NFT (Non-Fungible Tokens) - Files as crypto currency

[IAmNotAlpharius]

I spent a chunk of this morning looking into making and selling NFTs. It doesn't appear that hard or expensive to mint them on opensea or rarible.

I'm torn bros, should I go all in with shitty meme edits and crappy drawings? This looks like there might still be a window to be able to jump on the train and be able to be relevant, much like onlyfans was about a year ago when thots were scrambling aboard, and now that site's been oversaturated and you'll get lost in the shuffle.

I'm not even kidding. If there's a dumb enough rube to buy whatever I shit out why shouldn't I sell it? Am I missing some key detail?

Wanna make money? Make NFT Waifus for Silicon Bros.

 

[Mikoyan]

You've missed the basic point of NFTs, though to be fair, you're hardly alone in this. Please read the OP and the few replies to this thread so far before posting again.

That's the cool part, as the saying goes.

An NFT says you own a digital asset at an address - usually a conventional URL curated by someone as an NFT marketplace. So the great part is, you can buy your NFT, I can right click it, then a month later they take down 'your' hosted image for whatever reason, TOS, place goes bust... And you're left with an NFT that says you own an asset that now doesn't resolve to anything. The purpose for said NFT no longer exists and unless you're a collector of bespoke 404 pages, it's nothing. (The article points out another site had a link to the art... which now also is a broken link.)

Me? I've got your art. Assuming it was something worth downloading. I have my money, not spending it on the token. And 'your' art. Which you have ownership of, but can no longer prove the thing you own is in fact the thing I have. Not that I'd assert ownership of it, just... I have as much of it as you now, assuming you thought to right click it yourself. If not, well. Sorry about your art.

 

[Pringles Can]

Honestly my biggest issue with NFTS are not the crypto crap and everything related to that. My biggest issue is the quality of the art. I get why people are into it, but I aint paying a ton for shitty clip art quality crap.

 

[Mike Stoklasa]

Cryptocurrency was gay enough. This shit is just awful.

 

[Mikoyan]

Honestly my biggest issue with NFTS are not the crypto crap and everything related to that. My biggest issue is the quality of the art. I get why people are into it, but I aint paying a ton for shitty clip art quality crap.

That it's all 'procedurally generated' paper doll shit makes it worse, truly. Some people -do- 'sell' high end art or 'digital prints' through it but most of it's lol monke #36a3de.

 

[Neil]

The funniest thing about NFTs is that they like to use the ape as a mascot.

The origin of the use of "ape" in an economic sense came from the whole GME rally from r/wallstreetbets back earlier this year. r/WSB didn't want to get taken down for using words like "re.tard" and faggot and the like, so they started calling themselves "apes". They originally called themselves retards because WSB was all about making the dumbest fucking investments knowingly and seeing if you can make a high return.

These newfag cryptobros don't realize that the "ape" symbolizes bad financial investments, they're literally celebrating the fact that they're stupid, know-nothing marks getting duped out of their money constantly. But it's okay because #apesstrong! #tothemoon!

 

[Pringles Can]

That it's all 'procedurally generated' paper doll shit makes it worse, truly. Some people -do- 'sell' high end art or 'digital prints' through it but most of it's lol monke #36a3de.

Oh I'm aware of how it is generated, but it still looks like shit. I get that the whole point is you own the image entirely and everything to do with it, but why would you wanna own such shit? It just baffles me. Its like if you came home with a crappy car, and went around waving the title like a madman. Like congrats, but your car is shit.

 

[419]

conflating the two together

Nfts are #1, a horrible investment, and #2, useless. people have bought these monkey pics for 100k+

i can't stand you niggas bro

 

[Mikoyan]

Oh I'm aware of how it is generated, but it still looks like shit. I get that the whole point is you own the image entirely and everything to do with it, but why would you wanna own such shit? It just baffles me. Its like if you came home with a crappy car, and went around waving the title like a madman. Like congrats, but your car is shit.

That's the thing, though, you don't own everything associated with it. The """artist""" can add some new assets to the paper doll generator and kick it on again. New monke edition goes brrrrrr.

The parallels with 'fiat currency' for the low-effort NFT art are pretty funny.

 

[Twinkletard]

Oh cool, someone created something nobody was asking for.

 

[Samoyed]

i can't stand you niggas bro

this is what it comes down to

 

[Sangria]

Pretty solid thread, only thing I'd adjust is putting the in-thread news article in a spoiler tag.
And how could anyone forget this jewel:

 

[Least Concern]

An NFT says you own a digital asset

Perhaps; the asset doesn't have to be digital. You've got it -

at an address

- and now you've lost it again. What do web addresses have to do with anything? A certain web address can display a representation of the asset, yes, but whether that representation is visible at a certain URL or not has no bearing on the basic idea of token management or asset ownership. If I have the title to my car, and I drive to the grocery store, there's no sudden confusion about my ownership of the car because it's not at my house anymore.

 

[MysticLord]

Wealth =/= tokens that represent wealth. We just use tokens like gold because they look nice, they're scarce, they're impossible to duplicate and very hard to fake, and they have few practical uses otherwise. NFTs seem like an attempt to hack this and declare - in art world money laundering style - that they're valuable because everyone thinks they're valuable.

Generally speaking if you don't understand how something works, and as you research it your understanding decreases, it's a scam.

The inherent value of USD is that it's the only currency the IRS accepts and they'll put you in jail if you don't give them protection money every year.

Ethereum and bitcoin having no inherent value... yeah they don't lmao, and that's why their uses as currency are very niche. They only have a legitimate use case because of the corporate monopoly over traditional payment systems keeping eg. Kiwi Farms from accepting credit cards. They're one little regulation away from worthlessness.

The inherent value of the USD as a global reserve currency is that US Marines will land on your shores and blow up your presidential palace if you dare to buy oil in anything but the world's greatest reserve currency. It's backed by our ability to murder people and blow shit up. Once all the US Marines are Latina thots and dangerhairs, you can kiss your savings goodbye. Invest in wheelbarrows because that's what you'll need to haul your money to the store to buy bread.

Artists are getting pissy over people buying their NFTs and then using them for their own purchases when the entire idea of NFTs are to change a designation of ownership, some artists are also writing in their contracts that you cannot use the imgae as an NFT (but don't worry if you post it or use it anywhere someone can just right-click save and then put it up to market)

Rare Pepes?

Are there racist NFTs yet? Black Sun Esoteric Hitlerist NFTs?

 

[Mikoyan]

Perhaps; the asset doesn't have to be digital. You've got it -



- and now you've lost it again. What do web addresses have to do with anything? A certain web address can display a representation of the asset, yes, but whether that representation is visible at a certain URL or not has no bearing on the basic idea of token management or asset ownership. If I have the title to my car, and I drive to the grocery store, there's no sudden confusion about my ownership of the car because it's not at my house anymore.

There isn't confusion about owning your car because the VIN stamped into it matches a database back at government HQ (and the sort of intermediate 'token' of your license plate). I'd have included a strong crypto hash of the object into the standard to be able to say 'this pattern of bytes represented as a jpeg is covered by this', which has its own issues but would help with this particular issue. (I looked over the ERC-1155 spec and it does not seem to do this, just represent object with URI and/or description, which could be used I guess.)

Breaking the link between stored token URI and purchased art makes it essentially unsaleable for the art's intrinsic value since you cannot then prove you own that -particular asset-. See the linked article OP put up, this isn't just some theoretical issue, people are already having this problem.

Amusingly, to extend your metaphor, I recently traded in a car in a state where the 'owner' always holds the title (with a note on it if there's a leinholder), coming from a state where the leinholder physically holds the title. It took them quite a while to ascertain, yes, that it was "my car". That's closer to the scenario here, though there was still an extant digital title, so it just took asking the right questions.

 

[centaursTesticle [CT]]

Haha funny monkey picture.

 

[Mountain Dew]

Crypto monopoly money is gay. I cannot wait for an EMP or similar event to destroy the power grid, and then everybody who bought into "the money of the future" dies in the cold.

 

[Sprate Header]

(Link) (https://archive.ph/cHX3E)

I'd say one of the current centerpieces of making fun of these guys is the Crypto Bros Taking Ls account on Twitter, a gimmick account (run by the YouTuber Barely Sociable) that actually sticks to the gimmick and is pretty good, but as of recent has seemingly focused in on the NFT crowd. One of the funniest thing I've seen them chronicle was the case of Calvin Becerra, who had three of his monkeys stolen by a hacker. I'll just let the pictures from this thread (https://archive.ph/G16fc) do the talking:

And to end it:

Good OP, OP!

 

[1440p Curved Monitor]

That it's all 'procedurally generated' paper doll shit makes it worse, truly. Some people -do- 'sell' high end art or 'digital prints' through it but most of it's lol monke #36a3de.

That's the thing, though, you don't own everything associated with it. The """artist""" can add some new assets to the paper doll generator and kick it on again. New monke edition goes brrrrrr.

I don't wanna PL too hard too give myself away, but I am connected with the NFT community to the point where I've chatted and worked with some of the top people commenting on NFT news on Twitter.

A lot of generative art is honestly just write an algorithm, let it go brrr, and after looking at hundreds of outputs choosing the one that looks the best or the most interesting. Some artists will use the same algorithm to generate a couple of pieces, put to all together as a series, and shelve that code. The artist usually does not touch that code again, but the more organized few have a personal library of their favorite code snippets that they reuse from time to time.
Writing a face generator is one of the first assignments given in a typical intro to generative art classes. I cannot emphasize enough how piss easy it is. A college freshman with a typical courseload can make one of these in a week. I've even seen this assignment given to high school freshmen and they've made more interesting outputs than what I seen for most of the shitty monke NFTs. What I'm trying to say is that it is possible to use the face generator technique to make something interesting and original, but most of those who use the technique do not.
It honestly makes me tilted as this is what people think of when NFTs are mentioned. These shitty paper doll NFTs are not looked favorably upon by most generative artists as it's not unique or interesting, but somehow masses of people are buying them.

Another problem with the NFT market is how easily someone can steal your art and sell it themselves. There isn't anything to combat this besides someone spotting your stolen art in the wild and reporting it. Obviously it's much harder to do this to popular artists, but if you're a new kid you better be careful about posting your code on GitHub or any other site.
Not too long ago a young guy made a beautiful library that generated fish that could be plotted and had his code on his GitHub as he intended for people to import and use this for their own projects if they wish. It was published under the MIT license, which basically says that any person can do what they wish with the code, including selling and distributing the code. Some people decided to take it and turn it into an NFT to make 10k+ minted works on Ethereum without his permission, with the claim that the donations will go to a charity of the artist's choice. Many people were upset as this wasn't it's intended use of the license or the library - as the code is free to use and distribute but not the output, and the artist never gave them permission to make this project. It was shut down eventually, but raised many questions about generative art and what part of it is owned by the artist.

 

[Mikoyan]

View attachment 2716746
(Link) (https://archive.ph/cHX3E)

I'd say one of the current centerpieces of making fun of these guys is the Crypto Bros Taking Ls account on Twitter, a gimmick account (run by the YouTuber Barely Sociable) that actually sticks to the gimmick and is pretty good, but as of recent has seemingly focused in on the NFT crowd. One of the funniest thing I've seen them chronicle was the case of Calvin Becerra, who had three of his monkeys stolen by a hacker. I'll just let the pictures from this thread (https://archive.ph/G16fc) do the talking:
View attachment 2716778View attachment 2716779View attachment 2716780

View attachment 2716781View attachment 2716786View attachment 2716788View attachment 2716782
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And to end it:
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Good OP, OP!

One thing that I found out digging into this Becerra character (thinking he might be related to the California AG, don't think he is) is that before his NFT stardom, he was hip deep in the MLM scene. Grifters gonna grift.

I don't wanna PL too hard too give myself away, but I am connected with the NFT community to the point where I've chatted and worked with some of the top people commenting on NFT news on Twitter.

A lot of generative art is honestly just write an algorithm, let it go brrr, and after looking at hundreds of outputs choosing the one that looks the best or the most interesting. Some artists will use the same algorithm to generate a couple of pieces, put to all together as a series, and shelve that code. The artist usually does not touch that code again, but the more organized few have a personal library of their favorite code snippets that they reuse from time to time.
Writing a face generator is one of the first assignments given in a typical intro to generative art classes. I cannot emphasize enough how piss easy it is. A college freshman with a typical courseload can make one of these in a week. I've even seen this assignment given to high school freshmen and they've made more interesting outputs than what I seen for most of the shitty monke NFTs. What I'm trying to say is that it is possible to use the face generator technique to make something interesting and original, but most of those who use the technique do not.
It honestly makes me tilted as this is what people think of when NFTs are mentioned. These shitty paper doll NFTs are not looked favorably upon by most generative artists as it's not unique or interesting, but somehow masses of people are buying them.

Another problem with the NFT market is how easily someone can steal your art and sell it themselves. There isn't anything to combat this besides someone spotting your stolen art in the wild and reporting it. Obviously it's much harder to do this to popular artists, but if you're a new kid you better be careful about posting your code on GitHub or any other site.
Not too long ago a young guy made a beautiful library that generated fish that could be plotted and had his code on his GitHub as he intended for people to import and use this for their own projects if they wish. It was published under the MIT license, which basically says that any person can do what they wish with the code, including selling and distributing the code. Some people decided to take it and turn it into an NFT to make 10k+ minted works on Ethereum without his permission, with the claim that the donations will go to a charity of the artist's choice. Many people were upset as this wasn't it's intended use of the license or the library - as the code is free to use and distribute but not the output, and the artist never gave them permission to make this project. It was shut down eventually, but raised many questions about generative art and what part of it is owned by the artist.

Yeah, I was going to bring up the essential philosophical problem about owning 'procedurally generated' art, but you nailed it. I will say that I don't think that thousands of procgen monkies or dogs were the intent of NFTs as a whole. It's the prevailing grift though.

Got a link to that fish code? Sounds cool.

One more thing, your point about people having to find violations of 'your NFT'. This is a problem that causes no end of drama in Furry, go look at AC threads, there just aren't enough people looking to make a difference. You could perhaps make/hire a bot that watches the marketplaces, but if they sell it anyway or before you notice, well. Non-Fungible Token is Non-Fungible. You could probably get the marketplace to take the asset URI down (kind of what happened in OP's Vice article), which IMO fixes it but not according to the bros.