The problem I see with NFT (not blockchains in general) is that, while the token is valued because it's a reference to something specific, there's no authority or enforcement for this reference to be relevant:
- you may have a unique NFT relative to the next hit of Taylor Swift;
- nothing requires Taylor Swift to agree/disagree about this;
- nothing prevents tons of other NFTs relative to the same item to pop up;
- so all you have is some value coined to an arbitrary digital artefact referencing non-exclusively to a specific item, without anyone guaranteeing it is indeed relevant now or in the future;
- so why would you burn money and energy for that?
- you may as well print paper money with Mona Lisa's face on your cheap home printer.
Yes, they're collectibles, but at least with collectibles, you have authorized distribution of these.
Here with NFTs, only authorized ones would have kind of a reason to reasonably have a market value, which means, trademark law has to apply too, which means, the blockchain purpose is lost here.
Anything digital can be copied and is instantly fungible with respect to all of its copies, so an NFT is only has the value that the digital signature from the issuer confers.
One example, perhaps, would be an artist putting their music on to a blockchain where the owner of a 'song token' receives royalties for uses of that song.
Sticking a boring old digitally signed contract on a blockchain is far from new and interesting though.
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[ 5.8 ms ] story [ 24.0 ms ] thread- you may have a unique NFT relative to the next hit of Taylor Swift;
- nothing requires Taylor Swift to agree/disagree about this;
- nothing prevents tons of other NFTs relative to the same item to pop up;
- so all you have is some value coined to an arbitrary digital artefact referencing non-exclusively to a specific item, without anyone guaranteeing it is indeed relevant now or in the future;
- so why would you burn money and energy for that?
- you may as well print paper money with Mona Lisa's face on your cheap home printer.
OR. There's still something I miss there.
With brand t-shirts, you have also trademark/brand permissions (unless you go for copies, but then the value isn't the same either).
And, with the two above examples, say you go with copies only, you still have something tangible to start with. NFTs are all but tangible.
I don't know how anyone can say a Cryptopunk selling for $12M at Sotheby's is anything but batshit crazy though.[0]
[0] https://twitter.com/Sothebys/status/1402996062474760193
Here with NFTs, only authorized ones would have kind of a reason to reasonably have a market value, which means, trademark law has to apply too, which means, the blockchain purpose is lost here.
One example, perhaps, would be an artist putting their music on to a blockchain where the owner of a 'song token' receives royalties for uses of that song.
Sticking a boring old digitally signed contract on a blockchain is far from new and interesting though.