The one example I’ve heard that makes sense are NFTs to represent a purchase of digital games. This then allows the selling of digital keys second hand.
Of course not, but what little I know of NFTs is they do the two things needed for that to be possible: one, ability to transfer ownership, and two, verify ownership.
I have no clue if NFTs are the best way to accomplish that, let alone even a good way, and people much smarter than me can figure that out.
In the end I don’t think it matters. For it to be viable it would require the big companies to adopt it, which I never see them accepting a legal way to do second hand sales of digital goods.
Yeah, if you are waiting for a company that loses money through second-hand sales to implement an NFT scheme to facilitate second-hand sales… That could take a while.
This post of yours is one that I completely agree with.
That’s a fundamental issue with NFTs though. Every instance of a fitting use case already has a non-NFT way to accomplish the same in the way the people in charge want to keep it.
Why would e.g. Steam want you to be able to trade games without Steam being involved/getting a cut? They can just ask you go buy from them.
Why would a state want to hand over control over the land registry to some cryptobro?
Why would the whole financial side of the art industry want to hand over control to a block chain and make themselves redundant?
Also, revertability of mistakes is a core feature of any reasonable transaction system. A system without that is worthless.
I can see ticket sales being issued via nft. They could set a maximum the ticket can be resold for, thus hindering scalpers and the original seller can also get a stake in the resale of the ticket. Beyond that I have never seen another decent use.
But again, why do that if you can also bind tickets to names and use that to make yourself the only possible place where people can sell their tickets on, with a substantial fee (like Ticketmaster does)?
They have no incentive to let people freely sell tickets when thy can also force themselves in as mandatory man in the middle.
You remove the burden of verifying the names and storing the personal data and you don’t need to handle the resale inhouse. Other than that yeah it’s pretty much the same thing
Yeah and rent-seeking is the only real big business left in town besides personalized advertising.
No way a rent-seeking opportunity this great isn’t going to be gobbled up by the existing players and instead given up for free so that they can use new, poorly performing, expensive technology instead.
Yeah, that’s why I only said hinders not stops. I mean I personally wouldn’t send two payments where one of the transactions is one sided because you just open yourself to bring scammed but I’m sure some people would
I could see that being a use case if it weren’t for how much the underlying technology sucks ass. Blockchains spend too much time doing their silly little trust-less security nonsense dance to be able to perform at the scale needed by systems that will sell…say…Taylor Swift concert tickets.
They arent. For the NFT to do anything in a game it has to interact with the game in some way. The game gets to decide how it interacts with each NFT. So you are already using a central authority to change your NFT to something of value in the game, So why bother with the whole distributed trustless aspect of the blockchain and not just have a row in a database table?
Yeah and they only make bank because they sit in the middle of the transactions as the trusted third party.
The only way to possibly make NFTs work for Steam would be for them to also start up a side business of “SteamCoin” currency, because the only way to offload the enormous costs of running a blockchain network at scale is to have miners and nodes running the network for their own gains.
And even then, they’d lose autonomy over their own business and it would likely be slower in terms of transactions per second for normal customers.
It’s a losing proposition pretty much all around. The only way that an existing company with an adequately equipped IT department would transition to this is if they were forced to by law…and I don’t see that happening ever.
The “could” was implied, I know it doesn’t happen now, doesn’t mean it couldn’t.
Check wallet for nft proving a person owns the game (since wallet content is public), if the person sells the nft then they can’t play anymore, the new owner can.
Ask people to send a certain amount of crypto from their wallet to prove it’s theirs and associate it with their in game account (also becomes a way to get a cut from sales).
It’s surprising it’s not something that already exists since it solves the DRM issue (from the game distributor perspective).
As far as I know there are no major platforms to that allows players to sell their digital games, only in game items.
There’s no business incentive to allow a second-hand digital games market, and there’s no regulation to force them to provide one. It’s pretty much that simple.
NFTs won’t solve this, and even if there was a mandated way to sell “used” digital games (a concept that’s actually pretty bizarre when you think about it) it would not be through NFTs or block chain, because the underlying technology is slow and costs a shit ton to run. Unless you’re producing a coin on the side, there’s also no simple mechanism to offload the costs of running it.
What assets are games going to allow you to import? Just anything?
Or only from authorized issuers (like the original game dev and authorized artists)? If so then you have no real place for NFT, you already have Steam marketplace and equivalent where the game dev sets up or integrates with an online marketplace.
Want transparency in the marketplace? Use transparency logs, not blockchains.
If you’re allowing literally any NFT then this is no different from allowing people to import arbitrary assets, with the sole difference that some have a digital receipt attached.
Blockchains are really only useful for certain coordination problems among mutually untrusting parties who can’t find a common trusted 3rd party. For most game devs that trusted 3rd party is Steam marketplace. It’s really only if you want to share assets in both directions between specific games from specific other developers AND want to make them exclusive / player owned AND don’t trust marketplaces like Steam, that it MIGHT be relevant to investigate if a blockchain solution fits.
There is value in a fully distributed append-only database system that can run on nodes that don’t trust each other. We just haven’t found any valid use of it outside crypto yet.
There is value in a fully distributed append-only database system that can run on nodes that don’t trust each other. We just haven’t found any valid use of it outside crypto yet.
I’m not suggesting that crypto replace any existing use for bank cards or apps like zelle or cash app. I’m suggesting that there are other payment scenarios where excusing systems don’t fit, like a dispensary that lost access to a payment processor (hypothetical, not sure if this has happened) or a merchant wanting to avoid transaction fees. It’s absolutely useless in 99% of all transactions, but it’s not 100%.
If I had to spitball an answer, I’d say the value of an innovation increases as it improves on existing similar things, and decreases as it worsens from them.
I don’t see any benefit to crypto for sending money, and introducing a new, volatile currency backed by people’s imagination is a detraction to me.
Oh yeah I love paying someone using a wildly volatile currency that goes up and down like a roller coaster and has exorbitant transaction fees. But at least I’m not a chump who uses a bank card.
I’m not anti bank or bank card, when those aren’t an option crypto is a valid option. Ideally something without much for transaction fees, of course. Since prices are volatile, you would likely only purchase what you needed when you needed it.
This is wildly inconvenient, but remember this is a “banks are not an option” scenario. That’s really up to the recipient. It could be a dispensary that got shut down by their payment processor, or another shop that wants to avoid the 3-5% transaction fee that payment processors charge. And yes, it could be something nefarious or illegal on the dark web.
To say crypto has no valid uses is simply inaccurate. For most people, though, there are better options like peer-to-peer payment apps (zelle, cash app, etc.) or just plain old cash.
Lmao, have you ever a bought a domain name. Its not an NFT, lmao you don’t even own one permanently after buying u. You basically license one from a registrar and that expires after a set interval. There’s no NFTs involved.
You’re the third person to say the same thing. NFTs conceptually predate the existence of the blockchain and don’t need to be on it. Wikipedia or w/e you got your definition that says otherwise are simply wrong. And yes, I own several different domain names.
Except that they’re not. NFTs take something that exists - like domain names - and injects unnecessary Blockchain bs.
What added value does a Blockchain bring?
Edit: I may have misunderstood and the person I’m replying to agreed with my assertation that the tech has been disregarded and that it expands to crypto as well. I expected that assumption was obvious and didn’t need to be stated directly and thought the poster was being disingenuous. Leaving my comment up for posterity.
Don’t conflate your ignorance with other people’s knowledge, go develop a better understanding of the tech rather than assuming it has no value because you’re too ignorant to learn about it.
Even crypto has a place, doesn’t mean it’s being used correctly by the majority of people.
I equate the public engaging in crypto and NFT’s to tribal folks who accidentally pick up a discarded radioactive canister, what they have is valuable in the right hands, dangerous to themselves.
Your original comment addressed exactly what I meant: not NFTs are the ponzi scheme but all crypto tokens are.
Nothing “perfectly valid and valuable” about blockchain - there are zero legit use cases that can’t be far more efficiently solved by conventional database tech (yes, also proof of stakes).
The reason is simple: the basis for the whole thing is trustlessness which does not exist - even in the crypto token world. You need trust to entry and to use it and I prefer a lawyer/notary over trusting some dev not putting bugs into my “smart” contract. I don’t trust the notary because of their fancy diploma either but because there’s a state that forces him to do right or lose his license/end up in prison. Nothing like that in your blockchain “trustless” environment.
Why do you think blockchain tech is as old as Android and has produced nothing but carbon dioxide and tears from “I’m gonna get rich quick” morons?
Because like any system to have trust it must be co-opted and regulated by the government and/or corporations and building the infrastructure and tools that make integrating with the block chain take time.
Also when you say that there is nothing that blockchain does that can’t be done by other systems, do you include up to the second global access and management of a decentralised ledger that can be directly integrated into all software systems with inbuilt security?
Because it seems like all those technologies are privately owned and managed, don’t have any interest in developing or providing global integration and access.
Blockchain has the potential to be the foundation of globalised services and systems, and crypto the basis for a world currency, just because we haven’t gotten there yet is like saying the wheel was useless before we invented cars. The use cases and implementation of the tech might currently be niche but that’s because we’re still developing the right vehicle for it to carry.
Damn, you were so close! Just expand what you said about NFTs to the whole crypto bullshit and you got it.
The one example I’ve heard that makes sense are NFTs to represent a purchase of digital games. This then allows the selling of digital keys second hand.
Other than that it all sounds like a scam.
you dont need useless nft tech for that to be possible
Of course not, but what little I know of NFTs is they do the two things needed for that to be possible: one, ability to transfer ownership, and two, verify ownership.
I have no clue if NFTs are the best way to accomplish that, let alone even a good way, and people much smarter than me can figure that out.
In the end I don’t think it matters. For it to be viable it would require the big companies to adopt it, which I never see them accepting a legal way to do second hand sales of digital goods.
Yeah, if you are waiting for a company that loses money through second-hand sales to implement an NFT scheme to facilitate second-hand sales… That could take a while.
This post of yours is one that I completely agree with.
That’s a fundamental issue with NFTs though. Every instance of a fitting use case already has a non-NFT way to accomplish the same in the way the people in charge want to keep it.
Why would e.g. Steam want you to be able to trade games without Steam being involved/getting a cut? They can just ask you go buy from them.
Why would a state want to hand over control over the land registry to some cryptobro?
Why would the whole financial side of the art industry want to hand over control to a block chain and make themselves redundant?
Also, revertability of mistakes is a core feature of any reasonable transaction system. A system without that is worthless.
Sorry, this turned into a rant.
I can see ticket sales being issued via nft. They could set a maximum the ticket can be resold for, thus hindering scalpers and the original seller can also get a stake in the resale of the ticket. Beyond that I have never seen another decent use.
But again, why do that if you can also bind tickets to names and use that to make yourself the only possible place where people can sell their tickets on, with a substantial fee (like Ticketmaster does)?
They have no incentive to let people freely sell tickets when thy can also force themselves in as mandatory man in the middle.
You remove the burden of verifying the names and storing the personal data and you don’t need to handle the resale inhouse. Other than that yeah it’s pretty much the same thing
To a reasonable company, this might be a burden. To a big corporation it’s half the reason they are doing this.
Yeah and rent-seeking is the only real big business left in town besides personalized advertising.
No way a rent-seeking opportunity this great isn’t going to be gobbled up by the existing players and instead given up for free so that they can use new, poorly performing, expensive technology instead.
You can’t cap resale prices with technological limits because payment can be split between multiple channels before the seller transfers ownership.
Yeah, that’s why I only said hinders not stops. I mean I personally wouldn’t send two payments where one of the transactions is one sided because you just open yourself to bring scammed but I’m sure some people would
I could see that being a use case if it weren’t for how much the underlying technology sucks ass. Blockchains spend too much time doing their silly little trust-less security nonsense dance to be able to perform at the scale needed by systems that will sell…say…Taylor Swift concert tickets.
Steam would get a cut
They arent. For the NFT to do anything in a game it has to interact with the game in some way. The game gets to decide how it interacts with each NFT. So you are already using a central authority to change your NFT to something of value in the game, So why bother with the whole distributed trustless aspect of the blockchain and not just have a row in a database table?
Also you can just do piracy
You don’t, but nfts allow distribution platforms to let buyers do it while requiring little to no effort on their part.
they have no reason to allow you to do that, and you dont need nfts for that either
Never said it’s needed, I said it could be used for it and would lower the amount of effort required on the distributor’s side.
They also have no reason to allow people to sell in game items at the moment, yet look at Steam making bank from item sales!
Yeah and they only make bank because they sit in the middle of the transactions as the trusted third party.
The only way to possibly make NFTs work for Steam would be for them to also start up a side business of “SteamCoin” currency, because the only way to offload the enormous costs of running a blockchain network at scale is to have miners and nodes running the network for their own gains.
And even then, they’d lose autonomy over their own business and it would likely be slower in terms of transactions per second for normal customers.
It’s a losing proposition pretty much all around. The only way that an existing company with an adequately equipped IT department would transition to this is if they were forced to by law…and I don’t see that happening ever.
They most certainly do not allow buyers to do that. And again, this is already happening with existing technology, and much more efficient and secure.
The “could” was implied, I know it doesn’t happen now, doesn’t mean it couldn’t.
Check wallet for nft proving a person owns the game (since wallet content is public), if the person sells the nft then they can’t play anymore, the new owner can.
Ask people to send a certain amount of crypto from their wallet to prove it’s theirs and associate it with their in game account (also becomes a way to get a cut from sales).
It’s surprising it’s not something that already exists since it solves the DRM issue (from the game distributor perspective).
As far as I know there are no major platforms to that allows players to sell their digital games, only in game items.
There’s no business incentive to allow a second-hand digital games market, and there’s no regulation to force them to provide one. It’s pretty much that simple.
NFTs won’t solve this, and even if there was a mandated way to sell “used” digital games (a concept that’s actually pretty bizarre when you think about it) it would not be through NFTs or block chain, because the underlying technology is slow and costs a shit ton to run. Unless you’re producing a coin on the side, there’s also no simple mechanism to offload the costs of running it.
That is already possible without the use of NFTs, and much more efficient and secure.
There’s no point in using NFT for that.
What assets are games going to allow you to import? Just anything?
Or only from authorized issuers (like the original game dev and authorized artists)? If so then you have no real place for NFT, you already have Steam marketplace and equivalent where the game dev sets up or integrates with an online marketplace.
Want transparency in the marketplace? Use transparency logs, not blockchains.
If you’re allowing literally any NFT then this is no different from allowing people to import arbitrary assets, with the sole difference that some have a digital receipt attached.
Blockchains are really only useful for certain coordination problems among mutually untrusting parties who can’t find a common trusted 3rd party. For most game devs that trusted 3rd party is Steam marketplace. It’s really only if you want to share assets in both directions between specific games from specific other developers AND want to make them exclusive / player owned AND don’t trust marketplaces like Steam, that it MIGHT be relevant to investigate if a blockchain solution fits.
There is value in a fully distributed append-only database system that can run on nodes that don’t trust each other. We just haven’t found any valid use of it outside crypto yet.
FTFY
How is crypto not a valid use? Crypto as a get rich quick scheme is stupid and useless, but crypto for peer to peer payments is perfectly valid.
What (of value) does crypto do that existing payment services don’t?
I’m not suggesting that crypto replace any existing use for bank cards or apps like zelle or cash app. I’m suggesting that there are other payment scenarios where excusing systems don’t fit, like a dispensary that lost access to a payment processor (hypothetical, not sure if this has happened) or a merchant wanting to avoid transaction fees. It’s absolutely useless in 99% of all transactions, but it’s not 100%.
Are you arguing that any technology that does the same thing as an existing one has zero value whatsoever?
If I had to spitball an answer, I’d say the value of an innovation increases as it improves on existing similar things, and decreases as it worsens from them.
I don’t see any benefit to crypto for sending money, and introducing a new, volatile currency backed by people’s imagination is a detraction to me.
Oh yeah I love paying someone using a wildly volatile currency that goes up and down like a roller coaster and has exorbitant transaction fees. But at least I’m not a chump who uses a bank card.
I’m not anti bank or bank card, when those aren’t an option crypto is a valid option. Ideally something without much for transaction fees, of course. Since prices are volatile, you would likely only purchase what you needed when you needed it.
This is wildly inconvenient, but remember this is a “banks are not an option” scenario. That’s really up to the recipient. It could be a dispensary that got shut down by their payment processor, or another shop that wants to avoid the 3-5% transaction fee that payment processors charge. And yes, it could be something nefarious or illegal on the dark web.
To say crypto has no valid uses is simply inaccurate. For most people, though, there are better options like peer-to-peer payment apps (zelle, cash app, etc.) or just plain old cash.
I’ve read both these five times and I’m not seeing the difference, help!
“outside crypto” at the end is crossed out.
Huh. Thank you. It’s not showing that for me using the Voyager app on Android. Thought I was losing my marbles
Oh weird must be a Voyager issue then, not seeing it via that on iOS, thanks for the reply!
If there’s no valid use how do you derive value? It’s old tech at this point and still looking for a problem to solve.
NFTs do have value in narrow use cases. For instance Domain names are NFTs and incredibly important to the way humans interact with the internet.
Except they aren’t because they are just managed by a bunch of central agencies.
Not everything that’s digital and where the rights to it can be sold is an NFT.
Lmao, have you ever a bought a domain name. Its not an NFT, lmao you don’t even own one permanently after buying u. You basically license one from a registrar and that expires after a set interval. There’s no NFTs involved.
You’re the third person to say the same thing. NFTs conceptually predate the existence of the blockchain and don’t need to be on it. Wikipedia or w/e you got your definition that says otherwise are simply wrong. And yes, I own several different domain names.
Not sure you know what the token part of NFT means. Usually it’s the non fungible part, so congrats on being uniquely wrong.
At some point in time you’ll just have to unravel your word salad and realize that all things associated with this space are incredulous.
Except that they’re not. NFTs take something that exists - like domain names - and injects unnecessary Blockchain bs. What added value does a Blockchain bring?
Edit: I may have misunderstood and the person I’m replying to agreed with my assertation that the tech has been disregarded and that it expands to crypto as well. I expected that assumption was obvious and didn’t need to be stated directly and thought the poster was being disingenuous. Leaving my comment up for posterity.
Soooo close!
Next time maybe try helping someone across the line instead of only being derisive.
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Your original comment addressed exactly what I meant: not NFTs are the ponzi scheme but all crypto tokens are.
Nothing “perfectly valid and valuable” about blockchain - there are zero legit use cases that can’t be far more efficiently solved by conventional database tech (yes, also proof of stakes).
The reason is simple: the basis for the whole thing is trustlessness which does not exist - even in the crypto token world. You need trust to entry and to use it and I prefer a lawyer/notary over trusting some dev not putting bugs into my “smart” contract. I don’t trust the notary because of their fancy diploma either but because there’s a state that forces him to do right or lose his license/end up in prison. Nothing like that in your blockchain “trustless” environment.
Why do you think blockchain tech is as old as Android and has produced nothing but carbon dioxide and tears from “I’m gonna get rich quick” morons?
Because like any system to have trust it must be co-opted and regulated by the government and/or corporations and building the infrastructure and tools that make integrating with the block chain take time.
Also when you say that there is nothing that blockchain does that can’t be done by other systems, do you include up to the second global access and management of a decentralised ledger that can be directly integrated into all software systems with inbuilt security?
Because it seems like all those technologies are privately owned and managed, don’t have any interest in developing or providing global integration and access.
Blockchain has the potential to be the foundation of globalised services and systems, and crypto the basis for a world currency, just because we haven’t gotten there yet is like saying the wheel was useless before we invented cars. The use cases and implementation of the tech might currently be niche but that’s because we’re still developing the right vehicle for it to carry.
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Are you replying to the wrong person? You quoted me.
Or are you disputing the tech has value?
Nvm, need to work on my own reading comprehension