NFTs are the latest craze in crypto, but what are they?

[jpuroila]

Not really... That is exactly the point. Imagine you write a song, you make it an NFT, and every time someone listens to a copy of the song, it is linked to the NFT, and you get a small 'fee' because someone listened to it.
NFT basically solves the issue of copyright & piracy. It also solves counterfeiting. Right now the hype surrounding it is kind of out of bounds though...

Lol no. DRM does not, and CAN NOT work for anything that doesn't require interaction(such as games). If you can listen to a song, you can also make a copy of it without any of the NFT information.

Analog hole - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Underdog]

I love this. It's digital information, therefore, the "original" is just an abstract represented as 1s and 0s. Even the storage of the data is a completely different representation of those 1s and 0s each time it's moved to a different device. On a USB stick it is a series of gates on a memory chip. Whereas, on a mechanical HDD, it's magnetic spots on a platter. Heck, even the 1s and 0s are based what format you are going to represent the item in or on what platform.

In this case, the ONLY thing that really has any value is the public ledger entry for the NFT.

So the concept is sound, as long as there are people out there who have mountains of money to waste and with egos that insist they must have "the original". I guess its the mindset that goes with wealth.

 

[NightAntilli]

Lol no. DRM does not, and CAN NOT work for anything that doesn't require interaction(such as games). If you can listen to a song, you can also make a copy of it without any of the NFT information.

Analog hole - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Yes. You can indeed make a copy without the NFT information. You would have to basically record it and save it as a separate file. That is completely possible.
But the question is, why would you do that?

Look at the Brave browser. They have created a model where you can watch ads and get paid for it. Or you can choose to not see ads at all, while using the system for free.
You can do that for example with music as well, where a group of people is paid if they listen to music that people want to advertise.
Or, rather than being paid for listening only, you buy the NFT, and based on how many people listen to it through your NFT, you get paid a fee. What would the incentive be to create an NFT-free copy of the file...?

In fact, such a concept already exists, albeit different than both options above, where you can listen to music for free without ads while musicians get paid...;

Musicoin

musicoin.org

If you can listen for free anywhere you want, wherever you want, why would you want a copy that is NFT-free...?

Besides... Who still goes through the hassle of downloading 'pirated' songs, rather than using Spotify or using YouTube...? There are quite a few people I'm sure, but these services make it very easy to legally listen to everything you want, where creating an illegal copy becomes a hassle.
The point is that despite it being possible, if the incentive is not there to make an 'illegal' copy, people will simply stop doing it.

 

[Markoni35]

It's interesting that people who are so worried about CO2 emissions and polar bears are also the first ones to advertise bitcoin and other crypto mumbo-jumbo. Which is such a waste of electric energy. All that electricity lost for nothing. But suddenly, they don't care about CO2 anymore. Let the polar bears cook.

And then, in the very next moment, they start attacking people because of the Sunday barbecue. Which is known to cause global warming on Earth, Venus and Mars. I wouldn't be surprised that Greta's generation discover that Sun is hot because of excess CO2 and methane from the cow farts.

 

[DonquixoteIII]

"Some people have a knack for owning something that is unique, and they’re willing to pay big bucks for those rights." Knack s defined as a skill I would argue that a better word would be 'penchant', defined as a strong liking for... Just reads better.

As to the article itself, I seem to remember an artist adding a drop of blood to his paintings as a proof of authenticity. Arguably harder to 'fake'.

And the burning of a banksie, authenticated by nft and then selling the NFT... Sort of reminds me of homeopathy... (In homeopathy, an ingredient is divided until it is just a memory...)

 

[mbrowne5061]

I'll admit I'm not convinced. Currencies losing all their value isn't uncommon - France, Germany, Greece, Argentina, Zimbabwe, Venezuela etc etc. I'm not sure why you think a currency that's currently behaving exactly like a bubble market is any more secure. Particularly when it's based on maths that few people understand - remember credit derivatives in 2008? The fact it was originally driven by drug lords and produced on gaming graphics cards just puts the icing on the cake. And don't think you'll be able to sell before it looses too much value because large banks will be using program trading systems that will sell everything before you even release there's a problem. You'll still be able to buy stuff with it but it will just be sweets rather than cars.

Oh, I agree. I don't hold a single bit of crypto. I used to have 500 bitcoins, back when mining them with a CPU was still super viable (late 2009-ish), but lost the password to that wallet in fairly short order. I found them interesting, in that someone could run a website that traded in them, and no one could just 'make more' (I think I was comparing them to something like neopets, and their currency at the time. Or something along those lines), but I didn't think they were at all viable in the long term. Without any kind of formal backing (government, gold, or otherwise), then I don't seem them being stable at all.

Bitcoin, and most other crypto, is just modern tulip bulbs. I do believe that fiat currency will eventually move to the blockchain. Being able to track where every dollar shows up in one single record is too attractive for a government to ignore (just associate serial numbers on cash with a coin on a blockchain, and only reserve those crypto coins from circulation when the physical bill exists)