Non-RPG General News - The Problem with NFTs

I don't really know much about it, but I saw Peter Molyneux is making an NFT game and judging by his rubbish recent projects that's all I need to know to decide they're shit.

In game items have a sort of value. They've been sold for real money, the D3 real-money auction house was Blizzard trying to control the 3rd party sales that were happening for D2 items.

So, all an NFT would add to game items is the ability for them to "exist" outside the game. If the game servers closed it's possible for another game to allow these NFTs into the new game, but I'd say that can only work against them. You might have overpowered players starting with all the best gear or even just a player who has more stock to sell than even the developers do so they can undercut the item mall prices.

Plus, I don't believe much is stored in the NFT itself? It's just a link, isn't it? Devs would still have to pay someone to make a replacement model of the sword in game.

I dunno, it just doesn't sound like something that works.

NFTs on Youtube? It’s More Likely Than You Think. (COG Connected)

Quote from their CEO:

“We’re also looking further ahead to the future and have been following everything happening in Web3 as a source of inspiration to continue innovating on YouTube. The past year in the world of crypto, nonfungible tokens (NFTs), and even decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) has highlighted a previously unimaginable opportunity to grow the connection between creators and their fans. We’re always focused on expanding the YouTube ecosystem to help creators capitalize on emerging technologies, including things like NFTs, while continuing to strengthen and enhance the experiences creators and fans have on YouTube.”

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"things" - lol, shows how little they understand it.


I'm actually surprised Twitch hasn't integrated that on their platform yet.
Scratch that, they are already doing it. What a good opportunity to keep people longer, increase the streaming and pave the way to Amazon game integration, I can see how it can be attractive to them.

SveNitoR said:

There's a big problem with storing information on the blockchain: it is extremely expensive. I read a few days ago that (at that moment) storing 1MB of data on the ethereum blockchain costs approximately $300 000. So to store a contract there it would have to be extremely limited since every KB costs about $300.

Because of this, at the moment NFTs are simply pointers to something stored on a normal server somewhere and therefore likely to suffer link rot. Ie the link through the NFT marketplace will likely lead to a 404 web page after a while.

(Ethereum is supposed to move to a proof of stake model instead of proof of work, which is supposed to make everything a lot better (don't ask me how)).

At the moment NFTs have no legal framework as well, so nothing is actually bought apart from the pointer. Maybe when laws catch up something good will come out of this, but at the moment almost all NFT trades are like buying a unique link to a view of a digital artwork. The digital artwork is not exclusive to you and the link isn't guaranteed to show the image or whatever you bought. It's only guaranteed to point towards the same place.

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No, I'm not talking using an existing cryptocurrency blockchain to store scanned contracts, PDFs, and so on - that would make no sense at all. What I'm talking about is the other ways blockchains could be implemented - taking the fundamental idea of a distributed database that has no point of central control, so that bunging a corrupt official a few quid to change an official record is no longer feasible. I'm talking about a blockchain that would simply record individual ownership of a property, or a vehicle - just as the equivalent of a simple transaction on the chain. So that ownership on the official record cannot feasibly be changed unless both parties to the transaction provide their keys.

So, I'm not talking about NFTs in the bullshit way they're being touted at the moment - just that very robust "tokens" denoting ownership of real things could be very useful.

Ripper said:

No, I'm not talking using an existing cryptocurrency blockchain to store scanned contracts, PDFs, and so on - that would make no sense at all. What I'm talking about is the other ways blockchains could be implemented - taking the fundamental idea of a distributed database that has no point of central control, so that bunging a corrupt official a few quid to change an official record is no longer feasible. I'm talking about a blockchain that would simply record individual ownership of a property, or a vehicle - just as the equivalent of a simple transaction on the chain. So that ownership on the official record cannot feasibly be changed unless both parties to the transaction provide their keys.

So, I'm not talking about NFTs in the bullshit way they're being touted at the moment - just that very robust "tokens" denoting ownership of real things could be very useful.

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I see your point. Hypothetically speaking it could be interesting.

Of course the issue of corruption and manipulation isn't made impossible through blockchain technology.

Apparently the more paranoid part of the crypto world have figured out how crypto could theoretically be manipulated (don't ask me how) and are trying to mitigate.

[spoiler="Slightly related story] I remember listening to an old Radiolab episode (an NYPR program) about the launch of a new privacy focused cryptocoin. Where no one was supposed to be able to cheat in any way due to the initial decryption keys being distributed between laptops that no single person knew where to find, so that none of the creators could know it all. This way the users could be safe from one or more of the creators doing some sort of scam.

The reporter messed up, however, and brought a non turned off smart phone to one of these places and her phone's microphone got hacked. So at least one part of the launch was compromised. [/spoiler]

SveNitoR said:

I see your point. Hypothetically speaking it could be interesting.

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It's a bit more than hypothetical at this point - it's not one of my wacky ideas! I think the Swedish Lantmäteriet were the first to get serious about it. The UK is on the case too, and there's countless other major blockchain projects all over the world. I'd even say that the blockchain stuff we hear most about - the cryptocurrencies and NFT pyramid schemes - are probably not the most significant aspects of the tech, going forwards. There are also stablecoins (which are backed by real currency reserves), and all sorts of other implementations.

Ripper said:

It's a bit more than hypothetical at this point - it's not one of my wacky ideas! I think the Swedish Lantmäteriet were the first to get serious about it. The UK is on the case too, and there's countless other major blockchain projects all over the world. I'd even say that the blockchain stuff we hear most about - the cryptocurrencies and NFT pyramid schemes - are probably not the most significant aspects of the tech, going forwards. There are also stablecoins (which are backed by real currency reserves), and all sorts of other implementations.

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Interesting. I hadn't heard about the project that Lantmäteriet did.

I just read an article about it where they did a transaction through the blockchain.

They identify a few hurdles:
-Are transactions legal when done this way or will laws need to be changed?
-Will the population accept this way of doing it and accept it as proof of ownership?
-What about GDPR and potential personal information being stored indefinitely?

Unfortunately no news since 2018, and the leader of the project has left them since a few years.

Edit: About the stablecoins. Didn't at least one of them come under scrutiny for not actually having the financial means they claimed?

SveNitoR said:

Interesting. I hadn't heard about the project that Lantmäteriet did.

I just read an article about it where they did a transaction through the blockchain.

They identify a few hurdles:
-Are transactions legal when done this way or will laws need to be changed?
-Will the population accept this way of doing it and accept it as proof of ownership?
-What about GDPR and potential personal information being stored indefinitely?

Unfortunately no news since 2018, and the leader of the project has left them since a few years.

Edit: About the stablecoins. Didn't at least one of them come under scrutiny for not actually having the financial means they claimed?

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Yeah, I'm not sure where these projects are at, and the hurdles you identify are definitely valid. I've just read quite a few articles on some of these developments over the past few years, as they interest me more than the cryptocurrencies and NFT shenanigans. All I'm getting at is that these kinds of systems are being built and trialed in earnest, at a serious level.

I expect some of these "stablecoins" are trash, too, and there's going to be a lot of badly burned fingers in cryptoland (quite possibly dragging us down with them.) One idea I've seen discussed by credible economists is that real currencies will eventually use blockchain technology to replace current clunky systems - but still backed by central banks, subject to monetary policy, and so on. I think that could be quite likely.

Well let's not forget the elephant in the room: The storage of the data.

There is no standard way to store NFT so 'interoperability' as in between games, platform, whatever is firmly living in BSland at the moment.

If you buy NFT the token itself exists on the blockchain but since it costs an arm and part of a leg to store files on the chain, and we are talking of huge files here, the media related to the token will be probably stored off-chain.

Where, how secure, for how long, accessible by who and so on and so on?

So, 3 ways to store your Precious NFT:
- The blockchain itself (safest, life expectancy very huge, independent from vendor, very very costly, the same kind of energy demand at some point than bitcoins..)

- Different blockchain or decentralized storage. In this case the NFT token works like a pointer to another blockchain or a storage like Arweave, IPFS built on this kind of technology.. Problem is if the entity issuing the NFT stops maintaining the connection you become the proud owner of a NFT pointing to nothingness.

- Private or centralized server. That is the usual stuff everyone knows about, OneDrive, Dropbox, AWS etc.. Same problem as before, the entity issuing the NFT owns the storage, they stop paying for it, it disappears with everything in there.

I don't see all those cute Game developer pioneers eager to inform the public about where they go from here.
Which is normal since they are here to take money not to scare you about your 'investments'.

https://twitter.com/itchio/status/1490141815294414856 lol