NFT marketplace suspends transactions due to flood of fakes

[midian182]

In brief: A marketplace famous for selling an NFT of former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s first tweet for $2.9 million has suspended the majority of transactions due to people selling counterfeit digital assets. Cent says the practice was "rampant," forcing it to halt the buying and selling of most NFTs on February 6.

Cent had been overrun with people making unauthorized copies of other NFTs and selling the tokens, using content that does not belong to them to make new NFTs, and selling NFTs that had been made to resemble other tradable assets.

"There's a spectrum of activity that is happening that basically shouldn't be happening - like, legally," Cent CEO and founder Cameron Hejazi told Reuters. "It kept happening. We would ban offending accounts but it was like we're playing a game of whack-a-mole [...] Every time we would ban one, another one would come up, or three more would come up."

Cent’s 150,000 members can still use its Valuables marketplace to purchase non-fungible tokens of tweets.

Fakes remain one of the biggest problems among NFT buyers and sellers. The largest non-fungible token marketplace, OpenSea, recently limited the number of NFTs people could create using its free minting tool to 50. It later said that over 80% of the NFTs created using this feature were counterfeit, used plagiarized content, or were spam. However, OpenSea reversed its decision and lifted the limit following an outcry from users.

Every decision we make, we make with our creators in mind. We originally built our shared storefront contract to make it easy for creators to onboard into the space.

— OpenSea (@opensea) January 27, 2022

"I think this is a pretty fundamental problem with Web3," Hejazi said. "We realized that a lot of it is just money chasing money."

Few tech subjects are as controversial as NFTs right now. We heard last month about people selling NFTs featuring stolen images of influencers and YouTube gaming stars, while proponent Ubisoft said naysayers just "don’t get it." But there have been more cases of companies reversing their digital asset plans following public backlash, and not everyone thinks they’re a good idea: Indie game marketplace itch.io called NFTs "a scam."

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/93384-nft-marketplace-suspends-transactions-due-flood-fakes.html

 

[Inthenstus]

NFTs are the future of gaming, when done right. I’ve bought SO many in-game cosmetics, it’s stupid. They always claim it’s “exclusive” but it’s not. It comes back at some point or another. If everything was backed with a digital token/mint these items would retain their value. You’d also need to be able to trade these items for in-game currency. Think Workd of Warcraft, selling/trading mounts, pets, cosmetic items, etc. It adds a whole other aspect to the collection aspect for the game.

 

[paul1122]

It's like buying farts.

 

[winjer]

A scam inside of a scam. What a world to like in.

 

[envirovore]

You mean scam artists are gonna scam other scammers?
Fetch my fainting couch.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

NFTs are the future of gaming, when done right. I’ve bought SO many in-game cosmetics, it’s stupid. They always claim it’s “exclusive” but it’s not. It comes back at some point or another. If everything was backed with a digital token/mint these items would retain their value. You’d also need to be able to trade these items for in-game currency. Think Workd of Warcraft, selling/trading mounts, pets, cosmetic items, etc. It adds a whole other aspect to the collection aspect for the game.

We dont need crypto bros turning our hobby into a glorified stock portfolio.

 

[Bullwinkle M]

The NFT marketplace should have suspended transactions of "Genuine" NFT's due to their Fake Value!

 

[Dimitriid]

You know, "fake" here implies that there's a counterpart of "real" NFTs and I would very much dispute that: If I was a say, famous writer, I could create NFTs of one of my books like 1 per chapter or even 1 per page, then turn around and sell the rights for it to become a different property, edition, etc. And there would be 0 legal arguments saying I have to share any of it with NFT holders.

So even a supposedly "real" NFT well, is inherently not real: not supported by legislation, not enforce-able property as digital property either. It's value is 2 levels devoid of anything real so the only thing "fake" NFTs are doing is not even requesting permission or giving original artists or right holders money for their creations which yes, is inflammatory, but it's *because* NFTs are not anything that you really can't enforce any of it (Beyond voluntary and strictly good will based efforts from NFT exchanges like the one quoted on the article) and I suspect that even a DMCA notice could eventually end up being successfully challenged in court as in "Well NFTs are nothing, so you really can't enforce a third party trying to digitally commemorate your work with an NFT since it's not profiting of your work or representative of your work or enforceable as digital property rights anyway"

 

[fps4ever]

A scam inside of a scam. What a world to like in.

Its like having fake outrage for producing a fake image that has been faked by another person and sold as a real fake from the original fake that was faked to begin with.

 

[Faelan]

NFTs are the future of gaming, when done right. I’ve bought SO many in-game cosmetics, it’s stupid.

You can stop the stupidity right there by simply not buying those in-game cosmetics. Your wallet will thank you.

As for NFTs being the future, only in those games where it makes sense. Not all games are about hoarding crap or showing off bling to your online buddies. When it comes to the “done right” part, I can guarantee you that the implementation will be whatever is right for the profit margin of the big corporations, not you as a consumer.

 

[Bl00dyMinded]

Man, im all for Crypto and coins that actually do something. 15 Years working in IT and I still don't understand NFTs LMAO.

 

[Uncle Al]

It was bound to happen .... just surprised so many fell for it on the front end .....

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Man, im all for Crypto and coins that actually do something. 15 Years working in IT and I still don't understand NFTs LMAO.

NFTs are like stars. You know how you can "name a star" for money? Same deal, you're paying sometimes hundreds of dollars for a piece of paper that says you have a claim to naming this particular ball of gas this name. Except there is 0 regulation on the naming of stars, and the same star gets sold over and over again. You could just print the form out, put your name on it, and have the same value.

That's what NFTs are. Just parts of a blockchain represented by an image with numbers in it that you claim to own. Not the picture itself, jsut the rights to the numbers of part of the chain that create a certian copy of an image.

Owning 1's and 0's of a crusty JPEG is what these people are blowing billion on, and its super dumb. A fool and their money are soon parted, and there are a LOT of fools out there with a lot of money.

 

[BuckarooBonzaii]

The only ones laughing are those who are selling. NFT is like a girlie pic. In the beginning it's hot to trot, but later it's just another plain girlie pic.