NFTs are such an obvious scam even by crypto standards that I'm surprised they've managed to stick around as long as they have.
My favorite joke about NFTs is "The problem with NFTs is that you can't actually play Magic: The Gathering with them."
Correction: April 27, 2022
An earlier version of this article described incorrectly a cartoon dog created by the company Invisible Universe for Jennifer Aniston. Clydeo is meant to be a cousin of Aniston's real-life dog, Clyde; he is not an animated version of Clyde.
Well! That changes everything!
Speaking of NFTs as sign of the end times
I apparently told a nephew some years back that Bitcoin was, in effect, a Ponzi scheme. I recently found out that his mother still holds this against me.
I can't understand crypto or NFTs as anything but a scam, but is it possible that it could become popular enough that it will become "too big to fail"?
It's also possible that I'm just "too dumb to understand".
That sucks to buy an NFT and find out its not even a hyperlink to a cartoon version of Jenifer Aniston's real dog.
I started drafting a guest post about a blockchain essay:
Excerpts from an essay in N+1 about cryptocurrency/blockchain sociology that I kind of liked. A little history, a little observation from lurking in message boards, some basic assessment.
One corner of the (mostly weird and unpleasant) blockchain efforts that I think is interesting is generative artists looking for an audience and for support. People getting paid for this type of stuff, as well as lots of other creativity/profitseeking at now-defunct hicetnunc seemed to me like an interesting bottom-up experiment rather than a corporate effort, different from the bored ape type of scam. Probably corners of the more serious art world are still experimenting with better versions, but I'm not keeping up.
https://twitter.com/orbitanaut/status/1461333582174109699
From the essay, by Sarah Resnick:
https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-42/the-intellectual-situation/walk-away-like-a-boss/
"All this I expected to find, if not specifically, at least generally. What I did not expect to find in this corner of the cryptosphere was an overwhelming number of seemingly ordinary people of all ages -- some still teenagers, others parents to small children or caregivers to older family members -- desperate to make money to get by. These were not the people I imagined seated behind a multiscreen trading setup or moving assets around an investment portfolio. Many were here, trying to make money in crypto, because they felt they had no other choice."
"Still I remained surprised to learn that, according to NORC, a research institute at the University of Chicago, 41 percent of cryptocurrency traders in the US are women. I would have guessed the percentage to be lower. I also assumed that most investors would be younger than me, in their early to mid-20s, but the average investor is 38 -- an age that, being not far off from my own, I can't help but reflect on. It's the age at which I began to find it increasingly difficult to suppress anxiety around my own financial vulnerabilities. From this vantage, the appeal of being able to fill in financial gaps or respond to a financial emergency by transforming $100 into $1,000 in the span of hours or days, not years, is more legible to me. If you're desperate, the time horizon for other kinds of change -- at the policy level, say -- can seem too far off."
I think one reason that NFTs get more mileage than they should is that they are perfect for affinity-grift, in that they can be well-targeted at different subgroups. Targeting parents of babies is one example, as is whatever the hell my niece is involved with, which involves selling NFTs that somehow empower women though computer-generated art.
Anyway, if you are interested in this topic, the best reporting can now be found at a relatively new blog called Web 3 is Going Just Great. Its becoming the FuckedCompany.com of the crypto era.
Krugman deftly explains what folks like me failed to understand about cryptocurrency -- and his explanation applies well to NFTs.
He makes several points: Ponzi schemes can run a looong time; crypto is well-suited to money laundering and other crimes; and gold remains highly valued without any practical use as a currency, just because people think it's valuable.
7: Like that -- it seems to me like some doctors offering telehealth consulting services -- and that may or may not be a good idea or legal, but what do the NFTs have to do with it? Is it a way to confuse the people who regulate how healthcare services are provided?
14: Yes, that's where I wind up -- just because it's stupid and pointless, doesn't mean it won't succeed.
I liked this one: https://twitter.com/patdennis/status/1518637225789042688
16: My current theory: The pointlessness is the point. Gamestop and AMC stocks are subject to real-world valuation techniques, and in the medium term, they had to drop. For Bitcoin et al, the emperor-has-no-clothes moment can be put off indefinitely because the emperor never had any clothes in the first place -- except the whole crime thing.
NFTs are collectibles, there's lots of other things people collect like beanie babies, or M:tG cards, or whisky, or whatever. But at the end of the day if you drop $200K on a Black Lotus, you can still play Magic with it. If you spend $200K on an NFT you can't do anything with it.
Fidelity just announced they're going to allow investing in Bitcoin in 401ks (which I see is the top story at the link in 13). I assume some kind of BTC fund not Bitcoin directly since they don't allow direct speculation in any other currency. The only positive thing I can come up with for that is it will hasten the demise of defined contribution accounts and bring us back to defined benefit retirements.
20: You mean like how single payer healthcare is inevitable.
Yes because obviously no modern system of government would resort to "you're on your own" when the current retirement/healthcare patchwork system fails. The politicians responsible would be swept from office!
NFTs are collectibles
I can't work out how this is true except in the sense that literally any object or concept -- the idea of an atom of hydrogen; the memory of today's blue sky -- can be a collectible. But once I figure it out, I will auctioning the taste today's breakfast and my opinion of Sally Field as an actor.*
*She has really only had a few roles that have shown off her range and authenticity.**
**But in this form, that assessment isn't collectible. If you want to buy it, you'll have to wait for the issuance of the NFO.***
***Non-fungible opinion.
For Bitcoin et al, the emperor-has-no-clothes moment can be put off indefinitely because the emperor never had any clothes in the first place
Don't forget that Bitcoin has a massive external drain of funds, in the form of electricity bills, and is really only going to be able to keep going for as long as there is enough new money flowing into the system to cover the mining cost. There is already evidence that miners are hanging onto bitcoin in quantities that they would find difficult to sell without tanking the market.
Though I imagine being able to unload some of it into people's Fidelity 401(k)s might extend the runway for a bit.
I guess the other advantage of 401(k) for bitcoin is that now you can hold your bitcoin in a tax shelter. Yay neoliberal retirement schemes!
Anything can be a collectible, *if people collect them*. Why people choose to collect beanie babies or NFTs is unclear to me, but they do!
(or rather, did.)
That sucks to buy an NFT and find out its not even a hyperlink to a cartoon version of Jenifer Aniston's real dog.
I laughed.
What people do with their Beanie Baby collections is keep them until they have grandchildren, and then let each grandchild pick out one Beanie Baby each time they visit, and now I have a fairly large de facto Beanie Baby collection whether I want it or not, although no longer in mint condition.
The first thing I do when I get a Beanie Baby is rip off the tag, because fuck consumer capitalism.
Didn't we have a discussion about what happens when there are no more Bitcoin to be mined? Since mining is validating the transaction ledger, isn't that the end since there is no longer any incentive to record transactions? Do they solve that by implementing a transaction fee that gets paid to miners?
I once kidnapped a coworker's beanie baby and took a picture of it held over a toilet bowl. That was back when you had to really work to borrow a digital camera.
Didn't we have a discussion about what happens when there are no more Bitcoin to be mined?
Satoshi designed this to be far enough in the future that everyone alive today will be dead by then.
However, yes, they have solved it through transaction fees, which have become staggeringly high, and belie bitcoin's original promise of being able to send money at extremely low cost.
And then hide that you were taking the camera into the men's room.
29: Which is exactly why beanie babies are better than NFTs, you're not going to get any brownie points from your grandkids by giving them NFTs. (Which probably isn't going to stop people from trying. Is giving your grandkids bitcoin the new giving your grandkids savings bonds?)
There's a card. "A contribution to global warming has been made in your name."
Could anyone recommend a podcast that explains the forms and history of types of corruption?
I'd like to have a better understanding of the kinds of grifts.
Sure, but I need your social security number and bank account first.
I don't know about a podcast, but DSquared's _Lying for Money_ is an entertaining and informative read.
15: it's a buzzword that would not otherwise be in the pitch deck, so the buzzword was added.
stephen diehl is great on the whole scammy gross crypto-bockchain-web3-nft garbage, he did a really excellent interview with the tech won't save us podcast that i highly recommend. he provides in the interview a concise & lucid explanation of different types of investment-finance structures, down unto & including the art "market". the essays on his website are also great but may all assume prior knowledge of finance.
there really & truly is no socially valuable there there. going to hurt a lot when it all falls apart.
"All this I expected to find, if not specifically, at least generally. What I did not expect to find in this corner of the cryptosphere was an overwhelming number of seemingly ordinary people of all ages -- some still teenagers, others parents to small children or caregivers to older family members -- desperate to make money to get by. These were not the people I imagined seated behind a multiscreen trading setup or moving assets around an investment portfolio. Many were here, trying to make money in crypto, because they felt they had no other choice."
I've seen this and it makes me terribly sad.
NFTs should be this image: https://about.usps.com/postal-bulletin/2020/pb22562/html/images/info_003_1.jpg
Yeah, only the one joke, endlessly repeated.
Since the Twitter thread is off the front page this seems the closest - Tesla stock is down 18% in 5 days. Maybe because Musk is essentially pawning it?
I would love if he tanks his manchild deal.
Still higher than it was 90 days ago, and up 20% for the year. So hard to imagine it's a big problem unless it drops a lot more.
Just feels like the natural place for things to go when hourly wages are not a viable way to make a living. RETVRN to 18thc - scams, marrying wealth, piracy, fraud, etc..
It's a good thing Dungeons and Dragons is so popular, so there's an easier way to signal your virginity than being perpetually chaperoned.
My impression of genZ is that D&D is now for theatre kids, not virgins.
