The bloke 2 doors up from me must be his twin brother, so similar are they. I can't recall his actual name (cos I'm old), so he's become 'Gary Delaney' and his Mrs is 'Sarah Millican'. I've just got to remember that they're not their real names. I told the bloke over the road that he was Heinrich Himmler's clone and we don't speak so much anymore.
On the surface they are both simple and ridiculous: digital pieces of 'art' which often look like a 5 year old's work whose value is based on the fact that their unique digital 'signature' means they cannot be copied - i.e. there is only one true piece in existence. However, dig a little deeper and it is obvious that these things are being used by human traffickers, drug syndicates and gambling cartels to move money from one place to another in a way that is near-on untraceable and even harder to predict. It is truly scary stuff.
Short version: crypto bros scamming people into propping up their failing economy, often literally scamming Shorter version: Nasty ****ing Things Long version (which I nicked from Reddit): Imagine if you went up to the Mona Lisa and you were like "I'd like to own this" and someone nearby went "give me 65 million dollars and I'll burn down an unspecified amount of the amazon rainforest in order to give you this receipt of purchase" so you paid them and they went "here's your receipt, thank you for your purchase" and went to an unmarked supply closet in the back of the museum and posted a handmade label inside it behind the brooms that said "Mona Lisa currently owned by jacobgalapagos" so if anyone wants to know who owns it they'd have to find this specific closet in this specific hallway and look behind the correct brooms. and you went "can I take the Mona Lisa home now?" and they went "oh god no are you stupid? you only bought the receipt that says you own it, you didn't actually buy the Mona Lisa itself, you can't take the real Mona Lisa you idiot. you CAN take this though." and gave you the replica print in a cardboard tube that's sold in the gift shop. also the person selling you the receipt of purchase has at no point in time ever owned the Mona Lisa. Unfortunately, if this doesn't really make sense or seem like any logical person would be happy about this exchange, then you've understood it perfectly Longest version (as in you need to watch the videos in order):
https://www.not606.com/threads/tottenham-hotspur-v-chelsea.398420/page-11#post-15548879 Almost in FAQ territory.
My central issue with NFTs is that they basically seem to be a massive ponzi scheme. Bitcoin and other digital currencies are at least an interesting concept with interesting and impactful tech behind it. Sure they’re problematic - for example the energy consumption of bitcoin farming is astronomical, and I don’t like it personally for an investment because of the lack of short-term fundamentals, though I see the long-term potential if you wanted to hold it. But a decentralised currency on the blockchain is an idea I can tolerate and see the uses of, both good and bad. NFTs though, where to even begin. The whole idea of them seems based on buying into them early and selling them once one or two people with enough clout in the social mediasphere have jumped in and pushed the value up. But while it’s easy to say the value of anything in this world is only what someone else will pay for it, I struggle to get past NFTs being something that influencers basically peddle to one another until other poor fools buy them and are left holding what is basically a worthless JPEG when the next ‘cool’ thing comes along. They’re like less fun Pokémon cards basically, and even less useful.
NFTs are a statement of OWNERSHIP of a THING. What people are prepared to PAY to own the thing now associated with an NFT, is another story.
