Remember when NFTs sold for millions of dollars? 95% of the digital collectibles are now probably worthless.::NFTs had a huge bull run two years ago, with billions of dollars per month in trading volume, but now most have crashed to zero, a study found.

  • peopleproblems@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I find it fascinating that NFTs were supposed to be a proof-of-ownership technology, but because people are stupid & greedy made pictures to sell with it

    • SlopppyEngineer
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      1 year ago

      It always reminds me of those certificates for owning a piece of the moon.

      • Syndic@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        Because it’s pretty much the same.

        At the very core ownership that isn’t recognised by the state is meaningless. So that ape picture? No one really cares about some guy claiming to own it because they have control over the token. As long as it’s on the internet everyone can just copy it and there’s no authority caring about it one bit since NFT isn’t recognised as for example copyright is.

        Even when it comes to stuff like items in games, these also are only worth anything as long as the publisher of the game recognises your claim to it! And even if they did recognise it, there’s absolutely nothing preventing them from changing their minds later. Simply because they create the game however they like and have 100% control over it’s development.

        • deadlyduplicate@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Except it’s not ownership, it is digital rights management. Right now DRM is handled by private corporations, not the state, and it generally is anti-consumer. NFTs could be used for DRM in a more pro consumer way.

            • deadlyduplicate@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Absolutely, companies are not going to just decide to implement NFTs in a way that gives more control to users unless it means more money for them. Does change the fact that the technology has that potential, even if it remain unutilized.

          • Syndic@feddit.de
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            1 year ago

            NFTs could be used for DRM in a more pro consumer way.

            Only if the companies in charge would allow that. And they really have zero incentive to do so. The way it currently is, is way more profitable for them.

    • lps2@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      What confused the fuck outta me as someone who has been in the crypto space since 2010 is that it wasn’t new or novel in any way. Colored Coins was virtually the same thing and it flopped in a similar fashion and there were several similar projects that did the same or never made it off the ground. Then, some shitty monkey drawings come along, are backed by virtually the same thing I had seen before and suddenly people I knew from my hometown who barely had two brain cells to rub together were claiming to be financial and tech gurus while peppering “block chain” into conversation. The one thing that brings me solace is that they all lost their investments

      • untrainedtribble@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Right, when NFT’s we’re going crazy, the pictures and shit didn’t make sense to me at all but there’s a huge opportunity for digital ownership of physical materials like cars or houses. It would make private sales/transfers easy. All title information on the house would be recorded and attached in the blockchain so when you go to sell your home, you can prove there aren’t any liens against the home and once financing has been approved, transfer the ownership on the blockchain and done. That’s where I always saw the practical application going but now nobody will take NFT’s seriously until it’s named something else and rolled out with government approval and systems in place or nobody will feel safe transferring such a large investment digitally

        • wmassingham@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          All title information on the house would be recorded and attached in the blockchain so when you go to sell your home, you can prove there aren’t any liens against the home

          Don’t we already have state or local databases for stuff like houses and cars? How does the blockchain stuff add anything?

          • peopleproblems@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            The difference is that you can’t retroactively edit the block chain, and the block chain contains all the data in it.

            Databases can be edited, deleted, corrupted, poorly maintained, etc.

            Think of the block chain like a permanent audit log of all transactions with it.

            Edit: the NFT exists as a value in the block chain as the “point of origin”. As this value is carried forward, the blockchain will always point back to the original.

            That’s why the whole pictures thing fucked it all up and we missed out on powerful tech. It could have essentially saved lives in critical machines and made PII tracking easier.

              • peopleproblems@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                No, they can’t. The article you point to mentioned stolen crypto. Crypto can be stolen if someone has the private keys to a wallet.

                A block chain is algorithmically verified by members of the network.

    • Emerald@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      but because people are stupid & greedy made pictures to sell with it

      Can you blame them? If I gave someone a photo and then they offered to give me $1,000 if I also would write down a unique number, then I would without hesitation write down a random number and get my grand.