A lot of people don't like these new financial toys like NFTs and tokens. But to say "they should be destroyed" seems... extreme? Just let nerds do their thing online. I don't tell furries to go fuck off because I find their subculture objectionable.
I would agree if there were no externalities, but those nerds are paying celebs to advertise crypto to the masses as an investment (soon Fidelity will help people put 20% of their 401k into bitcoin - seems bad) and we are adding GW to the grid y/y.
Have you considered Fidelity has done more research and knows more about Bitcoin than you? Your judgement that it just “seems bad” is rather shallow when it’s being leveled at a decision made by one of the largest asset managers in the world.
It's just as shallow (unless you're a Fidelity insider) to assume they went through a rational process and have a strong legal argument that they're upholding their fiduciary duty to account holders. Big companies make dumb decisions all the time, and financial companies especially when there's money on the table. So far Fidelity seems to be standing alone with this move. Putting 20% of your 401k into bitcoin as a regular person just seems so obviously unwise to me, and the US Dept of Labor seems to agree, so I'll stick by my comment and priors until I see more first-order evidence.
Having Fidelity support Bitcoin, Dogecoin or Ethereum is about as difficult and expensive for them as supporting a new stock or commodity exchange, and about as risky... as long as they don't act as a market maker. They'll almost certainly make money on fees.
Meanwhile they get the marketing value. They spend over $100MM annually on advertising (by way of a quick googling, I have no special insight) so it seems reasonable that they like being talked about, especially by people who might otherwise be avoiding them.
Kim Kardashian, Matt Damon, Jamie Foxx, Mike Tyson, Tom Brady, Michael Owen (2000s English footballer). Crypto should be regulated by the SEC at this point. Real people are losing real savings.
Web3 is the unusual case where it has significant effects offline that affects people other than nerds, namely in the form of energy consumption and global warning.
Christmas lights use 6.6 tWh per year. It's estimated that Bitcoin mining uses about the same amount of electricity as running clothes dryers. I never hear the argument that clothes drying is destroying the world.
It's more than that and growing fast. There's also the yearly upgrades miners go through which shed piles of ASICs and extraneous e-waste which is, itself, constantly growing.
It's using energy fast enough that it's holding us back from green energy deployments. There are studies picking this apart that you can Google if you're interested. The gist of it is that every unit of green energy added to the grid is gobbled up by miners forcing legitimate users of energy to rely on coal. PoW coins have expanded our use of coal over the last 10 years rather than reduced it.
Update:
"But proof of stake..." is green-washing. Claiming that something will be green in the future does not make it green today. Nor does it wash away the fact that this claim has been made for the last 6 years and has been delay yet again. It's release will likely continue to be "some time in the near future," indefinitely.
I mean, absolutely. But let's not pretend that the whole blockchain bubble is a "nerd" (in the tech sense) thing. It hasn't been since like 2014. It also isn't an "interest of some", the cryptocurrency people very much want to force this dystopia and snakeoil technology onto everyone. All so a few people can make a lot of money.
I think this probably stems from not having a good understanding of the objections. The externalities involved with these "toys" are many. For a solid run-through of some of the objections, I can't recommend enough watching this YouTube video titled "Line Go Up - The Problem with NFT's" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g
Well it is either regulation or ban. The author (and many other skeptics) want a total ban on the whole thing, and the crypto maximalists do not want regulations or bans either.
I'm very sorry to report that these regulations are going to come and wipe the meme coins but leaving the compliant cryptocurrencies and web3 projects to survive.
So, when I see articles like this calling for it all to be totally destroyed even since it 13 years of its existence, I can only say that the author, crypto-skeptics and the crypto maximalists are going to be disappointed for the next 13 years.
I find this part amusing. It makes me wonder if it is even possible to actually plagiarize an NFT. Like, sure if you copy a picture shown in an NFT, reupload it and wrap it in a new NFT, that's plaigarism, but the way around that is even simpler! Just deploy the new NFT and reference the location of the existing picture! If people are willing to purchase your NFT anyway, who cares?
Its like buying a picture frame, holding it up over your face and looking through it to a picture hung 5 feet away. If people are willing to pay for that, then sell picture frames. NFT are the picture frames.
The difference is that I find it merely amusing, while this person finds it like their missionary duty to stop the practice. But why? Who cares? The contract address of the digital picture frame is different and can't be plaigarized, its up to the consumer to discern. If consumers don't want to..... then sell digital picture frames!
There are overlapping similarities to a selling a TV as well, or cable box, you can set the channel to one thing elsewhere, or you can change the channel. NFTs are the TV or cable box here.
I think the most similarities would be like those digital photo frames you can buy at stores, the ones w/ tiny android computers in them that show a digital photo that you set. That's the NFT, except the NFT is completely digital, so its more akin to a digital digital photo frame.
Maybe Matt Levine could write it that way and more people would get it that way. But maybe you're already perceiving the world correctly, congratulations, you perceive the world correctly. The market is saying sell those, so sell those.
There was this other article here where the author made an interactive NFT. When you looked at it in the market it actually nice. But once you bought it, the web server knew that you were in your wallet and it was just the poop emoji…
nice, wondering how that conditional logic works. I've played with getImageUri() methods for some time. Maybe they actually setImageUri() within the transfer() method and it checks the owner address for certain ABI characteristic of a smart contract versus an EOA (individual's address). or actually never needing to setImageUri() and just have that last check in getImageUri to serve different metadata based on the type of owner address.
It's incredibly simple. The NFT points to a URL controlled by the author. The author configured the web server so that it would respond with different images "based on the IP or User Agent of the requester." There's nothing web3 or blockchain going on here, it's just a normal image URL where the web server responds differently for different requests. Kinda like image hosting services that would return a placeholder image if you tried to hotlink directly to the image URL.
author here - folks... just look into this stuff for 5 mins, it's amazing. Beeple (famous NFT artist) actually threatened to do this to one his NFTs if Trump one the 2020 election
> If people are willing to purchase your NFT anyway, who cares?
Isn't that ultimately how anything works? I can print out a cheap copy of the Mona Lisa, say "I'm selling the Mona Lisa," and someone can purchase it if they choose to. Of course, I may have broken some laws in the particular government jurisdiction this transaction occurs in, like trademark, copyright, fraud, etc., but that's just as true with NFTs.
This just doesn't seem like a valid criticism of NFTs. There are plenty of valid and strong criticisms of NFTs available, so there's no need to invent invalid and weak ones!
> Isn't that ultimately how anything works? I can print out a cheap copy of the Mona Lisa, say "I'm selling the Mona Lisa," and someone can purchase it if they choose to. Of course, I may have broken some laws in the particular government jurisdiction this transaction occurs in, like trademark, copyright, fraud, etc., but that's just as true with NFTs.
Well no the difference here is that my example has nothing copied either. Your example has something copied. They are not analogous as they lack that similarity.
The person selling this NFT that contains no copy does not have to misrepresent anything. Hence no fraud. The contract address is obviously different.
Theft requires something to be moved.
Copyright infringement requires something to be copied.
Fraud requires misrepresentation.
None of that is necessary here.
I don't consider what I wrote to be a criticism of NFTs, I find it amusing.
> Well no the difference here is that my example has nothing copied either. Your example has something copied. They are not analogous as they lack that similarity.
Okay, then just tweak my analogy slightly and sell a piece of paper printed with the URL to a photograph of the Mona Lisa, or to an image of a piece of digital artwork, or to a digital audio file, etc.
> The person selling this NFT that contains no copy does not have to misrepresent anything. Hence no fraud. The contract address is obviously different.
If you're defining it as not fraudulent and not copying anything, then what's absurd about the situation at all? It might be amusing that someone might buy something that you personally don't value at all, but that's hardly unique to NFTs.
> If you're defining it as not fraudulent and not copying anything, then what's absurd about the situation at all? It might be amusing that someone might buy something that you personally don't value at all, but that's hardly unique to NFTs.
I believe this is exactly the question Steve Mould asks the Legal Eagle in a recent video about NFTs [1]. Short answer: it's technically feasible but it would probably be deemed illegal according to the normal legal system.
Sorry, I corrected my comment; his point is that it's actually not about copyright but about other problems such as trademark infringement, misrepresentation, etc.
Edit: also I updated the video link so it points to that specific part of the video.
> but about other problems such as trademark infringement, misrepresentation, etc.
right but specifically what?
which one and how would that play out
if there is no logo or phrase in the picture, then it couldn't be a trademark infringement. and even if there was I would have to look at it case by case, with many cases I don't think it would be applicable. the consumer has to discern with the features that the blockchain provides. if there is a valid consumer protection issue thats with the marketplaces and wallets UI. the lister doesn't have to misrepresent anything if the consumer is buying by looking at pictures alone. and the lister could likely make a compliant and accurate name. "NFT showing Bored Apes"
I'm not really sure what more specifics you need. It seems pretty clear that if the key identifying characteristic of a good is that a specific URL indicates the provenance of that good, then selling another good using that URL to deceive the buyer about the provenance of your good is very likely to be grounds for a lawsuit over trademark infringement or misrepresentation.
I am dumb. So please explain how “Own this NFT that points to Snoop’s Bored Ape” or “Own this NFT that points to Snoop’s NFT that points to his Bored Ape” is grounds for any legal action. There is no misrepresentation, deception, copying, infringement, or whatnot.
> So please explain how “Own this NFT that points to Snoop’s Bored Ape” or “Own this NFT that points to Snoop’s NFT that points to his Bored Ape” is grounds for any legal action. There is no misrepresentation, deception, copying, infringement, or whatnot.
The thing is, the law isn't just a regex you apply to what the seller said and it tells you if the seller broke the law. That ain't how it works. At the end of the day it's going to come down to whether the seller mislead the buyer.
and if the consumer doesn't care about additional NFT's that simply point to the picture that the creator uploaded, then whoever the consumer bought from has violated nothing
I'll expand on another commenter's analogy. Imagine if it was possible to easily duplicate, atom-for-atom, the Mona Lisa. How much would a copy go for? Maybe $50 with a nice frame? Nothing close to the mega millions for the real thing.
This means that the value of the painting is not the painting itself. It's valuable because of who created it and the history surrounding it.
It's possible that bad actors will try and sell a forgery, with paintings as well as for NFTs. That doesn't mean all paintings are worthless. It just means that buyers have to be careful.
There are plenty of valid criticisms of NFTs (and to be honest I'll probably never buy one) but this is not one of them.
I don't consider this a criticism. I also don't find the analogy applicable. Their updated analogy is more applicable "a sheet of paper with a URL to a photo of the mona lisa" that a consumer buys.
I understand and use and create and sell NFTs, I can understand where your assumption came from given what responses one might expect to see on this forum.
I think this is an interesting nuance of this technology that is not well understood by NFT traders or NFT critics. Many malicious actors are also doing more than they have to do to sell "forged" NFTs. Developers can perceive whats going on though.
> what happens when BTC does reach 100k? — presumably most will sell including the grifters in Miami, Dubai and so on
LOL – if you think this is true, you don't know anything about greed or emotions. (To be a bit less obscurant, I'm saying they are both either boundless or unquantifiable. There's nothing special about 100K btc, nothing more special than 69K USD BTC.)
Perhaps the author should not have chosen an exact number, but there will be a critical volume of sell-off which will trigger a further, massive sell-off from the majority token holders. The same principle that drove people to buy it in the first place will force them to sell. FOMO
If you don't think this critical sell-off volume exists, then you are the one who misunderstands greed and emotion.
I am glad someone knows what "laser eyes" mean, I did not get that reference or know that meme. FWIW, I do not have laser eyes and I would not bet against BTC reaching 100k. But that does not mean I believe BTC should be the leader or that it's the best cryptocurrency, so that is not meant as an endorsement in any way.
Great article, by the way. I have just skimmed most of it, I am knee-jerking, but my strongest impression after reading through most of it for the first time is "I'm with Keanu here" with the caveat that I do believe there are a handful of good Web3 projects out there, I'm not going to name one because I don't want to detract from your article, which is actually very good IMHO. (Edit: I guess I mean, I'm with queersamus, whose quote appears under the picture of Keanu...)
Agreed it could reach 100k - main point is that a currency needs to be spent and BTC won't be by definition because most are into it as speculation. But wanted also to say thank you - means a lot to get the positive feedback.
There's a lot of wrong ideas out there and we don't get people to have the right idea by shutting down discussion about it. I like your article better than Cory Doctorow's take, how's that for positive feedback? I'm sorry that it got flagged off the front page!
That was the least technical analysis on web3, just a rant.
The guy is like... DAO can only be wrapped in a corporation... Have you heard of Cooperative business structures where each employee have an equal vote and own the business?
Same with Authentication... The idea of web3 is decentralisation... Once the app is operational, there are no more server fees. It's always online - heard of arwave?
Web3 is not crypto man...
Web3 is a design blueprint that is based on decentralised databases, decentralised Auth and decentralised payments and decentralised storage.
It is way harder to implement web3 solutions today than web2. Travel back in 2002 at the early days of web2, and look at how miserable it was to create a webapp.
There are actually no valid point, the guy doesn't even go technical, while talking about a technical subject- and the read is not short.
The concept of web3 is that no more dependencies on AWS, Azure and cloud premises- which are all controlled by govt.
Tor is Free??? What? Please share your server provider... As far as I know, you still have to host your TOR website on a physical server, and pay for it.
Ahah. Maybe you talk about access? Well ipfs is free, arwave is free and Ethereum is free then.
This article is a piece of opinionated incompetent crap written in good English.
> Newer revisions of the tech, such as Algorand, may have promise and deal with some of the issues I mentioned.
So as long was we have Meta [0], Stripe [1], Signal [2] and others [3], [4] are still using them, it is NOT going to be 100% guaranteed to be destroyed and totally going away then?
The die hard anti-crypto extreme who think it will be totally completely and totally destroyed are just as wrong as the religious crypto maximalists who think all projects are going to succeed to the moon.
The New York Yankies, The Monarchy of the UK, McDonalds, Nickelodeon, DreamWorks, Paramount, and countless other massive organizations participated in the Beanie Baby craze. I guess you could argue that Beanie Babies aren't "completely and totally destroyed", but... it certainly took quite the tumble, despite these heavy-hitters participating.
I'm sure it would have ended quicker than the beanie babies did if cryptocurrencies had totally 'no use case'. As with those toys, it is safe to say that they had absolutely no use case and was all pure speculation.
So why has cryptocurrencies lasted longer than that?, or even better is that why companies like Stripe re-entered again after dropping Bitcoin and using another cryptocurrency? Which that is the whole point of why I quoted this:
> Newer revisions of the tech, such as Algorand, may have promise and deal with some of the issues I mentioned.
> why companies like Stripe re-entered again after dropping Bitcoin and using another cryptocurrency?
Same reason all the above companies got into Beanie Babies: To make money.
Stripe is happily selling pickaxes to gold miners, as they say. They are more than happy to collect their "useless" fiat USD, and play along. I think it's ethically dubious, but... that's another story. It's certainly profitable.
> Same reason all the above companies got into Beanie Babies: To make money.
Right. I'm still asking where is the 'use case' in beanie babies vs cryptocurrencies, or stable-coins like what Stripe is using it for?
> Stripe is happily selling pickaxes to gold miners, as they say. They are more than happy to collect their "useless" fiat USD, and play along. I think it's ethically dubious, but... that's another story. It's certainly profitable.
And that somehow is a problem? Is that why it will be 'totally destroyed' and banned then?
Surely both you and the author are going to be disappointed and have to complain a bit more if you're looking into 'destroying' it all.
Stripe didn't really re-enter in the sense of actually participating in the market, they basically just said "we're now happy to take crypto companies' money to sell our fiat currency services".
The "stable" coins used to route around US laws are starting to lose their peg. When Tether goes, it'll all drop at least 90%, if not 99.95%, as all the margins on the offshore exchanges get called.
I think the point is a stablecoin's value is in being stable. Otherwise it's just another coin. So if a stablecoin can't retain its peg, then it has no practical utility and it's effectively worth zero.
Or it's an indication of how many people have sunk cash into the coin and are stuck HODLing in the hopes of it recovering, which... makes it just like any other coin.
The political foundations that have permeated its design are intolerable alone. Austrian School, "sound money," economics put the liberty of the individual above that of society. The entire community walks and talks like a fascist movement: they celebrate masculinity and "strong leaders," authoritarianism and oligarchy, they see themselves as superior and righteous, and above the law. It's the preferred way to fund blockades, white nationalist movements, etc.
Let alone that the technology is hot garbage and shouldn't even be out of the prototype stage. Hasn't your mother taught you not to eval a strangers code on your computer? Well that's what a smart contract does and it handles financial assets too. If you can read and understand proofs the attempts to formalize these machines have produced reams and reams of theorems and work in order to try and make this safe(r)... yet hackers continue to siphon off trillions of dollars in attack after attack. If the proof is so complex that you can't understand it then it's a sign your sniffing down the wrong path.
But that doesn't even matter. Most of web3 tech is only good enough to pull off the grift. I suspect that's why most scammers have moved on to target holders of cryptoassets rather than old folks and banks: it's easier, less risky, and way more profitable. So go ahead, spend 20k and invest in an NFT and flex on all your socials. If you have already I guarantee you're on someone's list.
If you're interested in following along with how much money has been lost, stolen, scammed, and simply disappeared: https://web3isgoinggreat.com
I tried to make it through the article, but I bailed about halfway through, and skimmed the rest.
I’m having trouble buying into the sentiment. It seems like just a big long negative rant about Bitcoin, NFTs, & crypto/ blockchain in general. Kind of just rehashing all the typical straw man criticisms of ‘crypto bros’ or early adopters.
While these things are an aspect of Web 3.0, they are not the end all be all. There was no mention of other decentralized technologies. Things like Mastodon or Matrix. There is a huge selection of self-hostable, decentralized software projects available to us now. Nextcloud might be another good example.
The point is we want to move away from highly centralized closed source services, that track our every move for profit, and we have no recourse over if something goes bad. We want to embrace open source, freely available software that we are in full control of. Web 3.0 is more than just crypto currency.
I think the title of this would make more sense if it said, “Cryptocurrency & Blockchain Must Be Destroyed”.
>web3 is a culmination of late capitalist grift, ironic meming, libertarianism and mansplaining, all resting on bad tech that is damaging the planet ... Proof of Stake is an alternative to validating transactions that doesn’t involve setting fire to the earth
The very first sentence of this piece is dishonest: blanketly condemning "all" related tech as environmentally devastating. Later on in the piece it's admitted that innovations like Proof of Stake solve the problem of needless energy consumption.
>To actually use this stuff is quite difficult, even the most simple thing, like buying something.
Yeah, scanning a QR code with your phone - as one needs to do to buy something online with a mobile wallet - is super hard. ;)
This article seems to be a cavalcade of shallow and dishonest criticism.
I'm awfully tired of these completely misinformed blog posts that seem to reflect HN's collective delusion about bitcoin. I don't know about US, but the whole drug trade, from the largest transactions to street level, have transitioned to crypto in Eastern Europe and at least few Middle Eastern countries. More and more of my friends who have never been interested in crypto as a ponzi scheme are using USDT to send and receive money across borders as their banks are hit with sanctions.
If you don't see something, it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.
The core financial infrastructure, like DAI and Curve, is weirdly robust: it's already been through quite a few crashes that would probably wipe out traditional financial plumbing. So, at the very least, keeping stablecoins on Curve and AAVE is a way to hedge against other kinds of systemic risks to the financial sector. This feels a little crazy in the US (where we don't anticipate systemic collapse) but less so in many other countries.
So the author registered this "webtwoboomer.com" domain and says their mission is "Poisoning my brain with web3 so you don’t have to." Skepticism is fine, but the bias is cringe. I can't see what value the author is adding to a thoughtful discussion, these web3 antagonists always think they are making some great points that no one has considered, but they aren't and they have a hard time moving past it. I don't see the value in this biased blog.
