I'm ambivalent about whether crypto currency will turn out to be a workable long term medium of exchange or a pyramid - but NFTs are a pyramid. If you make money out of NFTs, somebody has lost it - although that might be by buying something useless.
NFTs aren't a pyramid, you buy it like any other item and own it, that's that.
You just need to remember somethings only worth what someone will pay, and that like art, tastes change.
One or two crypto's will end up as currency. The rest will go to zero as they're fundamentally worthless
So in the same way that an original Van Gough is worth a lot more than a print, now the original picture of some meme is worth a lot more than copies of it. This wasn’t possible before as all copies were identical.
All copies are still identical I thought? With an NFT you basically have a receipt saying that your copy is the original one, even though it is identical in absolutely every respect to all the others. Or am I way out?
How do I know an NFT is the original?
The NFT isn't the thing itself, and there is only one of it, so it is kind of the original by definition I think. So the monkey picture itself is fungible - any instance of it is interchangeable with any other. But the NFT isn't. That's how I understand it anyway
EDIT I don't understand though what stops you generating another NFT for your copy of something that someone else already has an NFT for.
All copies are still identical I thought? With an NFT you basically have a receipt saying that your copy is the original one, even though it is identical in absolutely every respect to all the others. Or am I way out?
Nope, that's correct. What you've bought is not the image itself, but a kind of certificate of authenticity.
How do I know an NFT is the original?
You'd need to verify it with the artist - perhaps they have info about it on their website. Or by email. Because there's nothing to stop anyone putting up a Picasso and claiming it's the original. Buyer beware!
I've heard people suggest that NFTs could be used for gig tickets or somesuch - sounds like a more plausible use case. But it will need the current JPG / grift bubble to subside first I think...
EDIT I don’t understand though what stops you generating another NFT for your copy of something that someone else already has an NFT for.
Nothing at all - indeed as posted previously, here's a website to assist you to do exactly that: https://nftreplicas.net/
Nothing at all – indeed as posted previously, here’s a website to assist you to do exactly that: https://nftreplicas.net//blockquote >
So (thinking out loud here) how do you assign or claim any value to an NFT, without some other framework/authority to say that one is the 'real' one? Because you'd end up with two perfectly valid, genuine NFTs. Or does it all come back to the artist's say so?
EDIT just read your earlier post again which answers that exact question! Still it does seem to make the whole blockchain aspect of it redundant, if it doesn't encode authenticity?
Yeah, it's such an issue that sites like DeviantArt have launched tools to detect unauthorised NFT-ing of their users work.
There are of course legit artists selling their work as NFTs - sirromj has linked a few upthread - but at the moment, while the whole thing is a big media bubble, and people are talking about making a killing from flipping their NFTs - it's basically ripe for scams and fraud.
Almost all the expensive NFTs you'll hear of (Bored Apes, Cryptopunks etc) are not the work of 'artists as such' (although an artist was probably involved at some point, perhaps earning a couple of hundred on UpWork or Fiverr) but small companies that generate a shitload of potentially sellable pictures. The market is now flooded with others trying to do the same thing - there's not really any 'art' there, just money making schemes.
Which is a bit of a shame because there are people I respect who insist that underneath all the shit there is a kernel of a great idea there, it's just it's getting buried by all the grifters.
But personally I struggle to see how that can go away; in a truly decentralised system there's an incentive to try and rip people off, and very little to stop bad actors.
With an NFT you basically have a receipt saying that your copy is the original one, even though it is identical in absolutely every respect to all the others.
Correct AIUI. But the same is true of many things. The original print of a famous photo is identical to all subsequent prints or copies of it, isn't it? A first edition of a book is the same as other later editions (if they haven't changed the cover).
It just means that if you buy an NFT it can't be duplicated without it being obvious. What you then decide to do with that concept is up to you.
But we're taking about 8bit pictures of monkeys here, it's hardly a reprint of constables 'the hay wain'.
But we’re taking about 8bit pictures of monkeys here,
it’s hardly a reprint of constables ‘the hay wain’.
It's exactly the sort of art you'd expect from programmers and the scammers that want to make money from it frankly. ie, soulless and just a wee bit childish and needy
It’s exactly the sort of art you’d expect from programmers
What?
A first edition of a book is the same as other later editions (if they haven’t changed the cover).
Apart from the bit where it says "first edition" and gives the publication date. Also different editions may have different typographies, explanatory bits and corrections etc.
Though I think it is the underlying work that has "editions" rather than the book, as it were.
Ahh here we go, best explanation of NFTs I've seen so fa 😀
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FIoZj2AVUAA6_ax?format=jpg&name=large
What?
Because all NFT "art"produced by programmers sucks. Badly. And while it's tempting to point out that everything sucks now there seems to be a particular aesthetic at play with NFT as the visual expression of both aggression and boredom, as represented by video games. which is no surprise really. Art by people who have little understanding of how art actually functions and what it's for. Like asking people who've never been outside to paint a flower
Have you seen Floydies? It's a self-described “activism platform” selling MS Paint-quality portraits of George Floyd in various costumes. It's probably healthier to think of it as misguided, rather than cynical to the point of being offensive, but It is hard to parse the reasoning that got from riots to these images. Much less the artistic sensibility of whoever might buy them. But I suspect it has nothing to do with art or sensibility at all, in the same way the way pork-bellies traders aren't particularly interested in pigs, or the hedge fund manager is not interested in why the programmer can't articulate why his flowers look like they've been drawn by someone who's never seen them, but only had them described to them.
Because all NFT “art”produced by programmers sucks.
Much Wow. Just no point trying with you is there? You've got your views and see what you want to see and discount everything else.
