WTF are NFT's?

[noisyturtle]

I have read so many articles going over the same exact info, and I get what an NFT is, but what is the actual function of an NFT? What does the owner use it for? I don't understand what the buyer is paying for.
ex. BTC is a currency, you use it in exchange for goods and services, what function does the NFT give the owner?

[fohat.digs]

Create a work of art and post it online and it will be downloaded and distributed everywhere, instantly, for free. Maybe you only posted a low-resolution version, but whateves.

Sell "x" number of them to collectors for real money, and will they turn around and post them for free? Of course not.

[noisyturtle]

Create a work of art and post it online and it will be downloaded and distributed everywhere, instantly, for free. Maybe you only posted a low-resolution version, but whateves.

Sell "x" number of them to collectors for real money, and will they turn around and post them for free? Of course not.

so overpriced Shutterstock images?

[Leslieann]

Non-fungible token, it's basically blockchain being used to limit the sales of digital art.

Personally, I think the whole idea is pretty f'ing stupid, someone just spent millions on a peice of digital artwork. It's DIGITAL, Oh you have the authentication code, well then!  No disrespect to digital artists, you do great work, but this is just dumb. Blah blah blockchain. I'm a computer tech, don't tell me something digital can't be pirated/cracked/copied, it's only a mater of when and how.

[yui]

also not to disrespect artist but a piece of digital art can be sold a theoretically infinite number of time, at no extra cost to the seller, while physical art can only be unique, or very close to it, i just fell like limiting something digital to a number of copy is rather pointless...

[Leslieann]

also not to disrespect artist but a piece of digital art can be sold a theoretically infinite number of time, at no extra cost to the seller, while physical art can only be unique, or very close to it, i just fell like limiting something digital to a number of copy is rather pointless...

BUT! BUT! It has a unique blockchain number!

Are you paying for the exclusive blockchain number or the actual art? I always wonder if stuff like this happens because someone is completely ignorant of technology, wants the notoriety or if it's simply a money laundering scam.

[Darthbaggins]

also not to disrespect artist but a piece of digital art can be sold a theoretically infinite number of time, at no extra cost to the seller, while physical art can only be unique, or very close to it, i just fell like limiting something digital to a number of copy is rather pointless...

Physical art can be replicated numerous times as well - a majority of your professional artists make multiple replications of a piece and it is still classified as an "original" since only the original artist produced the piece (Photographers and Painters are known to do this). 
But I do get the whole Digital based headache - imo there is nothing truly stopping someone from replicating a digital piece after they purchase.

[tp4tissue]

also not to disrespect artist but a piece of digital art can be sold a theoretically infinite number of time, at no extra cost to the seller, while physical art can only be unique, or very close to it, i just fell like limiting something digital to a number of copy is rather pointless...

BUT! BUT! It has a unique blockchain number!

Are you paying for the exclusive blockchain number or the actual art? I always wonder if stuff like this happens because someone is completely ignorant of technology, wants the notoriety or if it's simply a money laundering scam.

You're paying for both.

For example, Historically, The Chinese painting market was dominated by nobles, who would adendum Their-OWN Seal onto extended portions of the painting scroll as an authentication of transfer/passing.

So you have these priceless paintings, and they'd have the name seals sometimes even hundreds of people's seals on a separate extension of the scroll.

You tell me what's valuable,  the painting, or the Jade Seal of multiple Emperors of China on a single scroll. ??  What's the price of that ?

[Leslieann]

Physical art can be replicated numerous times as well - a majority of your professional artists make multiple replications of a piece and it is still classified as an "original" since only the original artist produced the piece (Photographers and Painters are known to do this). 
But I do get the whole Digital based headache - imo there is nothing truly stopping someone from replicating a digital piece after they purchase.

Most times when they do this the original file is locked away and if screen printed, the screen is destroyed so yes it's replicated multiple times but little to no one has access to the original digital file. In this case they are selling the digital file, and images of that file are widely distributed since you can't really show it without showing a copy of said digital file.

You tell me what's valuable,  the painting, or the Jade Seal of multiple Emperors of China on a single scroll. ??  What's the price of that ?

You're talking about a royal seal, and generations on.

In this case we're talking a modern creation, no historical background and the only background it has amounts to a digital fingerprint or cookie. It's not something physical that someone famous touched like a royal badge. If I had an internet Explorer cookie from George Bush's computer from 10 years ago is that worth anything? How about the Queen? It's digital, it in itself has no value because it can be copied infinite times.

The whole point of that jade seal was that it was difficult to copy, between it and the names that followed is not possible to really duplicate, or at least not easily, the same cannot be said for something digital. But blockchain!, blockchain is marketing bullsh*t. It does have a real use, and technically this is one of them but it's creating scarcity for the sake of pointless wealth, nothing more. No one worked hard to create that scarcity, it's purposely artificial, you can find reduced images of this picture, the only thing special about the "original" is that it has a digital cookie saying it's the original.  So you have 1 of 5 million copies (not unreasonable considering caching) and the only real difference is a digital cookie attached to yours saying it's special.  Wearing a t-shirt that says "I'm special" doesn't make you special in any sense of the word (okay maybe one way).

Imagine Leonardo made 5,000,000 copies of the Mona Lisa at $2 each, but one of them had a tiny mark on back proving that it has a mark on the back. Should it be valued at $60Mil vs $2? That's really the equivalent of what we're dealing with. We're saying one of many is special because, because we said it's special for some mundane reason.


And yes I know that's sort of how art works but I also think even artists know a LOT of the art world is bullsh*t.

[noisyturtle]

I still don't understand how the .jpeg I have saved of a $69 million NFT is any different than the real one. Why is mine not worth $69M? I can just repost this one anywhere, anyone can save them after seeing them. I still don't understand what function they have at all?
why are they worth anything if anyone can have it? it is not a physical painting. I don't understand what they are buying.

[cthalupa]

also not to disrespect artist but a piece of digital art can be sold a theoretically infinite number of time, at no extra cost to the seller, while physical art can only be unique, or very close to it, i just fell like limiting something digital to a number of copy is rather pointless...

Physical art can be replicated numerous times as well - a majority of your professional artists make multiple replications of a piece and it is still classified as an "original" since only the original artist produced the piece (Photographers and Painters are known to do this). 
But I do get the whole Digital based headache - imo there is nothing truly stopping someone from replicating a digital piece after they purchase.

I buy a decent amount of art, and I would say in my experience it is rare for artists to make multiple replications of a piece and call it an original - certainly not the majority. These would generally be called prints, and if they are limited, they might still sell for quite a lot of money. Some painters might paint more or less the same piece and then perform different embellishments on them, and call them all originals, but these will generally land somewhere between a print and a true one-off original in pricing.

No idea on photographers, especially since the vast majority work with digital cameras these days. I suppose an original would be a one off print from the high resolution source?

But to pull everything back to NFTs, I consider them similar to the certificates of authenticity you get with some pieces, including prints. Potentially interesting if you're in the market of trying to flip art, and perhaps a bit more interesting since it's digital - traditional appraisal methods can't work, because a true copy of the file should be accurate to the bit. But as someone who buys art because I want to hang it on my walls, I don't see value in it.

[hwood34]

nonsense

[mikestah]

I still don't understand how the .jpeg I have saved of a $69 million NFT is any different than the real one. Why is mine not worth $69M? I can just repost this one anywhere, anyone can save them after seeing them. I still don't understand what function they have at all?
why are they worth anything if anyone can have it? it is not a physical painting. I don't understand what they are buying.
(Attachment Link)
(Attachment Link)

AFAIK they don't really have any function. Its just a numbered piece of crypto, but for some reason crypto #200 is worth $69M while crypto #201 is worth $10.

[noisyturtle]

I still don't understand how the .jpeg I have saved of a $69 million NFT is any different than the real one. Why is mine not worth $69M? I can just repost this one anywhere, anyone can save them after seeing them. I still don't understand what function they have at all?
why are they worth anything if anyone can have it? it is not a physical painting. I don't understand what they are buying.
(Attachment Link)
(Attachment Link)

AFAIK they don't really have any function. Its just a numbered piece of crypto, but for some reason crypto #200 is worth $69M while crypto #201 is worth $10.

It honestly just seems like a meme way for the young super rich to flex how much money they can afford to throw away.

[noisyturtle]

I still don't understand how the .jpeg I have saved of a $69 million NFT is any different than the real one. Why is mine not worth $69M? I can just repost this one anywhere, anyone can save them after seeing them. I still don't understand what function they have at all?
why are they worth anything if anyone can have it? it is not a physical painting. I don't understand what they are buying.
(Attachment Link)
(Attachment Link)

AFAIK they don't really have any function. Its just a numbered piece of crypto, but for some reason crypto #200 is worth $69M while crypto #201 is worth $10.

It honestly just seems like a meme way for the young super rich to flex how much money they can afford to throw away.

Ahh I was wrong again!
It's just for money laundering. Now the stupidity of it all makes perfect sense.

[TacticalCoder]

NFTs aren't just for art and I'd say it's a bit weird to see NFT used to sell digital art.


You can use NFT to represent, say, unique cards in a collectible/tradable card game. For example my little collection of (non digital) "Magic The Gathering" cards is worth quite a lot of money now: take the card "The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale"... That's few Ks EUR for a single card. When people want to trade that, it can be problematic: there are are professional sellers helping people sell their collection just so they don't get scammed. There are chinese copies, people having cards graded then selling a less graded card with the higher grade, etc.


Well if you have the digital equivalent: a collectible/tradable card game online, then you can represent the rare cards as NFTs. Then you can guarantee that the seller is the actual seller and you can even be sure that if you pay you'll get the card. This can all be "proved" in a blockchain, by smartcontracts.


To me in that case NFTs make sense. Heck, people do play games, do pay for items/cards. Some are more valuable than others and the rarity / weird mods and whatnots are what can make the game great. It certainly "works" for Magic The Gathering and for old baseball cards. So why not in a digital form?


You could also tie a NFT to a real-world item as some kind of "property title". There could still be scams but at least scams are then harder to pull off: say I sell you an industrial Model M mini for which I own the (hypothetical) NFT... Well a scammer wanting to sell it would need the NFT and I'm the only one to have it.


I can see usecases: I won't say it's all dumb and has no use.  Now are they going to take off or will the hysteria/craze/non-sense going on atm kill the idea? No clue...

I mean: think of all the people here on this very site posting a picture of they keyboard for sale with a piece of paper alongside the keyboard with their nickname and date on it... That's quite low tech. It doesn't prevent all the scams. Yet people still do it and the reason they do it is it prevents certain scams. Well NFTs could help prevent a lot (not all) scams.

[fairypenguin]

NFTs aren't just for art and I'd say it's a bit weird to see NFT used to sell digital art.


You can use NFT to represent, say, unique cards in a collectible/tradable card game. For example my little collection of (non digital) "Magic The Gathering" cards is worth quite a lot of money now: take the card "The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale"... That's few Ks EUR for a single card. When people want to trade that, it can be problematic: there are are professional sellers helping people sell their collection just so they don't get scammed. There are chinese copies, people having cards graded then selling a less graded card with the higher grade, etc.


Well if you have the digital equivalent: a collectible/tradable card game online, then you can represent the rare cards as NFTs. Then you can guarantee that the seller is the actual seller and you can even be sure that if you pay you'll get the card. This can all be "proved" in a blockchain, by smartcontracts.


To me in that case NFTs make sense. Heck, people do play games, do pay for items/cards. Some are more valuable than others and the rarity / weird mods and whatnots are what can make the game great. It certainly "works" for Magic The Gathering and for old baseball cards. So why not in a digital form?


You could also tie a NFT to a real-world item as some kind of "property title". There could still be scams but at least scams are then harder to pull off: say I sell you an industrial Model M mini for which I own the (hypothetical) NFT... Well a scammer wanting to sell it would need the NFT and I'm the only one to have it.


I can see usecases: I won't say it's all dumb and has no use.  Now are they going to take off or will the hysteria/craze/non-sense going on atm kill the idea? No clue...

I mean: think of all the people here on this very site posting a picture of they keyboard for sale with a piece of paper alongside the keyboard with their nickname and date on it... That's quite low tech. It doesn't prevent all the scams. Yet people still do it and the reason they do it is it prevents certain scams. Well NFTs could help prevent a lot (not all) scams.

First time I've seen anyone argue for NFTs as a supposed form of scam prevention, and honestly, it just seems so silly. There are countless other ways to combat scammers that don't involve mind-boggling levels of energy consumption. NFTs really aren't scam-proof, either. Jerks download pieces from hardworking digital artists, and whether or not they end up falsely posing as the artist themselves, they attempt (or even succeed, in some cases) in profiting off aforementioned artist's work--work they did not create and own no right to. Someone even tried posing as an artist who died of cancer a year ago in order to sell her work as NFT, because she's not around to file take-downs (and even if she was, I've seen several hosting sites actively refuse to side with artists' best interests). It's nuts. NFTs genuinely do not serve a proper purpose of any kind.

[noisyturtle]

NFTs aren't just for art and I'd say it's a bit weird to see NFT used to sell digital art.


You can use NFT to represent, say, unique cards in a collectible/tradable card game. For example my little collection of (non digital) "Magic The Gathering" cards is worth quite a lot of money now: take the card "The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale"... That's few Ks EUR for a single card. When people want to trade that, it can be problematic: there are are professional sellers helping people sell their collection just so they don't get scammed. There are chinese copies, people having cards graded then selling a less graded card with the higher grade, etc.


Well if you have the digital equivalent: a collectible/tradable card game online, then you can represent the rare cards as NFTs. Then you can guarantee that the seller is the actual seller and you can even be sure that if you pay you'll get the card. This can all be "proved" in a blockchain, by smartcontracts.


To me in that case NFTs make sense. Heck, people do play games, do pay for items/cards. Some are more valuable than others and the rarity / weird mods and whatnots are what can make the game great. It certainly "works" for Magic The Gathering and for old baseball cards. So why not in a digital form?


You could also tie a NFT to a real-world item as some kind of "property title". There could still be scams but at least scams are then harder to pull off: say I sell you an industrial Model M mini for which I own the (hypothetical) NFT... Well a scammer wanting to sell it would need the NFT and I'm the only one to have it.


I can see usecases: I won't say it's all dumb and has no use.  Now are they going to take off or will the hysteria/craze/non-sense going on atm kill the idea? No clue...

I mean: think of all the people here on this very site posting a picture of they keyboard for sale with a piece of paper alongside the keyboard with their nickname and date on it... That's quite low tech. It doesn't prevent all the scams. Yet people still do it and the reason they do it is it prevents certain scams. Well NFTs could help prevent a lot (not all) scams.

First time I've seen anyone argue for NFTs as a supposed form of scam prevention, and honestly, it just seems so silly. There are countless other ways to combat scammers that don't involve mind-boggling levels of energy consumption. NFTs really aren't scam-proof, either. Jerks download pieces from hardworking digital artists, and whether or not they end up falsely posing as the artist themselves, they attempt (or even succeed, in some cases) in profiting off aforementioned artist's work--work they did not create and own no right to. Someone even tried posing as an artist who died of cancer a year ago in order to sell her work as NFT, because she's not around to file take-downs (and even if she was, I've seen several hosting sites actively refuse to side with artists' best interests). It's nuts. NFTs genuinely do not serve a proper purpose of any kind.

like I said, money laundering