> Certainly it's not harmful — some people collect coins, some people collect stamps, some people collect NFTs. If they want to pay money for this, it's fine with me.
Exactly. If someone makes some purposeless set of objects and others buy and sell them and money is lost and gained by informed adults in the process then.. nothing?
If one thinks that NFTs are inherently a BAD THING then it may be more accurate to say that it is a bad thing that humans are easily persuaded to acquire shiny things and things they think will rise in value.
If so, the problem lies in human nature.
Energy expense of NFTs is not covered in the article.
I believe there are many that don't understand that NFTs don't represent ownership in anything yet they are billed as such. From NBA Top Shot: "you get to own and show off the highlights that matter". Except, the NBA owns all the footage and the rights. Do you get to sue the NBA if they bin Top Shot? If so, what would you get? Nobody was angry with Crypto Kitties. It was clear what exactly you had. But NFTs are simply a means for people to strip the token of anything of value and yet get to market it behind a veil of complexity to prey on those who don't understand.
I think this is a good point. One of the main problems with new products and technologies is the inherent asymmetry of information: the producers know and the consumers sometimes don't.
However, this is a problem to be addressed by the FTC and it isn't something unique to NFTs. False advertising applies.
That being said, unfortunately it may be the case that many consumers are just ignorant of what they're buying in general (not including NFTs).
Because NFT's have nothing to do with collecting digital trinkets and everything to do with money laundering. The only thing that is remarkable about NFT's is how absolutely brazen they're being about it. The only positive is that hopefully it will keep them from screwing around with the housing market that has real life consequences for people although now we're just throwing away electricity rather than empty houses.
acquire Ethereum with dirty money -> buy NFT's -> sell NFTs for Ethereum -> sell Ethereum for USD -> deposit USD in bank account
I fail to understand how that is materially different from:
acquire Ethereum with dirty money -> sell Ethereum for USD -> deposit USD in bank account
Besides there being more steps with NFTs, I don't understand how it would attract less scrutiny.
In both cases, one must acquire Ethereum in the beginning with dirty money. This can be done on a foreign exchange, transfer in the Ethereum to a domestic exchange and sell it for USD.
In both cases, large deposits in bank accounts will be flagged by banks for review by the authorities. It's not a very good idea.
Arguably, USD stablecoin is a much more efficient method. Just buy them, and sell them off slowly and deposit the USD in ways to avoid scrutiny. This can't be done with Ethereum because of the volatility: you can't wait because your money might lose a ton of value.
I’m not an expert in money laundering but I’ve been waiting for a cryptocurrency version of the restaurant laundering scam.
Essentially criminal A buys a restaurant. Some sales are legit and other sales are just criminal A filling the register and making sales. Police are relatively good at investigating this because ratios between income and expenses are always dramatically off.
What if instead of pizza you just mint and buy tokens?
If wealthy people are going to use artwork to launder money, I'm happy with the original artist getting a cut. This already supposedly happens in meatspace, just with the artist making nothing after the original sale and missing out on most of the eventual value.
Agreed, would be easier to agree that they're harmless enough if the energy use aspect had been addressed.
But also isn't it a little crazy to think about how many unestablished / small-time artists are dropping $50~$150 on minting NFTs that might never even sell. And how their participation just drives the hype engine and makes the whole thing look like even more of a thing?
I think a non-zero portion of the criticism is actually a criticism of collecting in general. If you think collecting things is dumb, you will think NFTs are dumb by default.
I'm sure people will come up with a new bullet point to demonize NFTs after that. Not that there isn't a laundry list of things that are wrong with them, but the alleged environmental impact is the least of such issues yet it's the easiest to "understand" and so it overtakes any kind of discussion.
If only we had access to the internet in order to look up things we're confused about. I highlighted ETH 2.0 PoS, right clicked "search Google" and the answer to your question is the first result.
Exactly. If someone makes some purposeless set of objects and others buy and sell them and money is lost and gained by informed adults in the process then.. nothing?
If one thinks that NFTs are inherently a BAD THING then it may be more accurate to say that it is a bad thing that humans are easily persuaded to acquire shiny things and things they think will rise in value.
If so, the problem lies in human nature.
Energy expense of NFTs is not covered in the article.