[chickenfries]

> The possibilities of NFTs fascinate me, especially for portable, digital identities and assets that transcend any specific virtual realm and can't be arbitrarily erased by any central authority.

I'm struggling to understand the possibilities. Can you enlighten me? It seems like people buying these things are just speculating. Can you paint a picture of what kind of possibilities you're excited about?

[jes5199]

“digital identities and assets that transcend any specific virtual realm”

I think they mean, you could have the same stuff in different video games

[benrbray]

The hard part about this isn't the crypto, it's the coordination between game companies on how to store and render assets.

[anonporridge]

This is exactly why I would be wary of committing to the current stuff.

Without integration into large networks, NFTs are worthless.

[nightski]

Ooohhh not the evil speculation. So scawwrry. Seriously though, everything in life is speculation. Do you have a job? That's speculation on return for your time. Do you own a house? That is speculation on property prices. Do you have a bank account? That is speculation on inflation. Everything is speculation unless you have a God's eye view of the world. Get over it.

[anonporridge]

This thread touches on it, https://twitter.com/FEhrsam/status/1366248629661552642

A very simple example is that it could partially solve the problem of verifying digital identities. If I follow/friend your NFT based identity, and various virtual realms (games, social media, virtual spaces) integrate with that 'identity' NFT for user accounts, then any new virtual realm I enter, I can immediately find and connect with people I already know, or identify imposters. There will obviously still be some other hoops I need to jump through to know a digital identity maps to a particular physical person.

I could also see game studios start to issue varying tiers of rare in-game items as NFTs that can then trade on a free market, like collectible cards. Not only would I suspect people will be much more likely to pay more for digital items they can actually take uncensorable possession of (and still sell after they get banned from a game), but different studios could even make deals to make their NFT items cross compatible. (Mario NFT skins and items in Minecraft?)

Maybe I'm starry eyed and delusional, and I'm sure it's a LONG, messy road to get wherever we're going with this.

[atweiden]

> A very simple example is that it could partially solve the problem of verifying digital identities. If I follow/friend your NFT based identity, and various virtual realms (games, social media, virtual spaces) integrate with that 'identity' NFT for user accounts

You don't need Crypto Kitties for account verification. All you need is a cryptographic keypair, like the kind you already get by default in any Bitcoin wallet. Just sign a message proving you own a public key with the corresponding private key.

> Maybe I'm starry eyed and delusional, and I'm sure it's a LONG, messy road to get wherever we're going with this.

Evidently we’re going back in time to 2015, when “NFT” meant a blockchain representation of a digital trading card game. No one cared then, and no one cares now. The only thing new to the 2021 “NFT” narrative cycle is Twitter trying to monetize itself by selling tweets. Needless to say, none of the historical attempts at NFTs have ever resulted in lasting value to society, and probably this won’t either.

[adbachman]

> A very simple example is that it could partially solve the problem of verifying digital identities.

It does not. In fact, it reduces to the public/private key system we already have for verifying digital identities.

I have zero way of proving that I am the owner or creator of an NFT without the private key used to sign the original transaction. Why bother with an NFT and the complexity of a wallet when I can just sign whatever you'd like me to sign and you can verify it with the same public key that verifies my identity claim?

NFTs add _nothing_ to the equation.

[chickenfries]

Thank you for your answer. Personally, as a gamer the idea of cross game microtransactions and collectibles does not interest me. Minecraft skins are free and easy to create, you can make yourself look like Mario if you want, or anything else. The idea of putting that on the blockchain instead seems dystopian. On top of that, I’m pretty sure that Nintendo would never want to do such a thing.