I've minted some NFT's, but I still think they are a joke
Want to ‘buy’ the bragging rights to a link of a jpg?
If you’re somewhat technologically aware and haven’t been living under a rock for the last year, you’ve probably heard of NFT’s, perhaps specifically that one NFT sold for $69 million USD.
I’ve minted a handful of Clifford attractors as NFT’s that you can buy on FTX. I’m particularly fond of this one which you can see in the featured image above, it will only cost you $100 USD.
You can choose to buy one of these NFT’s, but if you like them as a piece of art you can just ‘right click -> save image as’, or even generate your own using the code here. However, if you do purchase one of these, you might get a special feeling of ownership knowing that a transaction of some type occurred and was recorded in an immutable blockchain. That said, I think the only thing you would have actually bought is some form of bragging right, nothing else – you certainly don’t own the intellectual property and in many cases, there’s no guarantee it will be forever linked to the same image.
(You can buy this NFT here)
For the most part, NFT’s are largely a scam or a joke whilst being an environmental disaster. Although, some are entangled with interesting ‘experiments’, such as the Destroyed Diamond NFT which is intended to test if an NFT can replace physical objects as a ‘store of value’ or asset.
Ok, you've all convinced me this is an experiment that needs to be done. So here's the deal.
— Tascha (@TaschaLabs) August 24, 2021
I'm going to buy a real diamond--> create a NFT for it--> list it on @opensea--> destroy the original diamond. I'll ping this tweet on my profile so you can track progress.
Stay tuned. https://t.co/3VoiiVIILk
But as far as I am concerned, this NFT is represents something more akin to performance art, not a valid experiment in whether or not an NFT is or can be a reasonable ‘store of value’ or a replacement for a physical asset. An actual experiment to test whether or not NFT’s could be a store of value would be to take $N$ random minters destroying diamonds and observing whether the price of the NFT’s tracked the underlying. The destroyed diamond NFT sold for ~5.5 ETH (a lot more than the value of the actual diamond) but its value does not derive from its tenuous relationship to the diamond that was destroyed, but from the actions, timeliness, popularity and artistry of the minter (who I am a big fan of).
NFT’s are probably one of the best examples of the Greater Fool Theory that I can think of. There are few reasons to buy NFT’s outside of speculation and hope that you can one day sell it for more than you purchased it for. I do however believe NFT’s provide a neat way of directly supporting artists, creators, writers, etc, but I’m not convinced it is the best means of doing so. I can also imagine a growing role for NFT’s in online gaming, where tokens could be used as proof of ownership of items or status that may empower characters and whatnot. However, I don’t see how blockchain-based approaches are obviously better solutions than what developers are already doing with the fast and efficient databases that they have complete control of.
If you are interested in a more in-depth discussion or analysis of NFT’s, you can check out the links below:
Update on 2021-11-02
I’ll just leave this here:
And you can watch the crash in real timeSquid Game Crypto Coin Today...
— Charlie Bilello (@charliebilello) November 1, 2021
1:35am: $38.19
2:35am: $89.91
3:35am: $93.64
4:35am: $434.70
5:35am: $2,856.64
5:40am: $0.0007926$SQUID pic.twitter.com/uN6walQRqC
This is the greatest crypto video of all time pic.twitter.com/ahBneKCNey
— LilMoonLambo (@LilMoonLambo) November 1, 2021
