[RancheroBeans]

I'll be honest, it hurts me to see people shit on something, likely because of the sentiment towards NFTs at the moment. It's definitely not the first time I've seen a lot of smart people on HN look at things in an off-way. There are bad actors, there are bad actors everywhere with any physical goods as well. I'm just trying to build something I enjoy and others will too. That something happens to use NFTs.

[atoav]

Sorry, as someone who is fascinated with cryptographgy I have to say that NFTs are a technology nobody could explain me the benefits of. Most of them who tried were either naive (and lost money on NFTs) or bad actors trying to sell me something.

The fact that I have not met a single knowledgable person who managed to convince me that NFTs are a good technology that solves problems that need solving in elegant ways doesn't speak about me, it speaks about the topic at hand.

To me NFTs look like this: Somebody was like "how can we make money off the internet if people just can copy everything? We need to limit the supply somehow!" and then they tried to market it to artists "you will earn money this way". I don't even agree that copyability of data is a problem, and the argument of "we can make money by owning and not putting in a lot of work" attracts exactly the kind of bad actor you talked about.

Any technology doesn't live in isolation from society, especially not something like NFTs that makes the extraordinary claim to introduce something as fundamental as ownership within a system that has been built on free copying of data. That means bad actors need to be factored in, especially if you're marketing the thing in the style of a get rich quick scheme.

Maybe you can explain why this is something we want and why this is the technology that solves it?

[ahnick]

NFTs are probably best thought of as ownership records or certificates for items that could be either digital goods or physical goods. If you want NFTs to be useful as an ownership record for a physical good, then there will need to be some authority in the physical world that agrees to use the NFTs on a specific blockchain as the system of record for transactions of that good. (e.g. local municipalities using NFTs on Ethereum to represent property deeds)

Some benefits of NFTs in the property deed example would be:

  - The elimination of the need for municipalities to maintain proprietary databases to hold property deeds
  - 24/7 globally accessible property information. (No downtime)
  - Standardized and globally interoperable property records across municipalities and potentially countries
  - Easy to prove and verify ownership of properties, which could be used to grant access to third party services for homeowners. (e.g. HELOCs)
  - Dapps could allow property owners to post the NFT deed as collateral and automate the loan application process to reduce processing costs.

[Yizahi]

This is impossible. Basically you MUST have a centralised DB at the municipality storing all the data at before (because it is impossible to do so on chain, due to chain tech limitations). Plus you have a useless NFT chain on the side, where NFTs are primitive URLs to the centralised DB (CDB). Even more - they are one way links. So that CDB doesn't know anything about blockchain state and NFTs. Next problem - no person owns NFTs, they are owned by wallets. Therefore these wallet must be deanonimised and registered at the municipality and in the CDB, so that there is at least one place to show who owns a deed.

Now some potential scenarios:

1. A sells deed to B. So now they do in on chain and NFT is sold from wallet X to Y. All of that is registered in the CDB and confirmed with paper documents, contracts and stuff. Maaaybe that can work, but as we see NFTs are useless fifth leg in a horse here.

2. Inheritance. Deed is inherited by law by person C (with or wihtout wallet Z), but chain doesn't know about it and thinks wallet X still owns NFT. CDB has actual data and overrides "wallet X" line, so that chain now useless and outdated.

3. Law enforces deed transfer from A to B. Again, NFT is not sold and chain is not updated.

The list of situations can go on and on.

And last note - these so called "dapps", which are neither smart nor contracts, are the most stupidly delusional thing you can introduce into a valuable commodities market. Only people not familiar with the scale and rate of exploits caused by usage of these dumb and badly designed programs can suggest it. Or the one profiteering from this. Phishing is over the top and even experienced users at r/CC are regularly losing everything due to a single click mistakes. This is not how housing market worked and will work. Not how any market works actually.

[ahnick]

No, it's not impossible. You don't need to store all state on chain. You will just need to store a hash of the off-chain data on chain. The supplemental off-chain data can be stored in standardized storage systems, which they themselves might be highly distributed and standardized. (e.g. IPFS)

[illiarian]

> You don't need to store all state on chain. You will just need to store a hash of the off-chain data on chain. The supplemental off-chain data can be stored in standardized storage systems

It amazes me how people say this with straight face. "Just store all the data off-chain!". Then the chain isn't needed.

[ahnick]

I'm not sure how you made that jump in logic. The chain is absolutely needed as it stores and establishes cryptographic proof of ownership. This is the entire premise behind validity rollups for layer 2 networks.

[Yizahi]

The hash literally changes nothing except for maybe verifying integrity of the data, and that is debatable. Add hash in the examples above and literally nothing will change. You can't just throw technojargon term at everything and see where it sticks.

[ahnick]

The hash is critical as it is what enables you to verify that the off-chain data is correct. What exactly did you think was technojargon? I'll be happy to elaborate.

[automatic6131]

All of this is literally easier and cheaper to do without NFT woo. The reason why it doesn't already exist is that there's practically no need for it.

>Dapps could allow property owners to post the NFT deed as collateral and automate the loan application process to reduce processing costs. Do you not see how this is a bad idea? What value is the NFT deed? The house has the value - what's the NFT worth? If you have the NFT deed, are you the house owner? Bruh.

[ahnick]

How would you design an HA system that has literally 0 downtime and accessible from anywhere in the world that people can cryptographically prove ownership of a property? How would you prevent DDoS attacks of that system? Further, how would you keep costs low enough that a typical small city or township could afford said HA property system?

What value is the property deed? The house has the value - what's the property deed worth? If you have the property deed, are you the house owner?

[atoav]

> How would you design an HA system that has literally 0 downtime

When you ask a question like that I can't help but asking back: How would you design any system that has "literally 0 downtime" and why do you think it is only possible to achive it using a blockchain?

As for the second part: proving some digital data is originating from someone is what we have been doing using cryptographic signatures for quite a while now. How to do so in a stable fashion that resists changes to the original data e.g. editing, cropping, color-manipulation, pitch shifting, etc is the challenge. This is called fingerprinting.

To proove ownership of a material you just need a list of fingerprints and a reference to the entity that owns the rights. How to do reliable databases is a problem that we sort of know how to deal with in 2023.

The question is, why would you need a blockchain for that problem? The hard part is not trusting the entity that stores the data, the hard part is trusting the data that is entered into that database. And for this kind of problem the best construction we have found so far is dedicating some institution to that purpose and have copyright-holders proove their ownership of their data to that institution. But if you have an institution that you already need to trust with data entry you can also trust them with data storage or not?

Not sure how a blockchain helps when some guy claims the song I have written on another blockchain. In the end it will be governments who will have to recognize my ownership so I can sue and by that point you can safe yourself the trouble of using a blockchain in the first place.

[ahnick]

Blockchains are highly distributed systems. At least the good ones are ;-). Blockchains have the ultimate uptime b/c every full node has a copy of the database that houses the state and in large blockchain networks (e.g. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Chia) there is always a node available. It's definitely possible to build other HA systems that are not blockchains, but even spending top dollar for 99.99% availability you probably can't approach the uptime of a one of these blockchain networks and especially if you are running your own infra and not doing it on a public cloud provider.

Blockchains are great for proving ownership because you can provide a signature for verification and then that can be cross-referenced to see if that same signature also owns the on-chain data.

There is no getting around the fact that the government chooses the system of record and property owners have to abide that choice. If the government though chose to use a blockchain as the system of record (for all the benefits I listed previously), then you don't need to worry about other blockchains, because that's not the one the government cares about.

[automatic6131]

Create a stanardised piece of FOSS software that can be hosted in (who cares, azure|aws|heroku), a small city then just needs to pay the hosting fees and digitise their records. Now it's as good as 0 downtime for the real world, certainly not even blockchains have 0 downtime. And you don't have the issues of gas wars either.

Oh, the real hard problems are creating the standardised representation of a property deed and getting everyone to use it. Something not at all addressed by use of blockchain!

>Cryptographically prove ownership of a property literally no one is asking for this except the sellers of cryptographic proof.

[ahnick]

Just because you host on AWS doesn't mean you get 0 downtime. AWS regions do go down occasionally. Compare that to a hundred thousand node globally distributed network -> https://dashboard.chia.net/d/em15uQ47k/peer-info?orgId=1

> Oh, the real hard problems are creating the standardised representation of a property deed and getting everyone to use it. Something not at all addressed by use of blockchain!

And Oracle databases addressed this? Standardizing property deeds is more of an application level concern not core blockchain infra.

>Cryptographically prove ownership of a property literally no one is asking for this except the sellers of cryptographic proof.

A good UI/UX would make this a push button capability from a wallet. No need for the general public to understand the technology powering push button verification. :)

[tallanvor]

Who needs deed information to be available 24/7/365? Why does there need to be a central system that is at risk of DDoS attacks? Why would a city/town/county pay for a system that isn't needed?

[ahnick]

I think pretty much anyone would like systems to be available as much as possible, no? Any website (which nowadays most property assessors have sites) is vulnerable to DDoS attacks and even worse would be ransomware attacks. The system would be an improvement over their existing system and would likely be cheaper. Most city/town/county would pay for such a system as TCO is important to them.

[UncleEntity]

> What value is the property deed?

Its value is that it is proof of ownership certified by whichever county officer has the job to do these things.

> The house has the value - what's the property deed worth?

Literally nothing since anyone can show up at the county office and get a copy. They don’t even ask for ID because it’s a public record.

> If you have the property deed, are you the house owner?

No, the property deed is an official record of the property owner.

With the deed you can prove you own the property but even that isn’t ironclad which is the whole reason there’s a title insurance industry. Which, and I’ll give you this one, could be the only valid reason for “blockchain” in this whole argument but would require having every historic property transaction already on chain or you’d just be where we are today.

[illiarian]

> If you have the property deed, are you the house owner?

That's a great question.

Riddle me this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27212564

[ahnick]

I'm not sure what you think that proves? Government corruption has and will always exist. If anything, a public blockchain will make manipulation of property records more easily detectable.

[atoav]

I can literally set up a blockchain that says I own the Mona Lisa. Me saying so, or me putting it on a blockchain doesn't make it so.

A blockchain solves the specific problem of how to track ownership of some piece of data in a decentralized fashion where multiple parties do not trust each other.

This, however is not the hard problem when we talk about ownership databases. The hard problem is ensuring the data entered into that database represents actual real world ownership and having the database universally recognized by everybody as a representation of ownership.

What purpose does a database like that serve, when the actual place where the rubber of ownership hits the road is somwhere else?

[ahnick]

> I can literally set up a blockchain that says I own the Mona Lisa. Me saying so, or me putting it on a blockchain doesn't make it so.

Agreed. The parties that are interacting must agree on which blockchain to interact on first. More likely an industry, trade association, or government would say this chain is going to be the system of record of where transactions take place and then individuals and businesses are forced to abide by that. Then once that is decided, any transfer of ownership on that chain would expect to be honored by the transferring party. If not, then consequences would be enforced by the governing industry, trade association, government. etc.

> A blockchain solves the specific problem of how to track ownership of some piece of data in a decentralized fashion where multiple parties do not trust each other.

> This, however is not the hard problem when we talk about ownership databases. The hard problem is ensuring the data entered into that database represents actual real world ownership and having the database universally recognized by everybody as a representation of ownership.

> What purpose does a database like that serve, when the actual place where the rubber of ownership hits the road is somwhere else?

Yes, there is sort of a bootstrapping problem around how do you get people onboarded onto a particular blockchain. For that I think you need some novel use case(s). For Bitcoin it was being the first alternative monetary system. For Ethereum it was the ability to create on-chain programs. Zcash it was private transactions. etc. Once people are onboarded though, then you can use that system to agree on where ownership entry and change of ownership transactions take place. Then you can use the publicly auditable history to prove ownership. For a physical good, then that becomes evidence that can be presented to a third party presiding entity who settles disputes.

[atoav]

> Yes, there is sort of a bootstrapping problem around how do you get people onboarded onto a particular blockchain.

Yeah, but would I like to do that? All these blockchains are literally some shady guy that tells me "trust me and my tech to manage that ownership for you". What is in it for me?

[illiarian]

> The elimination of the need for municipalities to maintain proprietary databases to hold property deeds

Of course it doesn't eliminate the need. Who's going to enter those records and enforce them?

> Standardized and globally interoperable property records across municipalities and potentially countries

Just because it's on blockchain doesn't mean it's standardised, or interoperable.

> Easy to prove and verify ownership of properties, which could be used to grant access to third party services for homeowners.

Yup. Until a corrupt government official puts his friend as the owner of your house and evicts you. Look, the proof is in the blockchain, and it's irrefutable, and cannot be amended.

> Dapps could allow property owners to post the NFT deed as collateral and automate the loan application process to reduce processing costs.

This is just a string off made-up terms that make no sense

[ahnick]

> Of course it doesn't eliminate the need. Who's going to enter those records and enforce them?

The staff still does what they do today, but they no longer need to maintain their own database and IT application.

> Just because it's on blockchain doesn't mean it's standardised, or interoperable.

Once it is on a blockchain it is conforming to a published standard for NFTs for that particular blockchain and others can interact with it and build additional systems that interoperate more easily.

> Yup. Until a corrupt government official puts his friend as the owner of your house and evicts you. Look, the proof is in the blockchain, and it's irrefutable, and cannot be amended.

Because corrupt government officials have never doctored official records that weren't on the blockchain?

> This is just a string off made-up terms that make no sense

No, it's not. A Dapp stands for a "decentralized application" and posting property deeds as collateral is a real thing. Further, being able to do that digitally will likely lower processing costs.

[illiarian]

> The staff still does what they do today, but they no longer need to maintain their own database and IT application.

That's a very minor thing to maintain as compared to the multiple issues that blockchains bring into the mix.

And of course they will need to maintain an IT application: they will need secure wallet implementations, data entry applications to interact with blockchains, security audits for the shitty programs people keep calling "smart contracts" etc.

> Once it is on a blockchain it is conforming to a published standard for NFTs

Ah yes. It automagically conforms to some standard. Just because it's on blockchain.

> Because corrupt government officials have never doctored official records that weren't on the blockchain?

And how is blockchain helping you in this case? Or in the cases I linked: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27212564 and that you even failed to understand.

[ahnick]

> And of course they will need to maintain an IT application: they will need secure wallet implementations, data entry applications to interact with blockchains, security audits for the shitty programs people keep calling "smart contracts" etc.

Most likely a third party company will provide a standardized overlay that government's can tweak to suit their needs, but the bulk of the important data is now stored securely on chain. This should help reduce the security footprint and FTE overhead for governments.

> Ah yes. It automagically conforms to some standard. Just because it's on blockchain.

No magic involved. If you want your NFT to work say on the Chia Blockchain, then you need to conform to this standard -> https://www.chia.net/2022/06/29/1-4-0-introducing-the-chia-n...

> And how is blockchain helping you in this case? Or in the cases I linked: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27212564 and that you even failed to understand.

I've already explained this in another comment. No one is claiming blockchain is helping in that situation and that's okay! :)

[hem777]

> The fact that I have not met a single knowledgable person who managed to convince me that NFTs are a good technology that solves problems that need solving in elegant ways doesn't speak about me, it speaks about the topic at hand.

It doesn’t say anything about the correct answer to the question and all about your analysis process. Keep looking, good luck!

[ceejayoz]

At some point, it's possible to draw conclusions from the fact that a whole bunch of generally intelligent people can't make a good argument for something's worth.

For example:

> The fact that I have not met a single knowledgable person who managed to convince me that eating poop is a good idea that solves problems that need solving in elegant ways doesn't speak about me, it speaks about the topic at hand.

Do we conclude that eating poop is a great idea, and that more looking is what's needed? Or can we conclude that there's probably a reason folks struggle to justify the concept?

[atoav]

> It doesn’t say anything about the correct answer to the question

It doesn't necessarily say something about the correct answer to the question. That however doesn't automatically mean it never says something about the correct answer to the question.

I decided in this case, that it does.

[Yizahi]

100% of people in the NFT space are bad actors because they deliberately lie to others. Or they honestly deluded themselves into the madness, makes no big difference really.

We can do an experiment here - you can describe what you think is an NFT and I can reply why is that technically impossible (because we have heard this broken record for a thousand times already) :)

[pcthrowaway]

What is that thing you're building, and why does it use NFTs?