[bko]

> My understanding is that the NFT also contains a hash of the work that it represents, so there really is only one of a given digital work

I've never heard that before. Can someone confirm this is true? Is it solving for a hash of the original digitization of the work or something?

[clpm4j]

My understanding is that John can take a picture/jpg of the Mona Lisa, mint an ERC-20 token and sell his picture/jpg on a NFT marketplace. Jane can also take a picture/jpg of the Mona Lisa, mint an ERC-20 token and sell her picture/jpg on a NFT marketplace. I think the difference shows up when Jack Dorsey mints a screenshot of his first tweet and sells it, it's worth $2m because it's sold by Jack. Whereas I could screenshot Jack's first tweet, mint it and sell it for $0.01 because it's sold by me.

Very happy to be corrected if this is incorrect.

[Judgmentality]

This is also my understanding, and my point was (in this example) Jack Dorsey can just do it a second time, and a third time, and so on.

And it's not like Monet making more paintings, because each painting is unique. This is an identical digital copy from the same person, with no guarantee of its longevity.

[aboodman]

Both of these statements are true:

- An NFT can (should) include a hash of the work

- Multiple NFTs can exist pointing to the same hash.

However:

> And it's not like Monet making more paintings, because each painting is unique.

Each NFT is also unique in the sense that each NFT itself has an address and its own history. They are distinguishable. They are orderable.

> This is an identical digital copy from the same person, with no guarantee of its longevity.

The record has a guaranteed longevity - the longevity of the underlying blockchain. The object it points to obviously does not.

However that's not really important. Building records in the city clerk office have a guaranteed longevity that is far greater than the buildings themselves.

So for example, if Jack minted multiple NFTs for the same tweet it would be clear to everyone which one was first. Only the first one would presumably be considered valuable.

If Jack attached IP rights to those NFTs, courts would presumably only consider the first valid.

I personally find NFTs that lack actual legal property rights to be silly and valueless, but I wanted to address confusion about how they actually work.

[Judgmentality]

> So for example, if Jack minted multiple NFTs for the same tweet it would be clear to everyone which one was first. Only the first one would presumably be considered valuable.

That's not how I see it at all. Once Jack has been shown to be willing to oversell himself just to make a quick buck, it will immediately devalue everything associated with him, including the original NFT. You're buying into the quality/credibility/longevity of the creator here, and once it's shown he's a shill there's not much reason to value any of his original "work" highly.

I am open to being wrong, but it still boggles my mind anybody could think NFTs are anything other than a scam. At least bitcoin had lots of legitimate theory to be used as an alternative to currency, even if it only ended up being an investment alternative for gold. An NFT is like trying to sell art without actually having to create art.

[aboodman]

> Once Jack has been shown to be willing to oversell himself just to make a quick buck, it will immediately devalue everything associated with him, including the original NFT. You're buying into the quality/credibility/longevity of the creator here, and once it's shown he's a shill there's not much reason to value any of his original "work" highly.

To be clear I don't personally see any value at all in an NFT that doesn't have legal IP rights attached. I think we agree that far.

However:

> it will immediately devalue everything associated with him, including the original NFT

It might. Kind of hard to theorize as to what the result would be. The reason I'm hesitant to jump to that conclusion is because of the timestampy nature of blockchains. It's not as if the market is suddenly flooded with forgeries and nobody can tell what's real. It's baked into the blockchain which one was first. In fact you might argue it would not be possible (economically) for Jack to do this in the first place since nobody would buy the second instance.

[aboodman]

Another comparison here to make is like signed copies / limited editions. People buy signed copies of albums, artworks, etc., even though forgeries are rampant. Are NFTs like signed copies?

If the value of a signed copy is mostly performative, then NFTs alone maybe should not have value (because nobody can really see that you own one). If the value of a signed copy is personal, then maybe it does.

I don't personally see any value in owning an NFT, but it's not cut and dry to me that nobody else will or should.

[miracle2k]

> An NFT is like trying to sell art without actually having to create art.

An NFT of a tweet maybe. But actually artists do create art and sell it as NFTs.

[Judgmentality]

Sure, but there's no guarantee there won't be duplicates of that work later. Unless the author has a legal contract guaranteeing never to make another NFT of that work again, there's no reason to believe in its authenticity.

And call me crazy, but the kind of people selling NFTs don't strike me as trustworthy.

[rideontime]

It's not.