16 comments

[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 60.7 ms ] thread
The quote from this girl is not how a 12year old would speak. The words are straight from a PR person involved in America’s weird ideology.

Congrats to whichever family member managed to succeed in this project using a child as the face of it!

It's also important to keep in mind that fraud is rampant in NFTs, such as the same person faking transactions by essentially buying his own asset with a flash loan. This means that the paper trail is left behind but no sale actually happens.

The most expensive NFT to date was the result of such a fraud.

https://www.cnet.com/news/why-this-cryptopunk-nft-sold-for-5...

Relevant link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wash_trade

I'd bet that if someone bothered to trace the wallets used in the transaction, they'll find out they start and end at the same person.

This is a testament to the dumb money being invested into crypto. Mark my words, the Bitcoin crash is going to be brutal and will be remembered as one of the largest bubbles the market has ever seen. The complexity of blockchain technology is nothing more than an obfuscation of a Ponzi scheme. It's no different than any other scheme claiming to use quantum technology.
What do NFTs have to do with Bitcoin?
The Venn diagram of NFT investors and Bitcoin enthusiasts is almost a circle.
Actually, this is not correct at all. Every Bitcoiner I know thinks (most) NFTs are a scam, a grift, a fad... If you said "Cryptocurrency" enthusiasts, sure.

But Bitcoin.. Bitcoin is something else.

I'm not too sure, most NFT trades are done on the ethereum blockchain. Though other blockchains with lower gas fees are starting to be used more.

Most people who aren't wealthy do not participate in NFT trades, and most adults don't even know what it is.

At this point, there's too much institutional money and development momentum to go back two years ago.

If Bitcoin was to drop below 20k, it would probably be bought instantly as it would be considered a great deal.

The blockchain itself is nothing bad or wrong, it's an interesting piece of technology in fact. The issue is that the current valuation of the whole crypto market is based on future, hopeful and unrealised potential, based on shaky foundations and questionable politics, not on actual value. Which is fine, but it starts to be an issue when laymen buy into it because they see a high price and think this must mean high value. And thus it increases, and more hopefuls and people with more money than sense keep the party going and more suckers are pulled in. But while the price has increased a million-fold over the years, the value has remained the same.

Yes, it certainly feels like a Ponzi scheme.

there is nothing interesting or new about "blockchain". it's a specific implementation of 3 things that are older than you are
While these 3 things are quite old, the blending of these technologies -- to create censorship resistant, trustless, eternal, decentralized peer to peer ledger that cannot be altered is actually quite new and interesting. It shifts the entire power model from authorities to the users. Revolutionary!

If you really believe it is not interesting, that is fine too! The technology is opt-in and voluntary. You can throw as many rocks all you like.

This could be

1. Completly made up, written by a company involved in NFTs. The image is generated by AI

2. Real, but actually a money laundering scheme

3. Real, and people are really stupid

4. Real, but nowhere near $6M was actually collected

Can't tell which one it is, but neither would really surprise me.

I definitely thought the photo was AI-generated when I saw it.
I'll take 1. Imagine the FOMO when someone tells you a child made more money that you ever could in your entire life. This is textbook NFT hype.
1 is almost certainly false. She's been fairly involved with TIME magazine for at least two months.
I'm gonna at least offer the possibility that this story doesn't have much to do with NFTs at all. Rather, it's just the story of a young BIPOC artist whose art and story are resonating people. After all, she has gotten a lot of recent publicity. I don't purport to know much about art, but it wouldn't be the first time I've been bewildered by its valuation.

That said, "NFT-hype" is almost certainly causing at least some price inflation here, but I don't think the levels of fraud suggested by other commenters are likely.