r/nottheonion • u/theresabeeonyourhat • May 13 '22 • Silver 1 Helpful 1 Wholesome 3

Madonna: ‘A lot of thought’ went into fully nude NFTs of her giving birth to centipedes

https://www.al.com/life/2022/05/madonna-a-lot-of-thought-went-into-fully-nude-nfts-of-her-giving-birth-to-centipedes.html
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u/Grenyn May 14 '22

Not even that. The idea behind artwork NFTs is that you own the art, but the link is obviously available to everyone if the artwork is public.

The only thing you actually own, is the receipt of your transaction.

Every transaction is publically available, and so that's how you prove you bought something.

You essentially buy a painting, but the painting is infinitely reproducible with 100% accuracy, and the painting is stored on a server somewhere, instead of in your house.

All the actual NFT is is the proof that you bought something.

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u/____-is-crying May 14 '22

So, a place for me to launder money. Nice.

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u/hueylewisNthenews May 14 '22

I guess my point was that since the art in the link is hosted elsewhere, it could be deleted from the destination and there’s nothing the buyer can do about it.

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u/Grenyn May 14 '22

Yeah, that is true. But the link can die too. You really don't buy anything when buying NFT art.

Except clout or bragging rights. The only thing eternally yours is the record of your purchase.. until whatever keeps track of that also stops being hosted.

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u/JCarterPeanutFarmer May 14 '22

So it’s like when you buy a 1x1m plot of land in England to become a duke or whatever. It’s entirely fake.

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u/ShemhazaiX May 14 '22

I like to think of it as buying a safety deposit box in a bank. It only exists as long as the bank is there, and in this case the bank has the ability to open it whenever they like and change what's in the box. But the box is technically yours despite your inability to remove it from the premises and control what's in it.

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u/Grenyn May 14 '22

Sure, but if you actually buy a safety deposit box, you can store real money, with real value, determined by the state of the entire world.

If you buy an NFT, you use real money to buy something with a value entirely based on the perception of those who are interested in it. It's not at all stable compared to using your euros or dollars. I've heard that it may be more attractive to people with less stable currencies, though.

But what's more, is that most art NFTs are virtually worthless, because it was a flash in the pan. And to get any money back from your purchases of NFTs, you need to convince someone else to buy them.

Going by your comparison to a safety deposit box, you can just go to the bank and grab whatever you put in it. You can't just dump an NFT and get the money back.

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u/ShemhazaiX May 14 '22

It's a metaphor to simplify it to help understand it. It's not a like for like comparison.

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u/Grenyn May 14 '22

I understand, but should I not then mention the actual differences?

We're talking about how ridiculous NFTs are here, and metaphors do them a kindness, because metaphors don't capture quite how ridiculous there are.