[danuker]

Thank you for the response! And sorry for taking so long with mine.

I agree that the example you provided is a more "objective" one, more grounded in physical reality - a tulip costing the same as a 10 years' salary.

> Obviously this is absurd, and history proved it so.

Had the tulips kept their scarcity, and had social interest remained at such high levels, couldn't it have kept its value?

An example I have is gold: people have been hoarding and valuing it for millennia. Sure, it occasionally crashes, but so do a lot of assets. Is it in a constant bubble? Is it overvalued? What is the intrinsic value of gold? It is not very useful in itself, but it is in demand and scarce, as opposed to fiat currency, which is in free fall.

http://pricedingold.com/us-dollar/

I argue that value comes from what people attribute it to be. The markets are an aggregation of such value decisions from many people.

[zepto]

It seems like you are in full agreement with me that the way we value NFTs is exactly equivalent to the valuing of Tulips during the bubble of 1637.

> Had the tulips kept their scarcity,

They did.

> and had social interest remained at such high levels, couldn't it have kept its value?

You mean if the tulip bubble had never burst would we still be paying 10 years of a skilled persons salary for one? Sure.

It’s worth noting that the courts ultimately held the debts owed for Tulip futures to be ‘gambling debts’…

[danuker]

> You mean if the tulip bubble had never burst? Sure.

Exactly. There is no guarantee the NFT bubble will burst! People might keep enjoying these, and investing a significant portion of their lives.

[zepto]

Yes, just like with the Tulip Bubble! It might never have burst, and then we would never have needed NFTs because we’d still be trading tulips.

[danuker]

But I believe everything should be valued this way, including:

- stocks and real estate: people use "objective" metrics like discounting cash flow. But the time preference for discounting cash is subjective.

- precious metals and commodities: there are "objective" stock-to-flow metrics, but they all assume people will still desire precious metals, commodities, and the resulting products. This desire is subjective.

[zepto]

Everything is valued this way. All purchases are based on what people think the thing is worth.

Discounted cash flows, etc, are all ways people use to come to their ‘subjective’ conclusions.

It ends up being circular though - yes, human judgement is ultimately part of the equation, but that judgment end up being based on a prediction of future value, and often we can use understanding of markets or the intrinsic value of commodities to industrial processes to assess this.

Many people are arguing that the value of NFTs is in fact not based on an intrinsic value to future processes, and is purely a subjective bubble.

Arguing that all valuations have a component of human judgement and that people may just continue to like NFTs is not a counterargument.

A counterargument would be to explain how that will continue to be valuable independent of the subjective component.

Generally people seem to dodge this, and instead just say ‘everything is subjective’, i.e. the postmodern view.

[danuker]

And therefore... nothing has intrinsic value?