it's a public asset? We all, technically, own Network Rail, so can I create a NTV for a signal or a sleeper?
If truth is many-sided, mendacity is many-tongued

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Re: NFTs

Post by sheldrake » Wed Oct 13, 2021 12:02 am

El Pollo Diablo wrote:
Tue Oct 12, 2021 9:37 pm
Does one need to own the thing in order to create one of these non tangible vulcans?
No.

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Re: NFTs

Post by dyqik » Wed Oct 13, 2021 12:52 am

El Pollo Diablo wrote:
Tue Oct 12, 2021 9:37 pm
Does one need to own the thing in order to create one of these non tangible vulcans?

How does it work if it's a public asset? We all, technically, own Network Rail, so can I create a NTV for a signal or a sleeper?
Nothing's stopping you selling an NFT that points to whitehouse.gov

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Re: NFTs

Post by Millennie Al » Wed Oct 13, 2021 1:32 am

NFT's referring to something are a bit like photos of it. That's why you can sell the NFT and not transfer any ownership of the target. They seem to be completely useless to me.

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Re: NFTs

Post by wilsontown » Wed Oct 13, 2021 10:06 am

dyqik wrote:
Wed Oct 13, 2021 12:52 am
El Pollo Diablo wrote:
Tue Oct 12, 2021 9:37 pm
Does one need to own the thing in order to create one of these non tangible vulcans?

How does it work if it's a public asset? We all, technically, own Network Rail, so can I create a NTV for a signal or a sleeper?
Nothing's stopping you selling an NFT that points to whitehouse.gov
Except that no-one would buy it because it would be pointless?
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Re: NFTs

Post by sheldrake » Wed Oct 13, 2021 10:12 am

wilsontown wrote:
Wed Oct 13, 2021 10:06 am
Except that no-one would buy it because it would be pointless?
But they might though

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Re: NFTs

Post by El Pollo Diablo » Wed Oct 13, 2021 12:28 pm

That's the point, exactly. If I created a fun tankable nurofen for the STB21 semaphore signal in St Bees (you can see it here), I could probably convince some steam train nerd to buy it, even though in reality they own nothing.
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Re: NFTs

Post by Sciolus » Wed Oct 13, 2021 12:41 pm

lpm wrote:
Fri Oct 08, 2021 11:06 am
Don't bother talking about the problems, a child of 5 can see them.

I'm trying to determine if it's a scam, i.e. an orchestrated long con. Or if it's an overheated irrational market, similar to GameStop.
This is the interesting question, IMO. It's obvious that NFTs and other cryptoshit are a mechanism for and facilitator of scams, laundering and a range of dodgy sh.t. Some marks are also deriving a certain amount of value from their overpriced geegaws and stoking a bubble. But is there an underlying scam, where the purpose of the whole edifice is dodgy? Who knows?

It's interesting that China is quite opposed to crypto. That suggests they aren't the shadowy figures behind it. Russia is very likely; and if China knows that, maybe that explains their position.

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Re: NFTs

Post by dyqik » Wed Oct 13, 2021 2:18 pm

wilsontown wrote:
Wed Oct 13, 2021 10:06 am
dyqik wrote:
Wed Oct 13, 2021 12:52 am
El Pollo Diablo wrote:
Tue Oct 12, 2021 9:37 pm
Does one need to own the thing in order to create one of these non tangible vulcans?

How does it work if it's a public asset? We all, technically, own Network Rail, so can I create a NTV for a signal or a sleeper?
Nothing's stopping you selling an NFT that points to whitehouse.gov
Except that no-one would buy it because it would be pointless?
It's no more or less pointless than other NFTs whose payload is a URL.

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Re: NFTs

Post by dyqik » Wed Oct 13, 2021 2:23 pm

Sciolus wrote:
Wed Oct 13, 2021 12:41 pm
lpm wrote:
Fri Oct 08, 2021 11:06 am
Don't bother talking about the problems, a child of 5 can see them.

I'm trying to determine if it's a scam, i.e. an orchestrated long con. Or if it's an overheated irrational market, similar to GameStop.
This is the interesting question, IMO. It's obvious that NFTs and other cryptoshit are a mechanism for and facilitator of scams, laundering and a range of dodgy sh.t. Some marks are also deriving a certain amount of value from their overpriced geegaws and stoking a bubble. But is there an underlying scam, where the purpose of the whole edifice is dodgy? Who knows?

It's interesting that China is quite opposed to crypto. That suggests they aren't the shadowy figures behind it. Russia is very likely; and if China knows that, maybe that explains their position.
On the cryptocurrency side, China is opposed because it interferes with state control of the economy. China and other countries are additionally concerned because it makes tax enforcement difficult and makes it easier to evade money laundering regulations and sanctions. It's also a direct challenge to fiat currency and the ability of governments to control the money supply as an economic tool.

For NFTs, the money laundering element is still there, as well as consumer protection issues, but some of the other concerns are less relevant.

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Re: NFTs

Post by sheldrake » Wed Oct 13, 2021 11:11 pm

Crypto isn't likely a Russian invention. Satoshi Nakamoto is very likely to be a group of people at least one of whom is British, given their use of British idioms and spelling in their emails.

One strong candidate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Back

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Re: NFTs

Post by Bird on a Fire » Thu Oct 14, 2021 11:04 am

This looks good https://twitter.com/bcrypt/status/14483 ... cuw3A&s=19
i…. just received a children’s book about a rabbit who travels back in time to medieval europe and gets everyone hyped about blockchain https://t.co/0M4EvuSy6P
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