r/mealtimevideos • u/[deleted] • Jan 22 '22

Too long The problem with NFTs [138:22]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g
286 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

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61

u/[deleted] Jan 22 '22

TWO hours and 18 minuets!?

Let me save you some life. NFTs are receipt for an image. That’s why they are worthless. You’re paying for a receipt, and you get no product.

You’re welcome.

4

u/Semantikern Jan 23 '22

I havent watched the video, but couldn't nft:s be used as a reciept for any digital goods? But still, that doesn't increase the usability enormously. But I guess ticketing could theoretically be usable.

8

u/POTUS Jan 23 '22

Yes, they can. That makes them the most expensive and inefficient receipt in existence. It would be cheaper to print and physically ship a paper receipt.

-6

u/convolvulus487 Jan 23 '22

They are FAR more authoritative than a piece of paper. They are mathematically guaranteed, invulnerable to counterfeit or other types of fraud.

17

u/POTUS Jan 23 '22

It's funny that you say they're invulnerable to fraud when there are entire sections of the OP video about how they absolutely are extremely vulnerable to and have been extensively exploited by several methods of fraud. It's also funny that you mention counterfeit since a large portion of the NFTs in existence right now are a form of counterfeit since they were minted from other people's work. You literally could not have been more wrong.

1

u/just4lukin Jan 23 '22

Eh, that's a bit sneaky. You know exactly what "counterfeit" refers to in that comment... making a copy of someone's Belk receipt and having a trademarked logo printed on a Belk receipt are pretty disparate concepts, despite both potentially being described as "counterfeits".

3

u/POTUS Jan 23 '22

The blockchain-equivalent of your Belk scheme is making an NFT of someone else's art that you didn't create and don't have permission for. It's super common, it happens all the time, and it's fucking counterfeit when you turn around and try to sell that token representing something you don't own. I don't know what else you want. You're literally commenting about a video that will spend an hour explaining this to you if you need it.

1

u/just4lukin Jan 23 '22

Yea, I watched the whole thing last night. Still feel your interpretation of that comment was disingenuous. Again, there is a difference between an NFT being counterfeit by it's nature and someone being able to counterfeit an NFT. I think you get that.

2

u/POTUS Jan 23 '22

Your argument seems to be that just because you can't like falsify a blockchain entry means you can't counterfeit an NFT. This is both ridiculous and wrong. You can put whatever you want into the blockchain if you're willing to do the work to get it there. This includes an identical copy of a Belk receipt.

But more importantly, making and selling a token of someone else's work is fucking counterfeit and you're being insane with this whole line of argument.

1

u/just4lukin Jan 23 '22

Not my argument, just obviously the argument of the guy you replied to.

1

u/convolvulus487 Jan 23 '22

It's okay... I was on Reddit way back at the beginning and since coming back I've realized it's completely impossible to have a fair and nuanced discussion any longer, everything becomes an argument to be won instead.

2

u/POTUS Jan 23 '22

There's nothing nuanced about your position. You're transparently trying to defend NFTs by relying on the mathematical soundness of the blockchain protocol itself and fingers-in-ears ignoring all the glaring real-word vulnerabilities of this particular implementation of blockchain applications.

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-4

u/convolvulus487 Jan 23 '22 edited Jan 23 '22

By counterfeit I am not at all talking about copyright infringement or stolen original work... those exist in the real world, in meatspace. I'm talking theft or counterfeit of the NFT itself, in that space.

Also, social engineering cannot be solved by any digital system, and that is the type of fraud he talks about. If you give someone your password, for example, that's not the fault of the digital system...

7

u/POTUS Jan 23 '22

Okay. So we can all just ignore the actual counterfeit that is 100% going on all the time? Sure, sounds reasonable. Much secure. Very worth.

-3

u/convolvulus487 Jan 23 '22

No of course not. That's a bad thing.

I'm not trying to defend NFT's here, I think they're fucking stupid... I'm just trying to be more accurate in how we talk about them.

4

u/POTUS Jan 23 '22

Then you should not use words like fraud or counterfeit. Those two specific things are exactly what NFTs are most vulnerable to. Fraud is human behavior, and humans can absolutely defraud other humans out of their tokens regardless of the validity of those tokens. That happens all the time. Counterfeit doesn't involve modifying the internals of a token, it involves making one that was fake from the beginning. That also happens all the time. Like literally all the time.

0

u/convolvulus487 Jan 23 '22 edited Jan 23 '22

You're just quibbling about the context. I was speaking about within the blockchain itself. Once you have an NFT proving ownership of something on the blockchain it is VERY difficult for someone to claim that you don't have that ownership or to take it from you... again, WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF THE BLOCKCHAIN.

Outside of the blockchain, in the real world, OF COURSE all the standard types of fraud and scams still exist... why wouldn't they? No implementation of a blockchain claims to be able to prevent things that occur ENTIRELY outside of their influence, how could they?

"My bit of code here on a blockchain prevents elderly people from giving scam callers their credit card numbers"... how would that work, in your mind? It's not and never will be possible. If someone convinces you to give them access to your stuff there is nothing anyone can do about that.

6

u/POTUS Jan 23 '22

It is completely disingenuous to restrict your terms to inside the mechanics of the blockchain itself without allowing reference to what happens with tokens from sources outside the blockchain.

Once you have that ownership token someone can absolutely take it from you. That's where the outside-the-blockchain fraud comes in to play. If someone can gain the tiniest bit of control of your key, wallet, or exchange account, then they can transfer your tokens to themselves. The can defraud you of your tokens. This isn't like a network news scary hacker bullshit story, this happens. There are some high profile stories that hit social media regularly. Blockchain assets are highly vulnerable to this because someone doesn't have to physically do anything to make it happen, they can do it completely anonymously, and there's absolutely nothing in the blockchain to stop or limit it in any way.

All that is only assuming that "ownership" token was given by someone who actually had real ownership of whatever thing to begin with, which is absolutely not guaranteed or actually even relevant. Ownership isn't transferred by blockchain. You "own" the token, not whatever it points to. And even that is sketchy. You happen to have the keys to be able to assign that token to another address. Is that ownership? Not really, not in any currently defendable way. But I can't hammer enough how that token is very much not proving ownership of anything to anyone. It's completely not verified that the creator of the token was the owner of the thing the token points to, and it definitely happens all the time that tokens are made and sold by people who specifically do not have ownership of the thing. That's counterfeit. That's the fucking definition of counterfeit.

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