[ahnick]

> Yes. You literally said all the data would be stored somewhere else.

Meta data (ownership data) is stored on-chain. (supplemental data is stored off-chain) So again, no I did not say that all data is stored somewhere else. The meta data that is stored on-chain serves an important role.

> If this is no different than any other system, then it has no benefits of any other system.

We are talking about the enforceability. Governments can choose to embrace a blockchain as their system of record. If they do, then NFT deeds are as enforceable as traditional property deeds.

> Who makes your fantasy tokens referring to physical objects enforceable? Oh right. No one.

The government would in this particular case. Maybe in other cases it would be a company and in still other cases it could be an on-chain contract.

[illiarian]

> So again, no I did not say that all data is stored somewhere else.

This is splitting hairs. Actual data that is actually relevant to the property, is stored somewhere else. Which is ironic because elsewhere you stated: "but they no longer need to maintain their own database and IT application."

Oh look. They have to maintain their own database for the actual data

> The government would in this particular case.

Not in this particular case. But in all cases.

> Maybe in other cases it would be a company

So. You need central entities to verify and enforce rights to physical objects. You need central entities to store the actual data pertaining to objects and people.

So the point of blockchain in all this is...?

[ahnick]

The blockchain is a piece of additive technology. It doesn't replace existing relational databases, nosql databases, object storage, etc. You can store data in any location you like (doesn't have to be a centralized location) and then verify it's authenticity later by recomputing the hash and comparing that to the hash stored on-chain in the NFT. Also, just because some data is stored off-chain does not mean you need to run your own infra. You could pay a hosting provider to operate it for you.

Public permissionless blockchains help in easing the verifiability of ownership records, transfer of ownership records, and auditability of transactions. In the digital goods you don't necessarily have to rely on a single third party like a government. Checkout Chia offer files (https://chialisp.com/offers/) for an example of this. You can post these offer files on Twitter, forums, text messages, emails, etc.

[illiarian]

> The blockchain is a piece of additive technology.

To add it you need to show it produces more value than the problems it causes.

> It doesn't replace existing relational databases, nosql databases, object storage, etc.

Hm. Strange. In a comment elsewhere you literally claimed this, emphasis mine: "The staff still does what they do today, but they no longer need to maintain their own database and IT application."

> Also, just because some data is stored off-chain does not mean you need to run your own infra.

And the people will run the infra for you out of the goodness of their hearts? And of course the data that you store "somewhere elsewhere who knows where" will of course be easily available and accessible in perpetuity because blockchain, right?

Why is it that most NFTs in the world are now pointing to non-existent files?

> Public permissionless blockchains help in easing the verifiability of ownership records, transfer of ownership records, and auditability of transactions.

They don't. Moreover, they only work for the most trivial of cases, and make actual real-world scenarios hard or impossible. I've provide several of those, and you answer? "No one is claiming blockchain is helping in that situation and that's okay!"

> In the digital goods

We're not talking about digital goods.

[traveler01]

Sorry, don't mean to be rude but this is the most useless discussion I've seen here.

I think it's fairly easy to understand (but you clearly hate the technology for some reason). The proof of ownership would be in the blockchain. NFT X represents X property, the address owning that NFT would technically own that NFT.

Also NFTs may also have descriptive data on them, so technically you could have a description marking that NFT as X property.

It's very much feasable, but from what I'm reading from you, you just hate the technology for the sake of it. Reminds me of Apple haters.

[illiarian]

> he proof of ownership would be in the blockchain. NFT X represents X property, the address owning that NFT would technically own that NFT.

On top of that you need many more documents actually linking the actual physical person with that wallet. And additional documents dealing the actual property.

And of course "oh it's just simple record pointing to an address" is exactly why I keep saying that crypto proponents have this childlike inability to imagine anything beyond the most trivial of use cases.

Examples where "the address owning that NFT would technically own that NFT" falls apart and "useless discussion" is the one I'm having, not crypto-absolutists with their trivial cases and increasingly complex workarounds:

- ownership disputes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27212564

- ownership transfer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27217681

> you just hate the technology for the sake of it.

As wrote elsewhere: I've had this or similar conversation many, many times. Crypto proponents can only come up with the most trivial examples, and for anything more complex they rely on magic and increasingly complex and arcane constructions that fall under their own weight.

Edit:

Just in this discussion: we "don't need a centralised database", but we need a centralised database, or an external party to store our data that also needs to be available and accessible by anyone, but also reliable, maybe federated, or a local server, and it's also standardised, but maybe third parties will make it standard for governments, or maybe someone will provide infra to store data, or maybe it will be hash of data that may or may not be standardised, or...

And with all that it still doesn't solve or help any of the complex issues that arise from property ownership.

[traveler01]

Again, you're calling me "crypto-absolutist" shows your clear hate for the technology only for the sake of it.

This would also make very easy to prove ownership. You have access to the address that owns said property, it's yours. It's as simple as that.

The database you'd need locally would be pretty much to store useful information and to track data on the blockchain.

I don't see any country using this anytime soon, or at all, but it is possible.

PS: I do understand you hate NFTs representing pictures of monkeys being worth millions of $, I also find it stupid, that doesn't give me the right to hate the entire technology that makes it possible.

[illiarian]

> Again, you're calling me "crypto-absolutist" shows your clear hate for the technology only for the sake of it.

No, it shows that I define people talking about this tech by how much of reality they ignore.

> This would also make very easy to prove ownership. You have access to the address that owns said property, it's yours. It's as simple as that.

Who is this "you"? And who do you prove this ownership to? How all the other use cases like death and loss of access to the address are resolved? How are court orders are resolved? And so on, I've provided links where I listed various use cases in similar discussions.

See? Your "easy" ignores so many complexities.

> The database you'd need locally would be pretty much to store useful information and to track data on the blockchain.

So, you need to store useful information somewhere anyway. What exactly is the value of blockchain in this case?

> that doesn't give me the right to hate the entire technology that makes it possible.

Your emotional outbursts don't affect me. It's not hate when every single thing that you say is possible is only possible for the most trivial cases, makes other cases hard or impossible, requires complex workaround for complex issues, and in general doesn't improve an iota over existing situation.

[Yizahi]

Ownership data is not stored on chain because it is technically impossible. Chain only knows which wallet owns which URL-hash, and nothing else. Which real life person owns which real life physical or digital off-chain artifact (like deed, or picture, or a key), chain doesn't know and can't know. This info is stored in the centralised DBs managed my centralised entities like a company or government.

[ahnick]

Ownership data meaning the NFT itself and which can be proved by the holder using his/her private key. Off-chain data (such as personal information or supplemental documents) doesn't have to be stored in centralized databases. It could be stored in federated systems, or a local computer at the owner's residence, or a hosted server controlled by the owner. The chain can hold a hash of the identifying information and then an application can pull the data from wherever it is stored and referenced and check that is correct by recomputing the hash and comparing that to what is stored on chain.

[Yizahi]

"federated systems, or a local computer at the owner's residence, or a hosted server controlled by the owner."

That's just centralised in a different form. Or more precisely - not decentralised.

Sure, some app can interact with centralised DB holding all actual information like deeds or music or whatever. Why do you need NFTs for that? Centralised BD must me utilised to track ownership of actual data or items by real people and it won't work any other way due to the IP rights and complex ownership agreements. NFTs are useless and impotent for this task.

[ahnick]

> That's just centralized in a different form. Or more precisely - not decentralized.

How many copies of the data in different locations do you need to be considered decentralized? In fact, I'd argue you just care about having enough copies of the off-chain data that you feel well insulated from data loss, so I'm not sure that the off-chain data needs to actually be decentralized. The goal is to have the ownership proof (on-chain NFT) be as decentralized and easily auditable as possible.

> Sure, some app can interact with centralised DB holding all actual information like deeds or music or whatever. Why do you need NFTs for that? Centralised BD must me utilised to track ownership of actual data or items by real people and it won't work any other way due to the IP rights and complex ownership agreements. NFTs are useless and impotent for this task.

I feel like many of these conversations in this thread are focused on the current state of blockchain adoption today. I don't know of any government today that has adopted a blockchain to track property records at scale, but I do think that will probably come eventually. As soon as that happens, then you can have rules and regulations drafted around all these tertiary concerns including IP rights and complex ownership rights, potentially some of those codified in on-chain contracts, but some would remain as processes for the government or the courts. Putting property deeds in an NFT on a blockchain does not solve all problems that arise with property ownership, but it could improve the record keeping process in some areas.

[Yizahi]

User illiarian wrote a good answer for you, but I want to add one more point:

IP rights aren't just for property deeds, they are relevant for every single digital or physical creation made by humans. So let's take a picture as an example:

There are NFTs and associated CDBs which supposedly allow trading pictures TODAY. No need to wait for any government or laws or technical advances. Supposedly NFTs allow me to buy and sell pictures in a decentralised way right here and now. The problem is that they can't do it. There is technically nothing inside NFT which can deal with IP rights for the pictures. You can't transfer IP rights completely, you can't do it partially, you can't do it with multiple peers, and of course you can't do any combination of the above. So current NFT platforms either ignore it or do it old fashioned way with centralised accounts, Terms of Service and other centralised stuff tracked on the platform and not on chain.

No need to wait for some far future and government adoption, NFTs has already failed at the much more simpler task and have no paths forward from this failure.

[illiarian]

> but I do think that will probably come eventually.

For it to "come eventually" you need to answer all these questions that you ignore or swat aside as irrelevant, or easily solvable by magic.

> As soon as that happens, then you can have rules and regulations drafted around all these tertiary concerns including IP rights and complex ownership rights

No. These things have to be solved first. because complex ownership rights exist today, and not in some fantastical future after blockchain has been implemented at scale.

> potentially some of those codified in on-chain contracts

"On-chain contracts" of course make zero sense even for the most trivial of cases. Much less the complex ones.

Because what you propose is replicating human-readable texts with programs in esoteric programming languages that get routinely "hacked" because even multiple audits cannot find vulnerabilities in them. And for what?

> Putting property deeds in an NFT on a blockchain does not solve all problems that arise with property ownership, but it could improve the record keeping process in some areas.

It "may improve record keeping" but produce an insane amount of complexity, inane and insane workarounds, friction and problems everywhere else. So, will not be implemented until those issues are solved.

[illiarian]

In addition to my other comment:

> In fact, I'd argue you just care about having enough copies of the off-chain data that you feel well insulated from data loss, so I'm not sure that the off-chain data needs to actually be decentralized.

Remember how it all started? "The [government] staff still does what they do today, but they no longer need to maintain their own database and IT application."

And now they need to maintain "enough copies of the off-chain data" anyway and deal with blockchain.

[illiarian]

> Off-chain data (such as personal information

So actual data that proves that this physical person is the owner of this physical asset.

> It could be stored in a, b, c

> then an application can pull the data from wherever it is stored

Ah yes. Because when it's stored in a non-centralised database of "local computer at owner's residence" or "hosted server controlled by the owner" that data is easily accessible and retrievable.

[ahnick]

You can replicate it to multiple sources or use a decentralized storage solution if you are concerned about data availability.

[illiarian]

> You can replicate it to multiple sources

Who is this "you" who is going to do that?

Remember we were talking about property deeds? Their availability is of great concern.

Before you answer that, go back over all your comments here and in other threads, collect all the limitations you've run into, all the workarounds you proposed, all the additional external systems you need to run just the most trivial of scenarios, and riddle me this: why would anyone want this?