They warn right at the beginning they say the F word a lot even for them, so if you are somewhere that isn't suitable for that wait until you are to watch or put on some headphones, yo.
A non-fungible token is a unique and non-interchangeable unit of data stored on a digital ledger. NFTs can be used to represent easily-reproducible items such as photos, videos, audio, and other types of digital files as unique items, and use blockchain technology to establish a verified and public proof of ownership
A non-fungible token is a unique and non-interchangeable unit of data stored on a digital ledger. NFTs can be used to represent easily-reproducible items such as photos, videos, audio, and other types of digital files as unique items, and use blockchain technology to establish a verified and public proof of ownership
Interesting concept for sure. I read some of the articles that have been written about NFT's and it appears that it could be used for user authentication and fractional licensing in software. Sort of an adjunct to OAuth2 which doesn't do fractional licensing very well... at least not without a lot of coding.
I agree and I am not sure what the intended long-term purpose of it is or if it's simply a toy that is looking for a purpose. Then again I had the same opinion of blockchains and bitcoin back in the day. And while I was talking with a friend the other day about running SETI apps on-campus labs and wondering if we had also run bitcoin miners (not for the coins as they were worthless then but for the bragging rights on the number of coins earned) because why not (even if we did the coins are well lost at this point), so it could very well be that NFT's have a future purpose and are simply in the early stages of discovery. One thing that I am concerned about is the possibility of EA using NFT's to create unique items in their games that become extremely rare loot box items that increase the demand for out-of-game purchases.
I agree and I am not sure what the intended long-term purpose of it is or if it's simply a toy that is looking for a purpose. Then again I had the same opinion of blockchains and bitcoin back in the day. And while I was talking with a friend the other day about running SETI apps on-campus labs and wondering if we had also run bitcoin miners (not for the coins as they were worthless then but for the bragging rights on the number of coins earned) because why not (even if we did the coins are well lost at this point), so it could very well be that NFT's have a future purpose and are simply in the early stages of discovery. One thing that I am concerned about is the possibility of EA using NFT's to create unique items in their games that become extremely rare loot box items that increase the demand for out-of-game purchases.
I've had a while to think about NFT's and talked to a few internet randos about it and have come to the following conclusion:
In a walled garden such as a game where the makers of the game control the means of production of the digital asset, their distribution and customers access to said asset via the game itself, NFT's don't make sense. It's like our SC ships. They are already serial numbered, we can already move them between owners, they are already controlled in their ability to be created - an NFT is not required. The asset is already controlled by it's inability to exist outside of that controlled, walled garden that is the game.
Outside of Games... Nope, they don't make sense there either. ctrl+c and ctrl+v mean if you have an NFT that says you own X, you may indeed own it... but so do the other half a million other people who have cut-pasted, screenshot, burned or otherwise copied that digital item.
In Analogue reality even photocopies degrade if you keep copying a copy. In Digital, the copy is a perfect reproduction, not a mere copy but a duplicate, a perfect clone, a mirror image of the original just as pixel perfect. In my opinion NFT's are pointless for digital assets as the things they hope to control are either uncontrollable, or are already very much under control.
There will be real issues once games reach the end of their lives and the Servers are turned off. Imagine Anthem had NFTs. You bought one for a reasonable $300 only for the game to suck hard and have the servers shut off by 2021 (in this other timeline). Your $300 may have depreciated if you'd spent it on a rustic pizza oven, however this isn't depreciation, your asset you own has been switched off by third parties outside of your control. Imagine someone burned the Mona Lisa in front of you. That's a crime dude, who do you call, the police? Your insurer? What becomes of your NFT without its referent to lend it value? It continues to exist on the blockchain but the thing it references is gone...
...it becomes something that says you Owned in the past tense, something that should but no longer exists as something accessible to you or anyone else, your name on that particular block chain is like a name on a grave stone...
...or to put it more accurately: That NFT then says you, yourself, were Ownd.
Well, you might already use it, or rather their parent. It's called DLT (Digital Ledger Technology) and is modeled after a system used in the Roman Empire (See edit below). Even Bitcoin is just an implementation of DLT though it uses only part of the technology. Just to make you feel better about it... I mean so you know about this, it's the technology many financial institutions use to transfer funds. In a private network. But it was only ever a matter of time before it started to gain traction on the public internet. For better or worse, now it seems to be time.
Edit: Just adding something to the Roman Empire part... this contributed to their downfall by basically authenticating false messages sent by generals who weren't all that friendly to the other generals.
Well, you might already use it, or rather their parent. It's called DLT (Digital Ledger Technology) and is modeled after a system used in the Roman Empire (See edit below). Even Bitcoin is just an implementation of DLT though it uses only part of the technology. Just to make you feel better about it... I mean so you know about this, it's the technology many financial institutions use to transfer funds. In a private network. But it was only ever a matter of time before it started to gain traction on the public internet. For better or worse, now it seems to be time.
Edit: Just adding something to the Roman Empire part... this contributed to their downfall by basically authenticating false messages sent by generals who weren't all that friendly to the other generals.
Indeed, the tool used for what it is intended to be used for: Unique tokens to represent unique data - I worked in an industry which involved selling stuff and taking transactions with tokenized payment details. They typed in their card details in on the payment screen, but it was the token that was sent through the systems and received at the other end, matched up to that customers details so no card info was really sent across the internet, just a token - if intercepted (unlikely) and decrypted (even more unlikely) all anyone would get is a useless token.
Some things can be used for other purposes like blowing up balloons with a bicycle pump rather than with lungs but the NFT situation feels like trying to use a philips head screwdriver to screw in a lightbulb - the reality of the situation doesn't quite match up with the stated intention.
The efforts to convince me a non-unique mass produceable perfectly copyable digital asset is something which can't be replicated ad infinitum as with general files like MP3's or Jpegs and needs an NFT to create units, or indeed an asset that relies on a support software to exist like a walled garden game which A) doesn't need NFT's as it's already a closed system and B) Will one day cease to function when the servers are turned off, feels like being sold an attractive pebble on a beach...
...there are millions of pebbles exactly identical to it laying all around the beach and the waves of the sea spit out more and more pebbles every second. I can interact with my pebble but everyone else can interact with theirs too, even those who didn't pay to get a reciept, I can't really take the pebble or the receipt home, and indeed in having to leave it there on the beach I'll have to watch helplessly as the tide one day comes in and covers up the whole beach front, stopping me from being being able to access the pebble, the beach or even see the pebbles ever existed at all. The receipt would be the only thing to show my pebble was ever a thing in the first place.
All I can do is point to the pebble laying amongst all the other identical pebbles on the beach and say "That's mine! I have a receipt to prove it, go to this website to see my receipt!". I don't think that bragging right is worth more than the resource cost of producing the NFT in the first place - the usage case for NFTs when the data it references isn't unique and can be effortlessly reproduced and doesn't need to be and indeed can't be hidden behind a token just doesn't logic.
I suppose my conclusion in my above post has pretty much sunk discussion - I'd be delighted to discuss how my conclusion may not be the case, because right now it seems like one of the Epiphany Toilet moments.
I was trying to think of a way to respond, then some work intervened. You got it backwards. It's not about the pebbles on the beach, it's about keeping the next "Mona Lisa" from becoming a pebble.
I suppose my conclusion in my above post has pretty much sunk discussion - I'd be delighted to discuss how my conclusion may not be the case, because right now it seems like one of the Epiphany Toilet moments.
Didn't watch ol Jim's vid, he lost his credibility for me ages ago.
As a CG artist I considered doing NFT s and you got it mostly right, it's absurd BS. In other words, welcome to one of the biggest scams of the 21st century!
First, a long winded aside from my perspective:
In my case, digital artists, the ones who were already making gajillions just by posting daily trash on their instagram like Beeple, wanted a system that would allow them to sell their art for even more, to make them feel like traditional artists so that they could have their pieces auctioned off for millions, just like "real" artists do with "real" art.
They needed an easy to use, trendy, seemingly safe and secure way to do it. NFT popped up as the solution.
- It's trendy and safe cos blockchain technology yaay (no it isn't, in this case anyways)
- it's easily accessible cos it uses Ether, so all the apps, wallets, and other background systems are already there
- it's universal, there isn't a relevant place on Earth where they haven't heard about crypto
- it carries a whiff of rebellion with it with the words like "decentralized", something that is very trendy in todays heated political climate, especially among the artsy crowd, so it's sure to attract tons of ppl
The reality is that those who already had a massive following got even richer overnight, with thousands of artists investing and never seeing a return, ever.
- NFT's do not provide security against "art theft", they were not really intended to do so. Your digital assett can still be copied and used illegally just like before, and you still need to sue and provide actual proof of ownership, which NFT's are not, in a court room to get any compensation. This might change over time, just like with crypto, but I doubt it will be fast change.
- Decentralization is the point when using blockchain, as in no individual/corpo owns it. With an NFT, it get's "minted" by a corp. You do own it, kinda, but you need the corp to validate it for you via the blockchain. So much for you owning it... Same would be the issue with EA and the like doing this. You do not actually have full control over it.
- environmental impact: it's really bad. With Ether 2.0 this should get less bad, but currently any time a transaction takes place, it needs to get validated by the blockchain, which means more mining by millions of computers for one to finally solve the validation. This is obviously tons and tons of carbon emissions wasted for nothing.
- the art markets are an unorganized mess, with millions of "art" that is just utter trash. The only way to make money off of it is if you were already making money off of your art and ppl know you. There is zero "customer support", hidden behind the fake "decentralized" tag
- Royalties: any time a transaction takes place the original artist who got that NFT minted, takes a cut if they set it up that way on the marketplace. This is great and everything, but what happens when that marketplace shuts down? Who's gonna pay you? If you just get a piece of Ether with every transaction, that's great, but who's gonna pay out? This is a global issue with the crypto scam... so anyways...
- There is literally nothing stopping anyone from stealing a digital asset and minting it, creating a fake proof of ownership. This was already a huge issue before NFTs, and this just muddies the waters even more with NFT's not being in law. Let's say I take that picture of your avatar via screenshot and mint it, and say that it's mine, and make money off of it. You would then have to sue me personally somehow, if you could even find out about it happening, and then provide proof that it's your piece of art. If I made a ton of money off your art, you couldn't really win. I'd either buy you out or bleed you dry via the money I made off of your art.
What I see corpos like EA doing with this:
- create a market for digital assets where they say you own something "unique" while you don't actually do so. Because they would be holding the keys, you would have to go through them every time, and obviously more copies could be made any time.
- this in turn leads to tons of profit for the corp: they get money for the original asset's sale, they get paid for every transaction that takes place cos overhead costs, they get a cut from every consequent sale of that asset cos of the royalty system
- they still retain control over the assett as the original creator that minted the NFT for the asset
- they could do other things like sell you something that they couldn't really monetize until now: allow the players to NFT screenshots taken in a game's photo mode for example. They then would have the same as above with control and money flowing in.
- it is already ridiculous that ppl pay real money for things like knife skins in CS. If corpos apply NFT to these assets, they could take control, and earn from these transactions taht currently take place on the black market
I think this will happen over time, it's kinda innevitable with the hype of crypto. Just like selling you horse armor or more recently a single red pixel as a DLC is somehow became an acceptable practice, they will make this happen as long as it makes them more money than it costs.
@Vavrik
I see they sold you the right idea, too bad it's a lie, for now at least. The system doesn't prevent the next Mona Lisa from becoming a pebble. There is nothing in the system to prevent that.
It only allows certain ppl who are recognized as have already made the next Mona Lisa to sell the next Mona Lisa for the price of the old Mona Lisa, 20, 50, 999999 times if they want to. There's nothing inherently wrong with that idea, and it has a chance to sort itself out, and then I'll jump on it as a digital artist myself. But in it's current form it's centralized, and it's a game for speculators and the already established to get more fat while everyone else who jumps in looses. Kinda like the stock market just even less controlled and unregulated. Read above...
Didn't watch ol Jim's vid, he lost his credibility for me ages ago.
As a CG artist I considered doing NFT s and you got it mostly right, it's absurd BS. In other words, welcome to one of the biggest scams of the 21st century!
First, a long winded aside from my perspective:
In my case, digital artists, the ones who were already making gajillions just by posting daily trash on their instagram like Beeple, wanted a system that would allow them to sell their art for even more, to make them feel like traditional artists so that they could have their pieces auctioned off for millions, just like "real" artists do with "real" art.
They needed an easy to use, trendy, seemingly safe and secure way to do it. NFT popped up as the solution.
- It's trendy and safe cos blockchain technology yaay (no it isn't, in this case anyways)
- it's easily accessible cos it uses Ether, so all the apps, wallets, and other background systems are already there
- it's universal, there isn't a relevant place on Earth where they haven't heard about crypto
- it carries a whiff of rebellion with it with the words like "decentralized", something that is very trendy in todays heated political climate, especially among the artsy crowd, so it's sure to attract tons of ppl
The reality is that those who already had a massive following got even richer overnight, with thousands of artists investing and never seeing a return, ever.
- NFT's do not provide security against "art theft", they were not really intended to do so. Your digital assett can still be copied and used illegally just like before, and you still need to sue and provide actual proof of ownership, which NFT's are not, in a court room to get any compensation. This might change over time, just like with crypto, but I doubt it will be fast change.
- Decentralization is the point when using blockchain, as in no individual/corpo owns it. With an NFT, it get's "minted" by a corp. You do own it, kinda, but you need the corp to validate it for you via the blockchain. So much for you owning it... Same would be the issue with EA and the like doing this. You do not actually have full control over it.
- environmental impact: it's really bad. With Ether 2.0 this should get less bad, but currently any time a transaction takes place, it needs to get validated by the blockchain, which means more mining by millions of computers for one to finally solve the validation. This is obviously tons and tons of carbon emissions wasted for nothing.
- the art markets are an unorganized mess, with millions of "art" that is just utter trash. The only way to make money off of it is if you were already making money off of your art and ppl know you. There is zero "customer support", hidden behind the fake "decentralized" tag
- Royalties: any time a transaction takes place the original artist who got that NFT minted, takes a cut if they set it up that way on the marketplace. This is great and everything, but what happens when that marketplace shuts down? Who's gonna pay you? If you just get a piece of Ether with every transaction, that's great, but who's gonna pay out? This is a global issue with the crypto scam... so anyways...
- There is literally nothing stopping anyone from stealing a digital asset and minting it, creating a fake proof of ownership. This was already a huge issue before NFTs, and this just muddies the waters even more with NFT's not being in law. Let's say I take that picture of your avatar via screenshot and mint it, and say that it's mine, and make money off of it. You would then have to sue me personally somehow, if you could even find out about it happening, and then provide proof that it's your piece of art. If I made a ton of money off your art, you couldn't really win. I'd either buy you out or bleed you dry via the money I made off of your art.
What I see corpos like EA doing with this:
- create a market for digital assets where they say you own something "unique" while you don't actually do so. Because they would be holding the keys, you would have to go through them every time, and obviously more copies could be made any time.
- this in turn leads to tons of profit for the corp: they get money for the original asset's sale, they get paid for every transaction that takes place cos overhead costs, they get a cut from every consequent sale of that asset cos of the royalty system
- they still retain control over the assett as the original creator that minted the NFT for the asset
- they could do other things like sell you something that they couldn't really monetize until now: allow the players to NFT screenshots taken in a game's photo mode for example. They then would have the same as above with control and money flowing in.
- it is already ridiculous that ppl pay real money for things like knife skins in CS. If corpos apply NFT to these assets, they could take control, and earn from these transactions taht currently take place on the black market
I think this will happen over time, it's kinda innevitable with the hype of crypto. Just like selling you horse armor or more recently a single red pixel as a DLC is somehow became an acceptable practice, they will make this happen as long as it makes them more money than it costs.
@Vavrik
I see they sold you the right idea, too bad it's a lie, for now at least. The system doesn't prevent the next Mona Lisa from becoming a pebble. There is nothing in the system to prevent that.
It only allows certain ppl who are recognized as have already made the next Mona Lisa to sell the next Mona Lisa for the price of the old Mona Lisa, 20, 50, 999999 times if they want to. There's nothing inherently wrong with that idea, and it has a chance to sort itself out, and then I'll jump on it as a digital artist myself. But in it's current form it's centralized, and it's a game for speculators and the already established to get more fat while everyone else who jumps in looses. Kinda like the stock market just even less controlled and unregulated. Read above...
"they get money for the original asset's sale, they get paid for every transaction that takes place cos overhead costs, they get a cut from every consequent sale of that asset cos of the royalty system"
Ahhh I can see why EA are so hot on NFTs now - if set up properly it is their in on the the second hand and player assets market. It's something that used to piss off the games pubishers that people could sell their CD ROMs on with no royalties to the creators. Making Game assets and maybe even games themselves tied to NFT blockchains sounds like the plan to get a pecentage cut of player-to-player sales.
Feels like Games have had more time and money spent on how to Monetize them than spent on making the actual games, these days.
Just wish they'd stop dressing us as doing the players a favour and just say "it's our Fun Fair and you have to pay to go on the rides, over and over again."
I wouldn't go so far as to say Game developers or game studios as they typically are very focused on making a game. But publishers on the other hand are very keen on attempting to squeeze every last penny from the sale of said game.
I see they sold you the right idea, too bad it's a lie, for now at least. The system doesn't prevent the next Mona Lisa from becoming a pebble. There is nothing in the system to prevent that.
It only allows certain ppl who are recognized as have already made the next Mona Lisa to sell the next Mona Lisa for the price of the old Mona Lisa, 20, 50, 999999 times if they want to. There's nothing inherently wrong with that idea, and it has a chance to sort itself out, and then I'll jump on it as a digital artist myself. But in it's current form it's centralized, and it's a game for speculators and the already established to get more fat while everyone else who jumps in looses. Kinda like the stock market just even less controlled and unregulated. Read above...
I'm not sure how an "interesting concept" translates to "sold" just because I explained it a little. There is a gap between the two points of view. There was also a thinly veiled warning in what I wrote. Read what I wrote about Roman Generals. That is the reason I do not own any crypto-currency. A single bad actor can ruin your day, or for some their life.
But you also have the concept of crypto mining wrong, but that's OK almost everyone does. You aren't unlocking the keys to say, Bitcoin when you're mining, you're validating a financial transaction that used the currency. (Incredibly simplified) Miners are taking the place here of an accountant. The transaction keys are meant to be validated, and the validation has a value which you can earn.
I can illustrate the difference... if you're interested.
This is a minable key: C15BE87B7DB7AB2748A1549131EAFCC64993F00100DC3D0CCEE6108DD0F86631
the unlock key is 933666543. Don't worry, the value represented is the value null, and that doesn't give you any information about any other transaction in the system that generated it.
This is what a non-fungible key looks like. It is not minable, just unique:
Here is the identity of the asset that the above token references. It is the same length as the minable token, except it has no unlock key to mine. Instead it just represents an asset that can be sold, like a space ship in a game or a service, or a car for that matter.
03EAD9FBA2F92DCA36429D85692B73DAE09576979AB87F0246DCC7EF7736A410
Note the similarity between the fungible token in the first example, and the identity key in the second. They're called GUID's.
I purposely used only 128 bit encryption... it makes sure that this stuff doesn't generate pages of text here.
I'm not sure how an "interesting concept" translates to "sold" just because I explained it a little. There is a gap between the two points of view. There was also a thinly veiled warning in what I wrote. Read what I wrote about Roman Generals. That is the reason I do not own any crypto-currency. A single bad actor can ruin your day, or for some their life.
But you also have the concept of crypto mining wrong, but that's OK almost everyone does. You aren't unlocking the keys to say, Bitcoin when you're mining, you're validating a financial transaction that used the currency. (Incredibly simplified) Miners are taking the place here of an accountant. The transaction keys are meant to be validated, and the validation has a value which you can earn.
I can illustrate the difference... if you're interested.
This is a minable key: C15BE87B7DB7AB2748A1549131EAFCC64993F00100DC3D0CCEE6108DD0F86631
the unlock key is 933666543. Don't worry, the value represented is the value null, and that doesn't give you any information about any other transaction in the system that generated it.
This is what a non-fungible key looks like. It is not minable, just unique:
Here is the identity of the asset that the above token references. It is the same length as the minable token, except it has no unlock key to mine. Instead it just represents an asset that can be sold, like a space ship in a game or a service, or a car for that matter.
03EAD9FBA2F92DCA36429D85692B73DAE09576979AB87F0246DCC7EF7736A410
Note the similarity between the fungible token in the first example, and the identity key in the second. They're called GUID's.
Sorry I came off a bit harsh, my English can be rough sometimes, I was in a bit of a hurry. My apologies.
I didn't want to go into a long winded explanation as to in mining / validating. The point is its wasted energy thus wasted emissions, thus tangible environmental impact of the bad kind.
That's why 2.0 should be better as its not proof of work...
I read your warning and I agree.
When it's a 100% in the hands of a publisher, cos they use their own crypto administrated by their own ledgers on their own servers, it loses the point of having it in the first place. But that's what they are planning to do. It becomes a marketing term for buying microtransactions basically.
The idea behind nfts isn't new, the need for a universally usable unique secure identifier of digital ownership exists since forever. Nfts are the newest kid on the block thus demand is high thus prices are skyrocketing. If its here to stay, we shall see..
Hey, that's OK. I didn't take offence, just wanted to make sure I was clear about my position. I'm a computer software geek, though I have other words to describe it. I also have a lot of problems expressing thoughts, and that has nothing to do with software. Nasty shit I never even knew existed that can happen to people happened to me.
Thing is you're right to take this crypto stuff with a little healthy skepticism, we already see what happens to people who don't think about bad actors in crypto, a few times a week now. Look in Google News for "crypto currency fraud".
