• IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    135
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    4 days ago

    The whole NFT/crypto currency thing is so incredibly frustrating. Like, being able to verify that a given file is unique could be very useful. Instead, we simply used the technology for scamming people.

    • Sibshops@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      66
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      4 days ago

      I don’t think NFTs can do that either. Collections are copied to another contract address all the time. There isn’t a way to verify if there isn’t another copy of an NFT on the blockchain.

      • killeronthecorner@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        41
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        4 days ago

        I didn’t know this and it’s absolutely hilarious. Literally totally undermines the use of Blockchain to begin with.

      • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        4 days ago

        Copying the info on another contract doesn’t mean it’s fungible, to verify ownership you would need the NFT and to check that it’s associated to the right contract.

        Let’s say digital game ownership was confirmed via NFT, the launcher wouldn’t recognize the “same” NFT if it wasn’t linked to the right contract.

        • Sibshops@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          4 days ago

          But you would need a centralized authority to say which one is the “right contract”. If a centralized authority is necessary in this case, then there is less benefit of using NFTs. It’s no longer a decentralized.

          • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            4 days ago

            Yes and no, with the whole blockchain being public it’s pretty easy to figure out which contract is the original one.

            • Sibshops@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              4 days ago

              Lets say you don’t have a central authority declaring one is official. How would you search the entire blockchain to verify you have the original NFT?

              • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                3
                ·
                edit-2
                3 days ago

                The NFT is useful with a central authority though, it’s used to confirm the ownership of digital goods ex: if it’s associated to digital games then the distributor knows which contract is the original since they created it in the first place…

                Sure for bored apes pictures you copy the code and you go on a random websites and it can tell you the result of the mix of features based on the code, but on the original website it wouldn’t work.

                • Sibshops@lemm.ee
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  3 days ago

                  Exactly, and that’s the key issue. If we need a central authority, whether it’s a game distributor, marketplace, or platform to recognize and validate the “official” contract, then we’re back to a trust model similar to traditional databases.

                  Take your example of game ownership. If the launcher only accepts NFTs from a specific contract, that launcher is acting as the central authority. At that point, the launcher can just manage ownership records in its own database. NFTs only add complexity without eliminating the need for trust in a central entity.

                  And as we’ve seen with Magic Eden, even trusted platforms can make mistakes, leading to confusion or scams. So centralization is still required to resolve identity/authenticity, I don’t believe NFTs offer any meaningful advantage over a traditional database.

                  https://cointelegraph.com/news/magic-eden-to-refund-users-after-25-fake-nfts-sold-due-to-exploit

                  • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    1
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    3 days ago

                    The point of it is that you can freely trade the NFT with others, letting you exchange the ownership of digital goods and thus letting you decide to give up access to whatever it’s related to in exchange for money and letting someone else get access to it. The NFT isn’t the digital good, it’s the proof of ownership of the digital good and I think that’s the bit that’s unclear to most. That proof of ownership is only good to then interact with whoever is the “gatekeeper” to access said good.

                    Just like having a contract saying that you have a safety deposit box at your bank still implies that you have to go to the bank to have access to the goods that are inside, having an NFT (the ownership contract) is only useful if you can use it to access the digital good it’s related to. If the bank burns down your contract is worthless, if the provider of the digital good the NFT is related to closes its doors the NFT is worthless.

                    The NFT = an image thing just made things super confusing because anyone can analyze the NFT to say “based on the specs mentioned in the NFT and the analysis of the original database, here’s the image” and anyone can spoof that to generate the same image on unofficial websites (but not in the official one which would check that the NFT is attached to the original contract), but when you understand that the NFT is just the proof of ownership it makes more sense.

                    It’s still decentralized because ownership and transfers are managed on the blockchain.

      • Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        4 days ago

        There isn’t a way to verify if there isn’t another copy of an NFT on the blockchain.

        Incorrect. An NFT is tied to a particular token number at a particular address.

        The URI the NFT points to may not be unique but NFT is unique.

        • Sibshops@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          4 days ago

          The NFT is only unique within the contract address. The whole contract can be trivially copied to another contract address and the whole collection can be cloned. It’s why opensea has checkmarks for “verified” collections. There are a unofficial BoredApe collections which are copies of the original one.

            • Sibshops@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              5
              ·
              3 days ago

              Completely agree, but the guy I responding to thinks the monkey jpeg is unique across the whole blockchain, when that isn’t true. The monkey jpeg can be copied. There’s no uniqueness enforced in a blockchain.

                • Sibshops@lemm.ee
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  3 days ago

                  Right, it’s a link to the JPEG. Either way, the point still stands, there’s no mechanism in the blockchain to prevent duplicate content or enforce uniqueness of what the NFT points to. The NFT token is unique within its contract, sure, but that doesn’t stop someone from deploying a near-identical contract with the same media and metadata. That’s the issue, the blockchain doesn’t know or care if the same JPEG is being reused in other collections.

                  • Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    1
                    ·
                    3 days ago

                    The NFT token is unique within its contract and since the contract had a unique address the NFT pointer is unique. Include chainID in the description and the NFT is globally unique.

      • Decq@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        16
        ·
        4 days ago

        I’m not defending other cryptocoins or anything, they might be a ponzy scheme or some other form. But in the end they at least only pretended to be that, a valuta. Which they are, even though they aren’t really used much like that. NFT’s on the otherhand promised things that were always just pure technical bullshit. And you had to be a complete idiot not to see it. So call it a double scam.

      • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        10
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        4 days ago

        A large majority of “real” money is digital, like 80% non-m1 m2. The only real difference between crypto and USD is that the crypto is a public multiple ledger system that allows you to be your own bank.

        • Eatspancakes84@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          3 days ago

          What do you mean with being your own bank? Can you receive deposits from customers? Are you allowed to lend a portion of the deposists onwards for business loans/mortgages? If not, you are not your “own bank”.

          I think you mean that you can use it as a deposit for money, similar to, say, an old sock.

          • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            3 days ago

            Banks have multiple ledgers to keep track of who owns what and where it all came from. They also use ancient fortran/cobol written IBM owned software to manage all bank to bank transactions, which is the barrier for entry.

            Blockchain is literally a multiple ledger system. That is all it is. The protocol to send and recieve funds is open for all.

            Locally stored BTC is when you’re the bank. For all the good and bad that comes with it.

            • Eatspancakes84@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              3 days ago

              That sounds super cool and stuff, but it has nothing to do with the essence of banking. Banks are businesses that take deposits for safekeeping and that provide credit. Banks in fact outdate Fortran by a 1000 years or so.

      • uienia@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        4 days ago

        Because the pyramid scheme is still going strong with them, exactly because new victims are continually falling for them. NFTs lost their hype so quickly that the flow of new victims basically completely stopped, and so the bottom went out of them much faster.

      • desktop_user@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        4 days ago

        because there are some buisness that accept some crypto, mostly grey or black market ones, but respectable companies none the less.

    • yarr@feddit.nl
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      4 days ago

      I think a big part of the problem with NFT is that they are so abstract people don’t understand what they can and cannot do. Effectively, with NFT, you have people that hold a copy of a Spiderman comic in hand and believe they own all forms of spiderman.

      Essentially, when you boil it down, you can turn this into “it’s provable that individual X has possession of NFT identifier x,y,z”. It’s kind of like how you can have the deed to a piece of property in your desk, but that doesn’t prevent 15 people from squatting on it.

      It’s so abstract you can use it to fleece people. Even after 2 years of hype, people STILL do not understand them properly.

      • uienia@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        4 days ago

        Essentially, when you boil it down, you can turn this into “it’s provable that individual X has possession of NFT identifier x,y,z”. It’s kind of like how you can have the deed to a piece of property in your desk, but that doesn’t prevent 15 people from squatting on it.

        It isn’t even that. It’s is identifying which drawer in your desk the deed is placed, but there is no guarantee that the drawer contains the deed.

        • yarr@feddit.nl
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          4 days ago

          Now imagine trying to explain all this to the unwashed masses… it’s no wonder the explanation they got was “buy this, it’s going to the mooooon!!!”

    • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      4 days ago

      But it’s totally legit brah, it’s just like trading cards but on a computer bro, you can make jay pegs totally unique bro, nobody else in the world can have the same image as you brah, it proves you’re the only owner of it bro, trust me bro it’s super secure and technological bruh

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      4 days ago

      You don’t need an NFT to see that a file is unique. All that requires is a hash function. Many download sites provide signed cryptographic hashes so that you know that the file you’ve downloaded is the one that they released. None of that requires blockchains or crypto.