[PragmaticPulp]

NFT sellers are dodging the elephant in the room: Buying an NFT is more like buying a print of an artwork than buying the artwork itself. Or more accurately, a link to a print of the artwork.

Yes, using crypto and blockchain you can prove that this was the first NFT print of the artwork, but that's it. It's an expensive way to proclaim that you have the keys controlling the NFT that links to the print of the artwork, and that it was associated with a crypto-denominated transaction of a certain value, but that's it.

These NFTs are also a goldmine for wash trading scams. NFT holders can "sell" the NFT to themselves over and over again at increasingly higher prices, creating an illusion of a very valuable and high-demand NFT.

Want to own an expensive NFT? Buy a cheap NFT, then use a second wallet to "buy" it from yourself. The last trade price gets recorded in the blockchain and you can now brag about having an NFT worth as much money as you were willing to scrounge up for the transaction.

[woleium]

This is the traditional way to launder money with art, only now much easier!

[jVinc]

And to me the interesting question here is, if we both buy cheap 10$ tokens, and agree to buy these from each other at 1000$ and "lose our keys" will we be able to collect insurance on the lost asset? Will we be able to deduct the loss in taxes? Or if we donate the "artworks" to each others charities will we be able to deduct them in taxes?

[woleium]

the tax scam will be: 1. make shitty meme with alt dirty account 2. buy meme with real account for $1mm 3. gift meme to charity auction, write off 1mm in taxes 4. launder 1mm from dirty account by buying shitty meme from main account.

[6nf]

Good luck finding an insurer that will insure these for you

[dleslie]

Bingo.

Folks aren't buying a verified unique token for obscene amounts just to brag about it. They might brag, but many have other reasons to hold an object of such "value" .

Anyone thinking that NFT is anything other than a vanity token for the wealthy and a money laundering mechanism for the same is fooling themselves.

[RhodoGSA]

Well, kinda. Art is a quirky way to use an NFT for sure. But being able to verify scarcity, ownership and interoperability of a 'digital asset' is pretty useful in many applications. Afterall, everyones been saying everything is going online but i don't believe we truly understand what that means yet.

[chpmrc]

Not sure about the first point, after all with digital art what matters is the NFT since anyone can copy the artifact 1:1 at virtually no cost and no risk. I agree with many that NFTs are best suited for digital worlds but that begs the question: what happens if the game is centralized? They can still prevent you from actually having or using that item, regardless of any proof of ownership.

Re: wash trading, that also happens in the art world with shell companies.

[lxdesk]

Use value is easy to assign to an NFT post-facto. That hasn't been really done in the current market(which is, of course, in the midst of a bubble), but:

* Tokens can become tickets to events

* Tokens can become options on commissioned work

* Tokens can become signs of membership

Because the token is guaranteed to be unique, and you can track ownership, there's a fluidity to this that lets you do away with contractual mechanisms. You can reuse the same tokens many times or announce that it will expire(for your use case).

Edit: And platforms can't really own it if it's on a public chain, too. You just copy the chain(see: BinancePunks copying CryptoPunks). So there's that.

[meheleventyone]

What prevents people registering a new NFT for the same work? Provenance might not be easily justifiable purely by date it was created.

[abalaji]

How is this different from having someone you know help drive up an artwork’s sale price so you get a higher last auction value?

[whatshisface]

Not that different. The art world is also kind of scammy. Most people wouldn't want to put money in to it.

[hanniabu]

NFT art is worthless imo, but NFT for digital goods as a whole is very valuable.

[enko123]

NFT is a glorified receipt. Some people collect receipts: like ticket-stubs for world series games or concerts, but first you have to convince the MLB or Ticketmaster to sell tickets on Ethereum, which is a big ask.