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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.