Luka has an NFT!

Zstatman said:
I see that the price tag for 4 Ethereum is now down from the $8400 it was when I typed the earlier post. I just checked and 1 Ethereum is now down to $1996. The price will change between now and when the auction ends on Friday. Then the final price will be determined.
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Remember, NFTs and Ethereum are not related at all except that one is simply a media for buying the other. Any other currency can also be used, it's just that Ethereum is the stated one for this transaction.
 
Fryowa said:
NFTs for intellectual property, especially digital property with no physical form, is a completely stupid concept, again, unless you can make some cash quick from resale.
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I disagree. It really depends on what the intellectual property is. If it is the Beatles music library or the source code to Microsoft Office, it would definitely have intrinsic value. If it is a holographic video card of Luka Garza, then you're right, no value and it's a stupid concept.

I wouldn't be surprised if in 10 years there are faux securitizations of income generating assets in the form of NFTs. The key, however, is a valuable underlying asset. There is a huge amount of cash chasing ever fewer decent assets and it's only a matter of time before Wall Street concocts a way to skim transaction fees off of more abstract securitizations. But of course, the problem with even trying to do that is that an income generating portfolio needs management and judgment. Who should we license to? How much should we charge? When should we sue for infringement? How will we obtain American dollars to fund defense and enforcement costs? How will the trustee (or whoever it is that manages the portfolio) get paid?
 
okeefe4prez said:
I disagree. It really depends on what the intellectual property is. If it is the Beatles music library or the source code to Microsoft Office, it would definitely have intrinsic value. If it is a holographic video card of Luka Garza, then you're right, no value and it's a stupid concept.
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While that's true, the Beatles catalogue or Microsoft code has very real and already-demonstrated income generating power. Which is exactly why these those items aren't authenticated and sold as NFTs. there's no need to create a market for those types of things because it's already existed for a couple hundred years.

The example of artwork, etc being sold via NFT is because the things being sold via NFT are intrinsically worthless. In other words, the only thing adding value to them is the exclusivity of this token they can brag about. People aren't really buying the artwork (even though they own it), they're buying the status that comes from the token.

If I bought the Beatles catalogue I'd be buying the intellectual rights to the songs to make assloads of royalties, to hell with the NFT. I don't care about it at that point and essentially it's worthless.
 
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Fryowa, it doesn't sound like you will be bidding on Luka's NFT. Well, me neither.

But beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

When Bitcoin first came out I thought what a stupid idea. Now its becoming main stream. You can buy a Tesla with it now.

So why sell NFTs short. With the way the world is changing and with technology at the core of it, who the hell knows what's going to stick?
 
Zstatman said:
Fryowa, it doesn't sound like you will be bidding on Luka's NFT. Well, me neither.

But beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

When Bitcoin first came out I thought what a stupid idea. Now its becoming main stream. You can buy a Tesla with it now.

So why sell NFTs short. With the way the world is changing and with technology at the core of it, who the hell knows what's going to stick?
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You're missing the concept here.

An NFT has nothing to do with cryptocurrency other than Ethereum is the currency used in this auction. An NFT is not a unit of cryptocurrency. At all. In any way.

An NFT is a digital token being sold, and Ethereum is the currency being used to purchase it.

If I wanted to create my own NFT and sell it for US Dollars or trade it for a bag of rice I could absolutely do that.

The whole concept of an NFT is that it's non-fungible. That's what gives it it's value. Bitcoin and Ethereum are by definition 100% fungible...meaning a bitcoin is a bitcoin is a bitcoin. That's why currency works the way it does.

I never said cryptocurrency was a stupid idea at all. I think there's money to be made in that market. I said NFTs are stupid. You seem to have confused the two with each other.
 
Fryowa said:
NFTs are actually different from and separate from bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. It's true that you can buy NFTs with cryptocurrency, but you can also buy them with dollars or Euros or gold or anything else.

An NFT is a non-fungible token that can really take any form. Non-fungible meaning that they're unique and cannot be substituted or duplicated at all (because they are encrypted by way of blockchain). Currencies like USD and bitcoin are very much fungible meaning that you can substitute one of the same kind for another. For example, I can take a US dollar and exchange or replace it for another US dollar and have no change in value or any other material difference.

One of the best examples of NFTs is how lately trading cards (and other artwork) have been sold as tokens. In this example you have a "digital" trading card or piece of art which also has a digital token that's encrypted using blockchain certifying that it's unique, and that you own it. What's making these things sell for literally tens of millions is that these tokens are unique and cannot be copied or counterfeited due to the blockchain encryption. Super rich people are basically paying millions just to say they have a unique string of 1s and 0s stored on a computer somewhere that 1) they cannot see, and 2) has no functional use. This is why it's being treated as a bubble about to burst.

Honestly NFTs are one of the dumbest things ever conceptualized unless you are an investor taking advantage of the perceived value to make some money in the short term.

The whole idea is ridiculous. Let's say I post to my twitter account (I don't), and let's say one of my tweets became popular. At that point I decide I'm going to "sell" my tweet to someone so they could say they own that tweet because it was such a good one. Keep in mind there's no physical tweet, or anything tangible whatsoever. It's just the mental concept of ownership. So I put the idea out there that, "Hey folks, you could be the EXCLUSIVE owner of my really funny tweet, and I'll even create an encrypted digital 'token' that proves you own my tweet." All it takes is a few rich assholes in an auction pissing match who want to prove that they're richer and more exclusive than everyone else and all of a sudden someone spent $10M for a "token" stored on a computer somewhere that they can never even see, nor can they do anything with it other than sell it to some other idiot later. But...they now "own" fryowa's tweet. It's theirs.

They cannot see it, it has no functional use, there's no royalties, future income generation, and it's totally illiquid, but they just paid $10M for an encrypted certificate that says they own it. A tweet.

This is EXACTLY what Garza's doing with his trading card. Is he smart for doing it? Yep.

Is someone smart to buy it? NOPE. It's a fad and a bubble (at least in the way we're discussing it here; I believe there will be a market for NFTs representing tangible assets in the future), and even if you look at it as an investment, who the hell is going to give you a dime for it 5 years from now? If Frank Kaminsky had done this 6 years ago and you paid say $100,000 for one of these digital token playing cards, do you think you'd find anyone to give you five grand for it today?

NFTs for intellectual property, especially digital property with no physical form, is a completely stupid concept, again, unless you can make some cash quick from resale. It is nothing more than a pissing contest between wealthy folks to buy electrical charges stored on a computer with zero use or income generating potential.
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I don't think anyone is claiming that crypto and NFTs are the same. They are definitely different. The main coin that I invest in is Ravencoin. Like Ethereum it's used to create tokens (NFTs) along with many other uses. Read the white paper if you're interested in learning more about it and blockchain in general here

I can definitely agree that many of these digital NFTs have zero surface value, such as a tweet or other things - but I don't really care about that at all. I won't buy them or suggest that others do either. To me the ability to create tokens that represent assets, either tangible or intangible has value. A token that represents a stock, a lemonade stand, an Honus Wagner baseball card that's is also in your possession, the deed to a house etc - I can see the value in these tokens. The blockchain represents a ledger that proves you own these items - like a certificate of authenticity.

I think it would be absolutely silly to buy a token to show that you own a tweet, but I think there's a lot of other stupid shit people spend money on that would have absolutely no value to me - but that's not for me to judge.
 
Ree4 said:
A token that represents a stock, a lemonade stand, an Honus Wagner baseball card that's is also in your possession, the deed to a house etc - I can see the value in these tokens. The blockchain represents a ledger that proves you own these items - like a certificate of authenticity.
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I don't see the value in any of that other than novelty when it comes to physical assets. The deed to my house is proof that I own it. It is the token. If I lose my deed I pay a fee and get a new one that its 100% as valid as the old one was. There's no need for a digitally encrypted one...it doesn't add any value.

Same with stock ownership. If I create an NFT representing my brother's car, does that make it mine? We obviously know it doesn't, so I think that tells us that the value isn't in the token, it's in the item (more on that in a sec)...

How do I know the Honus Wagner card is actually authentic? The NFT doesn't make it so. If the card is destroyed somehow does my NFT have any value? I think the answer is no, and that itself demonstrates the worthlessness of the token. As with any other COA there is a level of trust that has to be understood by the buyer and the NFT does nothing to increase the authenticity.

Now...you could say, "If the NFT is worthless why do people pay millions to own a tweet?"

The answer is because people aren't buying the tweet or the song, or the artwork, or the trading card, they're buying the status and exclusivity (fancy words for bragging rights) that says they can afford to light money on fire.
 
Fryowa said:
I don't see the value in any of that other than novelty when it comes to physical assets. The deed to my house is proof that I own it. It is the token. If I lose my deed I pay a fee and get a new one that its 100% as valid as the old one was. There's no need for a digitally encrypted one...it doesn't add any value.

Same with stock ownership. If I create an NFT representing my brother's car, does that make it mine? We obviously know it doesn't, so I think that tells us that the value isn't in the token, it's in the item (more on that in a sec)...

How do I know the Honus Wagner card is actually authentic? The NFT doesn't make it so. If the card is destroyed somehow does my NFT have any value? I think the answer is no, and that itself demonstrates the worthlessness of the token. As with any other COA there is a level of trust that has to be understood by the buyer and the NFT does nothing to increase the authenticity.

Now...you could say, "If the NFT is worthless why do people pay millions to own a tweet?"

The answer is because people aren't buying the tweet or the song, or the artwork, or the trading card, they're buying the status and exclusivity (fancy words for bragging rights) that says they can afford to light money on fire.
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If you lose your deed a person could modify it, refinance it, not pay the loan and the house could enter foreclosure. With identity theft ever increasing, this is not that uncommon anymore. I've seen it. Same with a car title. It's not a fun process to try to recover. A solution could be for the county to issue a token secured by a blockchain.

The purpose of a large blockchain is that of a ledger. It would take enormous resources to modify. The probability of identity theft or fraud involving a blockchain is very near zero.

Tokens representing stocks could eliminate the ability for hedgefunds and others to short stocks, which has become very visible lately. With the money and power behind this, I don't think it's anything that would happen soon.

You raise an interesting question about which I've seen a lot of discussion about. The person issuing a token would need to somehow provide proof of ownership of the asset it represents. With blockchain and NFTs being generally anonymous, this can prove to be difficult. They would have to choose an exchange that is subject to heavy oversight and regulation to eliminate the risk of fraud. Once the token has been issued however, proof of ownership of the token/item is secured by a blockchain, and as I mentioned earlier, is extremely resistant to fraud.

While I don't think this is anything that would happen soon - especially in the US, it is something that has gained a lot of traction fairly recently.
 
Ree4 said:
If you lose your deed a person could modify it, refinance it, not pay the loan and the house could enter foreclosure. With identity theft ever increasing, this is not that uncommon anymore. I've seen it. Same with a car title. It's not a fun process to try to recover. A solution could be for the county to issue a token secured by a blockchain.
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Right, but at that point the token becomes just a more secure version of a deed or title. It wouldn't really be a sellable thing or security itself like a trading card NFT. If you sold it you're still just selling your house or car.


Ree4 said:
Tokens representing stocks could eliminate the ability for hedgefunds and others to short stocks, which has become very visible lately. With the money and power behind this, I don't think it's anything that would happen soon.
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How so? Non-snarky question. Securities still need to be openly and freely traded so I don't think you could slow or curb that process with an NFT. Any effort to stop funds from shorting would be legislatively enforced, and to be honest I think that legislation would be more aimed at allowing people to buy shorts (i.e. GameStop, etc.) more efficiently rather than restricting funds from shorting it in the first place.


Ree4 said:
You raise an interesting question about which I've seen a lot of discussion about. The person issuing a token would need to somehow provide proof of ownership of the asset it represents. With blockchain and NFTs being generally anonymous, this can prove to be difficult. They would have to choose an exchange that is subject to heavy oversight and regulation to eliminate the risk of fraud. Once the token has been issued however, proof of ownership of the token/item is secured by a blockchain, and as I mentioned earlier, is extremely resistant to fraud.
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I may be wrong, I think we're at least somewhat on the same page in that the true "value" in NFT (actually blockchain in general) is fraud mitigation and prevention, and not so much in the buying tweets and trading cards arena. That stuff is a bubble that's going to burst, IMO.

The flipside to that is, like you mentioned, anonymity. When it comes to huge sums of money, anonymity nearly always breeds fraud. Chicken and egg problem.

For now, these NFTs are going to be the rich man's version of collecting Pokemon cards and it's not going to be a big thing for long. Eventually accountants are going to convince their rich clients that buying a tweet or a 2 minute section of video from Logan Paul (he's actually selling 20 second clips of his YouTube videos for $20K and people are buying them) isn't a good idea for their financial futures.
 
Fryowa said:
How so? Non-snarky question. Securities still need to be openly and freely traded so I don't think you could slow or curb that process with an NFT. Any effort to stop funds from shorting would be legislatively enforced, and to be honest I think that legislation would be more aimed at allowing people to buy shorts (i.e. GameStop, etc.) more efficiently rather than restricting funds from shorting it in the first place.
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I don't think NFTs could prevent short selling, but they could prevent shorting over 100% of the float of a stock because the NFT could be established to prevent borrowing and selling beyond 100% of the issued and outstanding shares.

Ultimately, you can make an NFT bear fractional ownership in anything, which is where its value lies. Theoretically you could have highly liquid markets of NFTs that could trade 24/7/365 so if you are sitting there on Christmas morning and see your kid going bonkers over a game from some unknown software publisher you could get on your phone and buy a NFT in the ownership of that company if they had one out there. They have the potential to shatter national boundaries for financial instruments.
 
okeefe4prez said:
I don't think NFTs could prevent short selling, but they could prevent shorting over 100% of the float of a stock because the NFT could be established to prevent borrowing and selling beyond 100% of the issued and outstanding shares.
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I think the problem is deeper than that because even if you prevented activity from happening beyond the total shares someone would invent another security to trade based on the shorting "futures" market. It's what happened with subprimes back in the late 90s.
 
Fryowa said:
Right, but at that point the token becomes just a more secure version of a deed or title. It wouldn't really be a sellable thing or security itself like a trading card NFT. If you sold it you're still just selling your house or car.



How so? Non-snarky question. Securities still need to be openly and freely traded so I don't think you could slow or curb that process with an NFT. Any effort to stop funds from shorting would be legislatively enforced, and to be honest I think that legislation would be more aimed at allowing people to buy shorts (i.e. GameStop, etc.) more efficiently rather than restricting funds from shorting it in the first place.



I may be wrong, I think we're at least somewhat on the same page in that the true "value" in NFT (actually blockchain in general) is fraud mitigation and prevention, and not so much in the buying tweets and trading cards arena. That stuff is a bubble that's going to burst, IMO.

The flipside to that is, like you mentioned, anonymity. When it comes to huge sums of money, anonymity nearly always breeds fraud. Chicken and egg problem.

For now, these NFTs are going to be the rich man's version of collecting Pokemon cards and it's not going to be a big thing for long. Eventually accountants are going to convince their rich clients that buying a tweet or a 2 minute section of video from Logan Paul (he's actually selling 20 second clips of his YouTube videos for $20K and people are buying them) isn't a good idea for their financial futures.
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You can absolutely transfer token ownership from one to another, but yes, in that case the token represents ownership of something - the token is not a "good" by itself.

I know you already know, but for others: shorting a stock involves borrowing shares, not actually transferring ownership. If the shares were represented by tokens, the "borrower" would not be able to sell the stock - you can't sell what you don't own. It's one of the main reasons ravencoin went from about $.02 to $.28 per coin in about 2 weeks after the heavy GME shortage late January. I guess the HF could just have a contract with another to short-term buy then sell back after X period of time. But the act of that initial buy of a ton of shares would create upward price pressure.

Having it be decentralized would also prevent exchanges like Robinhood and TD Ameritrade shut down buying to keep the price down.

We're on the same page that NFTs that only represent digital assets - nothing tangible or in your possession is worthless.

Sorry, I think I may have taken this thread on a tangent regarding tokens or NFTs that represent ownership of an object vs the NFT being the object itself.
 
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You guys have had a nice discussion on all this.

Bottom line to me, Luka's NFT has had no new bidders so far today and 4 Ethereum at a now bid of $7989 is still leading.

There have been 9.2K views of the bid page...............
 
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