Remember how you wondered how NFT's are worth anything? Here is a definitive answer....

Well a lot of them probably aren't, not anymore.

Someone actually posted, for free download, "all NFTs from Ethereum and Solana" - two cryptocurrency networks - in a whopping 17 terabyte (TB) file." on a site they created called The NFT Bay.  I found the site, checked it, and yes, they are there.  BTW, it looks like many 10's of thousands of downloads (or at least started) already!

I am sorry for you loss, but damn, I find this pretty damn funny: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-59262326

If you want to see the site: WARNING, this IS a torrent pirate site, which may cause alarm for some, (or their ISP's): https://thenftbay.org/description.html

Here is the descriptor text for the file:

If you could post 911's on the web for free download, would they be worth anything?

In reply to aircooled :

If you own a 911 you can't drive, do you really own a car?

In reply to aircooled :

That's hilarious!

Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to aircooled :

If you own a 911 you can't drive, do you really own a car?

For my question, and for proper comparison, it would need to be an exact, functional copy.  (BTW, I have downloaded a number of 911's I CAN drive, but only virtually...)

I am reading a bit more, and apparently NFT's never actually give you anything, other than effectively a receipt that you bought it, which also in no way limits more being sold(!).  Here is part of a discussion (and makes NFT's even sillier).  Maybe this makes this leak less critical then implied?  Since it's the record of sale that is important (but still stupid)?

So you don’t transfer copyrights with that purchase?

No, legally there are no rights transferred by buying the NFT. It would take courts recognizing NFTs as legally-binding proof of ownership for this to happen.

If you saw somebody with the same art going around can you stop that person to of disseminating that particular art?

No, absolutely not. Copyright would let you do that, but NFTs don't confer copyrights.

What stops the original artist of selling the same copies of the art multiple times?

Nothing, in fact this is openly the case in many scenarios. You'll see NFTs that have "limited runs" of tens or hundreds or thousands of copies, all ultimately pointing to the same thing (usually some kind of artwork). In theory there's actually nothing stopping anybody from minting their own NFTs with the same content as an existing NFT. In reality, each NFT community has a canonical blockchain that they regard as "legitimate," and an identical NFT copied to another blockchain would therefore be regarded as "illegitimate" and not as valuable.

I've read some articles and heard NPR excitedly reporting on NFTs and thought that somehow I just wasn't quite understanding how it all worked. Now I think I understood all along.

File this under dumb things to spend money on.  

AAZCD (Forum Supporter) said:

I've read some articles and heard NPR excitedly reporting on NFTs and thought that somehow I just wasn't quite understanding how it all worked. Now I think I understood all along.

I'm wondering when the same thing will happen with cryptocurrency.

AAZCD (Forum Supporter) said:

I've read some articles and heard NPR excitedly reporting on NFTs and thought that somehow I just wasn't quite understanding how it all worked. Now I think I understood all along.

Lol.  This is exactly how I feel.

I see it as the same thing as early crypto.  Right now it is absolutely dumb, but maybe in 5-10 years it'll not be stupid.

Mr_Asa said:

I see it as the same thing as early crypto.  Right now it is absolutely dumb, but maybe in 5-10 years it'll not be stupid.

If Crypto currencies actually become stable and viable currencies, I would expect them to make as much sense to invest in as any other functional currency.

Beer Baron said:

Mr_Asa said:

I see it as the same thing as early crypto.  Right now it is absolutely dumb, but maybe in 5-10 years it'll not be stupid.

If Crypto currencies actually become stable and viable currencies, I would expect them to make as much sense to invest in as any other functional currency.

Because cryptocurrencies aren't as stable as traditional fiat currencies doesn't mean that it makes no sense to invest in them.

There was never anything keeping anyone from downloading any NFT they wanted at any time. An NFT isn't an unbreakable DRM scheme, it's just a record of ownership...and you could start your own blockchain where you denote yourself as the owner of everything on Earth, and the only thing that would give it less authority than the established options would be historical precedent.

Next, this isn't a collection of ALL NFTs, it's just a large collection of NFTs, all but 10GB of it is filler material (Edit: And even the 10GB that appears to contain something has not been extracted and may be garbage as well):

https://www.clubnft.com/blog/the-trillion-byte-let-down

If that all makes NFTs sound very stupid...well yes, they are. The only real use for them is as money laundering tokens - like trading high-end artworks, except anyone can generate more of this "artwork" at will with a simple doodle or algorithmically generated pics of apes wearing sunglasses.

This is the appropriate response, right?

An NFT might make sense if you viewed it in a similar way as a donation via Paetron, or putting some money in a street musician's bucket - "Thanks for donating to online art project XYZ - here's an official token of appreciation!" What's baffled me is how people seem to be willing to pay to use them in other ways - e.g. somebody creating a token for somebody else's Twitter post, and finding a buyer for it.

Crypto currencies can have similar stability to some currencies, which can be very unstable (and / or heavily manipulated) and is why currency investments can be very risky (JUST talked to a guy who lost a LOT of money betting on the Dinar!).  Comparing CC stability to the dollar is where it gets very silly (stability wise).

NFT's (as far as I can tell) are kind of like a CC that you can print yourself and sell to other people.... and print more at anytime (without the limits inherent in CC).  The only "value" is that the "bill" you print should have some sort design that appeals to someone.  

BTW, it is highly likely that a lot of current NFT's have been bought with CC.  There are a number of people who have made huge amounts in CC and either don't want to pay taxes on purchases, may not be be able to liquidate large amounts into cash or simply laundering CC as noted above.

My keyboard has an art heist button:

These folks are going to realize that they've pissed away a lot of money on nothing. 

The money laundering folks don't care that their art tokens were compromised. 

Mr_Asa said:

Beer Baron said:

Mr_Asa said:

I see it as the same thing as early crypto.  Right now it is absolutely dumb, but maybe in 5-10 years it'll not be stupid.

If Crypto currencies actually become stable and viable currencies, I would expect them to make as much sense to invest in as any other functional currency.

Because cryptocurrencies aren't as stable as traditional fiat currencies doesn't mean that it makes no sense to invest in them.

I don't like the idea of 'investing' in currency. You invest in real estate. You invest in stocks. You can even invest in an old 911 that doesn't run.

Currency is a means of exchange. Not an investment.

That's not how it works. That's not how any of this works.  I don't own any NFT's but have a better idea of how they work than this guy who thinks he stole all of them. I have an interest in this stuff cuz cryptography is kinda neato and this is new and world-changing stuff. 

 Gameboy RFH's link helps to explain a bit more, https://www.clubnft.com/blog/the-trillion-byte-let-down , an NFT is a one of one. Yes you can right click/save as, but you can take a photo of a painting at a museum, but that doesn't mean you stole the painting. I'm cribbing a bunch of this explanation from my cousin who's been studying this crap for some number of years. A “token” is any marker of value within a system.  A“fungible token” is anything that can be replaced with anything else that is equal in terms of the system. One dollar bill is the same as any other dollar bill for purposes of buying and selling stuff.  A “non-fungible token”, on the other hand is unique by definition. Every node on the blockchain agrees that there is exactly one whatever it is. It can literally be anything. On the Etherium blockchain, which is "Turing complete" (ie the language that Ethereum is written in is sophisticated enough that you can write all of Ethereum in Ethereum. Fundamentally this means that anything you can do in, say, OS X or Win10 can be done in Ethereum), means it can prettymuch do anything, record anything, again on a counterfeit-proof distributed ledger. Everything under the sun can be given a title, like a car or a house or a boat or a motorcycle. Anything under the sun can get better-than-DMV-grade ownership credentials. Every time it changes hands, every node on the blockchain acknowledges that it has changed hands, and it can’t change hands without every node on the blockchain agreeing that the exchange was kosher and followed the rules. So you can own an NFT of some silly little 8bit GIF. And someone else can rightclick/save as, buuuut what that guy doesn’t understand is that only one person can ever own that dumb 8bit GIF. Only one person can ever sell that gif. Think of it like naming rights to a stadium, or those your-name-on it bricks you can buy at that revived city center project - anybody can walk on them but there’s only room for one name there, and that name is yours and yours alone. People ar juuust starting to see what that implies. Like "this is a one of one baseball card".  NBA Top Shot did $300m in sales between March and May this year. Sure - any schmuck can screenshot your Alonzo Mourning dunk against Shaq but anybody on the platform can see that you are the fan that wanted naming rights to that dunk. It's wierd, but there it is.

Right now, I think this ability to hold unimpeachable title on anything is being hugely underutilized. People are using them to monetize their instagram avatars. Or buy and sell really, srsly dumb "artwork". It's like buying a Ferrari and using it for absolutely nothing except toasting marshmallows on the exhaust. But folk *are* starting to see what can be done (VISA is on the etherium blockchain now), and I 'spect lots and lots of things are gonna change. But I still ain't gonna buy a Bored Ape... 

In reply to Jay_W :

You can yak about it all you want but an image on a blockchain is NOT the same as a Ferrari. I can own a toothpick that is different from every other toothpick in the world and it is not the same as owning a Gulfstream IV, even if I don't know how to fly and never use it.

Valid point, man. But the Intertoobz of Things is coming, and I 'spect that Gulfstream's paperwork is gonna be on the Ether blockchain soon. The high end watch industry has been authenticating their stuff for a few years now. I wish I knew where this tech is going, but a futurist I ain't. Maybe it's a tulip bubble, maybe it's a gamechanger. 

https://www.intotheminds.com/blog/en/blockchain-luxury-watchmaking/

In reply to Jay_W :

Holy crap, the watch article.

Never even considered blockchain being used that way but this is going to change the high end auction world a lot. 

Being able to prove provenance like that will be amazing.

Beer Baron said:

AAZCD (Forum Supporter) said:

I've read some articles and heard NPR excitedly reporting on NFTs and thought that somehow I just wasn't quite understanding how it all worked. Now I think I understood all along.

I'm wondering when the same thing will happen with cryptocurrency.

I really hope so.