| All NFTs have a verifiable chain of providence baked-in; you can see the wallet address of the account which minted it. So, I present GPG signing not really as a novel mechanism for establishing authenticity given a lack of any other method; the NFT itself is the authenticity. Today, zero-trust creators may publish their GPG public key; tomorrow, maybe they publish their address; "the only legit NFTs are the ones minted from this address"; this is cryptographically secure. But, maybe a creator is more "well known" for their GPG public key, or wants to mint from a large number of addresses for whatever reason. They could sign a phrase which includes the wallet address which minted the NFT; when combined with the verifiable providence blockchain already offers, this is a compelling and secure solution for them. Blockchain has all the same "zero-trust bootstrapping" problems as GPG does; where does the artist actually broadcast "this is my address", and how can fans know that it was actually the artist who said it? It's something GPG has struggled with for a long time. Ultimately it usually falls back to centralized authority; that doesn't mean GPG doesn't have value beyond the authority who told you "Yeah, this is Deadmau5's public key". The idea is simply presented more-so as a bridge between the old and the new. Many people here understand what GPG is and why it is valuable, but don't understand how blockchain delivers an extension of that value. GPG is great at asserting authenticity; blockchain extends this and asserts both authenticity and providence ("is it real, and where did it come from?"); this is a critical addition required for a concept of ownership. But blockchain's ability to assert this ends at the blockchain, as you'd expect; the world will still need centralized authorities to jump the gap between the blockchain and a human being. IF that matters in the context of a given NFT. There are tons of NFTs which created 'virgin value' so to speak; value of thin air. No one cares who minted them; the token itself is what is valuable. |