[bee_rider]

NFT's are pretty dumb IMO. But I think there is something interesting in this question.

What's the Constitution? It is a piece of paper with ink on it. The paper and ink aren't that valuable, actually I have many better pieces of paper and some better ink. So that isn't where the real value is.

I could also buy a modern copy of the Constitution which would be, practically, much better than the original (in the sense that it would be made of modern materials and more durable as a result), so the value must not be there either.

I guess it could be in the investment value of the Constitution. I mean, I bet if I had the Constitution and held onto it for a couple decades, I could sell it to some collector for more that I bought it for. But that's not really a satisfying answer -- clearly the investment value is derived from some other underlying belief that the thing is important.

Anyway, if I was really good at writing I could string you along indefinitely and keep cutting away aspects of the Constitution that clearly don't provide the value, but I'm just a programmer so let's get to the point: I think the value of the Constitution is actually completely divorced from the physical thing itself. It comes from the history that it represents -- which is actually an intangible idea.

So, if someone were to mint an NFT of the Constitution and we decided that it also represented that idea, I guess it would be just as valuable? Good luck convincing other people! But I don't really see why the physical piece of paper is fundamentally a better representation of the idea, other than that's just the way we've always done it. Maybe you can mint an NFT of the Constitution for yourself, and convince yourself it represents the idea better than the piece of paper did. I think this would be a pretty silly thing to do, but no more so than trying to own the paper representation.

These are all just ways of satisfying our irrational desire to own part of an idea, the problem comes from our belief that ideas are ownable, not the shape of the token.

[dragontamer]

I think its simpler than that.

If Alice makes a Constitution NFT, and Bob makes a Constitution NFT, which NFT is the legitimate one? I'm not sure how using "Blockchain" to track the trust issue helps at all.

If you say "The first one to file the NFT wins" (lets ignore the fact that this only works if both Alice and Bob are using the same blockchain with the same concept of time), then what if Bob files the NFT but doesn't in fact, have ownership of the Constitution? What if Alice is the true owner, but heard about NFTs later and thus does the filing process after Bob?

[bee_rider]

What if Benjamin Franklin had gotten blackouot drunk at the constitution writing after party, knocked the original and the early copies into a pile together, and just plucked one out of the stack at random? Not super relevant I just think it is a funny hypothetical. I'd say the secretly older copy doesn't have some extra significance, the 'real' Constitution is whichever one we've been displaying this whole time, I think, but there's definitely room for disagreement.

Unless Alice or Bob are minting an NFT which they claim is redeemable for the Constitution, which isn't how these things generally work I think, either of their copies has some argument for representing the Constitution. In any case these are all just mementos that represent the idea of the history of the Constitution, as is the real one, as is Ben Franklin's switcharoo copy, as would be your own privately minted copy. I think it is impossible to meaningfully get it right.