Hey MJ & co. Why Is "Everyone Doing It" On NFTs? Is It The Real Deal?

[csalvato]

So you would say your definition of value equals the definition that appears on MJ Books?

Value meant to me that something required physical resources or time. While NFTs are limited, you can create another NFT anytime.

The question then becomes, How do you know what NFTs are valuable when there's thousands, millions potentially in a few years from now?

I don't know the definition of value that MJ has in his books off the top of my head, but I would be surprised if the two definitions weren't aligned.

Value does not require physical resources or time.

If I have information about where your child is being held captive, that information is very valuable to you.

It didn't take any physical resource to generate nor did it take me much time aside from hearing where that child has been held captive.

Value typically correlates with resources and time, but it's not a strict necessity. All that's necessary is that someone else has what you want and you're willing to pay for it to obtain it.

 

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[MTF]

I think it's less about where the technology is right now (collectibles), and more about where it is going (creator-controlled rights management for digital property).

Smart contracts already exist where you can issue out the NFT and collect royalties on it, no matter where or how it is sold or consumed.

This is an existential threat to all self publishing platforms that specialize in digital books, like Amazon's CreateSpace or Audible, and, IMO, is an opportunity in which you might be able to capitalize.

Maybe not this year or next, but there's a very high probability that over the next 5-10 years your industry (along with the music and film industry) will be run mostly on NFTs, rather than centralized services like CreateSpace or middleman businesses like record labels.

I'm not criticizing you or forcing you to do anything – just providing food for thought to someone who I know feeds his brain.

Yeah there's at least one company already:

Bookchain®

www.bookchain.ca

I've never used it and it seems a little amateurish with that design. But here's a conversation with the CEO and he seems to know his stuff:

Copyright Protection, Smart Contracts, Digital Scarcity and NFTs for Authors. Blockchain For The Publishing Industry With Simon-Pierre Marion

Blockchain technology offers exciting opportunities for authors & publishing including copyright protection, smart contracts, digital scarcity and NFTs for authors, as well as estate management.

www.thecreativepenn.com

 

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[csalvato]

Got it.
Any resources/books/channels you recommend to learn about branding? Because it's probably the next thing I want to research. For business, not just NFTs.

I'm probably not the best person to ask about branding.

I enjoyed the book Brand Sense and Pitch Anything, but wouldn't consider myself an expert on brand building.

 

[F Wings]

I agree. The miracle of NFTs and Blockchain in general is that now we have 'scarcity' built into digital form.
There were only so many Mickey Mantle baseball cards printed.

Now, with NFTs, you can decide there will only be so many digital copies of your art digitally available.

Even more brilliant, every time that one piece of digital art is sold in the future, the original artist gets a certain percentage cut on every sale in the future.

Amazing....

See, this just doesn't add up. There is a very clear difference between physical and digital art, in that even thought it's possible to make 99.99% copy of the Mona Lisa, it's never the exact same thing. But that's just the difference between digital and physical: I could easily screenshot any of these NFT's and it would be a 100% copy and that copy could be copied billion times without any effort. And besides, if you have an NFT in your wallet most of the time it's not the art that you have in your possession , but a for example a web address to the digital art because the block sizes simply aren't big enough to hold more than a smidge of information, couple kb's if I remember correctly.

 

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[Abrodos]

@MaxKhalus Here's an article that might help you understand value in contemporary art. It goes way back to Duchamp's fountain in the 1900s, when computers didn't exist (but digital reproductibility is an important concept in contemporary art since the 60s) . From a logical/productive point of view it makes little sense, but the key is that everything is related to the story behind it, and that also includes the story that is created when a collector buys it.
The Mona Lisa is worth so much more than other works of Leonardo, and is so famous, because it's the first painting that was reproduced in newspapers all over the world at once (when it was robbed). That's how it got its fame and its place in art history. Everything is about the backstory, same as branding.
Collectors buy, keep and sell art like that banana in the article just to "brag", be exclusive, or protect net worth. Same reasons as to buy any other luxury item. And as long as the world agrees on x piece being worth x, all these uses are valid. Museums, governments, big fortunes, all have been helping mantain this value for decades so atm it's a pretty solid agreement.

So basically NFTs are unfalsifiable certificates of authenticity/ownership, which is what everything is about. But that has no relation with the ability of the physical or digital artwork to be copied or not, or with any use that you might give to the acutal piece of artwork (if it really exists as such).
.

The $120,000 Art Basel Banana, Explained

Maurizio Cattelan’s “Comedian” caused quite a stir at Art Basel Miami Beach—especially after another artist ate it.

www.vogue.com

 

[CJW]

Becker is right about NFTs... he's said they are like a tulip craze and I reckon he's right, at least in general. I could see them working as receipts for things or as proof of part ownership of a group investment (a syndicate buying whiskey, a classic car, a Scottish castle in Dan Pena's case etc), or official NBA sports cards.

Maybe even for video/hologram art from established artists. I can see a one off 3d video art NFT from Banksy being worth genuine money.

But it's the wild west out there. EG Becker selling red and yellow squares. Or a pixelated Mona Lisa for the low, low "buy it now" price of $121,741.94! But I guess that's a snip when another of his Di Vinchi pieces is listed at over Ten Million bucks? Or is it just a play to get you to buy another in his series for just $25? That would be my guess.

Like I say, total wild west times. I wouldn't touch NFTs with a barge pole!

 

[SlideHustle]

Smells like;

Dot-com bubble​

 

[SlideHustle]

This theme sounds very familiar.

 

[csalvato]

With new technology, people get excited.

Not many people have any idea what it is.

I have seen the NFT craze going wild but haven't participated in it.

I guess I can see it happening in the future, but I cant wrap my head around the value of it all.

I mean, why pay all that money when I can screenshot it?

Some sort of flex utility I would imagine.

You’re missing the bigger picture here.

Look into EulerBeats to see the possibilities of future NFT applications that leverage automatic royalties and instill a minimum floor on the buyout price of the collectible.

Like the internet, BTC and mobile apps, this isn’t a wave you want to miss because you “don’t get it”. Not as an investor, but as an entrepreneur.

 

[MaxKhalus]

You’re missing the bigger picture here.

Look into EulerBeats to see the possibilities of future NFT applications that leverage automatic royalties and instill a minimum floor on the buyout price of the collectible.

Like the internet, BTC and mobile apps, this isn’t a wave you want to miss because you “don’t get it”. Not as an investor, but as an entrepreneur.

Scenario: You are ultra wealthy (100M+ in net worth). You see the government printing like crazy and want to get out of fiat. Where do you put your money?

There are many options for you. More than the average person because you have so much money.

One such avenue is collectibles. The highly priced ones go up in value and often they are cheap to store (think of buying a huge rare diamond that fits in a small display case, or a Picasso that just takes up some space on the wall).

The value should appreciate over time because it is a highly valued and rare collectible. It also gives you status that you own something rare and only you own it.

And you just protected your dollars.

This is one scenario for why collectibles get snatched up at super high prices. Most people don’t understand it because they are not ultra rich and never put themselves in those shoes.

Collectibles of all kinds are soaring right now, not just NFTs. For the ultra rich, an NFT is even more attractive since it takes no space to store it, and displaying it is cheap and easy if you want to..both physically and in virtual worlds like DCL and Twitter

That's the explanation I was looking for, so thx. Couple questions:
- If I'm ultra rich and own an NFT, can I go and sell it at the bank or exchange? (at the floor price)
- How do NFTs relate to trademarks? It makes sense to buy both since it protects your commercial rights. It could be a way of getting that NFT out of the platform to the real world

If so, NFTs seem to have great value for protecting creator's media.

What I don't get is, why would anyone pay for it more than the production cost? Why does Mona Lisa cost millions besides rarity? Why one brand sells higher, even when a nobody may have a better product to sell?

Is it because of branding, the creator's story?

 

[MaxKhalus]

Value is built when you have something someone else wants. Nothing is intrinsically valuable.

The concept of intrinsic value is a myth/narrative too many people have bought into through their life because of the status quo.

I think the higher level lesson in 2020-2021 that I have been seeing a lot of people miss is what it means for something to have value.

Going back to the concept of "intrinsic value" is an easy answer as to why a lot of stuff has no value.

And if one just accepts that answer, I believe they are missing the bigger trend that's going on: people are re-learning what "value" really means, and that there's no such thing as intrinsic value.

Value is solely a function of how much someone else that thing you have, and the number of options they have to secure that thing.

So you would say your definition of value equals the definition that appears on MJ Books?

Value meant to me that something required physical resources or time. While NFTs are limited, you can create another NFT anytime.

The question then becomes, How do you know what NFTs are valuable when there's thousands, millions potentially in a few years from now?

Apparently, who creates it has something to do with that. Go watch the NFT song Elon Released:

View: https://youtu.be/lP2_2-TY1_k

Video

So the way you "invest" goes like this:
- Subscribe to every NFT seller on Twitter with decent following
- Buy the first thing they release as long as it's under $100 (floor price) including ETH
- You'll eventually sell it for 2x minimum. Possibly the same week.

Seems legit.

So yeah, no doubt these NFTs will be huge. In 5 years or so, for what I've heard.

 

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[MaxKhalus]

I don't know the definition of value that MJ has in his books off the top of my head, but I would be surprised if the two definitions weren't aligned.

Value does not require physical resources or time.

If I have information about where your child is being held captive, that information is very valuable to you.

It didn't take any physical resource to generate nor did it take me much time aside from hearing where that child has been held captive.

Value typically correlates with resources and time, but it's not a strict necessity. All that's necessary is that someone else has what you want and you're willing to pay for it to obtain it.

Got it.
Any resources/books/channels you recommend to learn about branding? Because it's probably the next thing I want to research. For business, not just NFTs.

 

[csalvato]

See, this just doesn't add up. There is a very clear difference between physical and digital art, in that even thought it's possible to make 99.99% copy of the Mona Lisa, it's never the exact same thing. But that's just the difference between digital and physical: I could easily screenshot any of these NFT's and it would be a 100% copy and that copy could be copied billion times without any effort. And besides, if you have an NFT in your wallet most of the time it doesn't even reside in there, but a for example a web address to the digital art because the block sizes simply aren't big enough to hold more than a smidge of information, couple kb's if I remember correctly.

You need to go a few levels deeper to have this click, I think.

The Mona Lisa was painted by DaVinci and has a story around that. An NFT made by Beeple has a similar story, even if a complete copy of the underlying art is made.

You're right: NFTs content are not stored directly in the blockchain. They are also not stored in web addresses either, because that would defeat the purpose of owning an NFT.

Instead, most large NFT content that is stored on the IPFS which looks up content by the content itself, not some location on a server somewhere. It's a completely different paradigm.

 

[MaxKhalus]

You need to go a few levels deeper to have this click, I think.

The Mona Lisa was painted by DaVinci and has a story around that. An NFT made by Beeple has a similar story, even if a complete copy of the underlying art is made.

You're right: NFTs content are not stored directly in the blockchain. They are also not stored in web addresses either, because that would defeat the purpose of owning an NFT.

Instead, most large NFT content that is stored on the IPFS which looks up content by the content itself, not some location on a server somewhere. It's a completely different paradigm.

Hey, I've thought about it a little bit and came to this conclusion:
- People often want to buy the best product, not second options
- If you're the best (product quality, stories, reputation), competition doesn't matter
- Because you're "the only one" selling it, you monopolize and charge as much as you want. Or as much as people will pay.

If this logic makes sense, how would you translate that into NFTs?

Perhaps it's about the best artists, cryptocurrencies, and so on.

So there IS money to be made before these top-performers explode in value. But by definition, that could mean that the large majority of alternatives may be worthless.

 

[csalvato]

So there IS money to be made before these top-performers explode in value. But by definition, that could mean that the large majority of alternatives may be worthless.

When it comes to NFT collectibles, I believe that's what we will see.

Most NFTs will go to 0, just as most baseball cards are worthless, except for the ones that are highly sought after, like a Mickey Mantle rookie card.

Hey, I've thought about it a little bit and came to this conclusion:
- People often want to buy the best product, not second options
- If you're the best (product quality, stories, reputation), competition doesn't matter
- Because you're "the only one" selling it, you monopolize and charge as much as you want. Or as much as people will pay.

If this logic makes sense, how would you translate that into NFTs?

You've just described how collectibles have worked for thousands of years...the only difference with NFTs is that there is a new way to create unique collectibles, and there are more sophisticated rules that can be built in around resale and consumption of the content.

 

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[BlackPebbles]

Only the first ones matter, like the first cryptocurrency. These things are only important because they’re early and at some point in the future when they are ubiquitous someone will go wow look at this million dollar NFT of the first tweet. But we will probably be dead by then so ... shrug. Hardly bears railing against. It’s like getting upset about baseball cards.

 

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[mr4ffe]

Maybe it'll be possible to trade web domains in the form of NFT's in the future?
I know NFT's could be used for stock photos/videos, too.
Maybe beats, as well.

 

[MaxKhalus]

that would likely be due to convenience or other variables (maybe wanting to support the creator, or just not knowing how to pirate), rather than the quality of the movie itself

That's the most likely.

Imagine you're buying a copy with the same quality. You might get it cheaper, but you're still reinforcing the image of the original.

When people see a copy, they think of the original.

For brands, that's free advertising.

Maybe something similar happens with NFTs. Some guys are reselling Beeple's "duplicates" for cheaper, which only raises the price of the original.

One targets status customers, another targets cheap customers.

 

[dollars]

Mark Cuban sold an NFT last week. A jpg picture of a quote. Someone bought it for ~$1600. Nothing physical was exchanged.

Mintable.app

Mintable.app - The best marketplace for artists and sellers of digital items. Private, unlimited, files on the Ethereum blockchain

mintable.app

 

[Kevin88660]

I haven't found this thread in the Forum, and I'm sure many more will ask it again, so here it goes:

No matter what career you have, you'll have probably stumbled with crypto and NFTs. Because they're everywhere, from Gary Vee's channel to Google News.

With curiosity, I started and learned about the pros and cons of this currency. I'm not a fan of art/collecting, but for what I've learned, NFTs are an inflated version of that (easier/faster trade of non-fungible tokens).

Almost every day, I see bordeline ridiculous headlines...

Nothing wrong with that. I just can't make sense of it, and how it fits the productocracy. And everything you can find in both MJs books.

Are NFTs the real deal?

Two conflicts I see:
1. "Everyone is doing it." Everyone is buying because they believe that someone else will buy. (Ponzi connotation)
2. It has no intrinsic value

And yes, you could say that money itself doesn't have intrinsic value either.

In short, I know what NFTs are, pros and cons. I don't know why they exist or they should be worth anything.

P.S. Not asking for investment advice.

It is very illiquid and most works will have no bid.

The extreme price chasing the top few pieces is driven by crypto early adopters to flex their wealth.

The media is exaggerating to make it look “easy and silly”.

There could be tax purposes for a lot of crypto investors in these deals.

 

[sparechange]

Check out Steve-0's podcast with Mark Cuban, in the first half Cuban talks about NFTS.

One of the smartest guys around...

 

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[MaxKhalus]

With new technology, people get excited.

Not many people have any idea what it is.

I have seen the NFT craze going wild but haven't participated in it.

I guess I can see it happening in the future, but I cant wrap my head around the value of it all.

I mean, why pay all that money when I can screenshot it?

Some sort of flex utility I would imagine.

Theoretically, nothing stops you from creating an identical NFT and register it as your own. Even though it's not the original, it's your version.

 

[MaxKhalus]

Same here. But I wonder if you can buy the actual rights of that asset. Then maybe you can at some point enforce your rights? Let's say you buy the rights to some new emoji. If someone wants to make another emoji movie and have it in there, would they have to pay you for the right to show your emoji?

On the other side, I heard people buy 5 second clips from NBA matches. They can't possibly OWN those 5 seconds now can they? No big television is gonna have to pay them for the rights to show that one historic NBA match again.

I dunno it feels more like Pokemon trading cards, but there's only 1 card of each. No intrinsic value to any of those cards, but some have ridiculous prices and people still value them.
It's the perception of value

I don't think NFTs work like trademarks. Like they said, you can just screenshot or get a copy and nothing bad happens.

The NFT right ONLY exists in the platform where you buy it.

 

[ElleMg]

I can see their value in a potential 'own nothing, be happy' future... there'll still be people who want to own everything.

 

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[Sethamus]

I just saw a great question ask of an nft sneaker brand that has generated $3.1 million so far in digital sneaker designs. It compared digital nfts to the baseball card industry in the 90s when manufacturers started to make additional copies or lookalike cards that brought down the value and how they can protect their buyers of these digital nfts from the same circumstance. The only answer they had was “integrity” which to me means there are not protections in place of these nfts yet. Also, if there is an nft painting and the news uses its picture do they need to have permission from the current owner to display the nft on the news or online article? They digital rights have now been bought so usage rights should be asked prior or $ paid to the owner for usage like viral YouTube videos are.

 

[MaxKhalus]

(Duplicated)

 

[Sethamus]

You can always grow food on it. Or live there in a tent or whatever. There's always some value. Of course, you can improve it more in some more capitalistic way, but the starting point already gives it value.

There's no value in NFTs other than speculative value. You can't improve it. You can't use it for anything. I'm not saying it does NOT have value and don't want to argue that point. Just saying that ultimately it's a 100% virtual thing that has no use whatsoever.

A physical painting has decorative value. You can see it, touch it, display it. Or you can burn it lol. NFT has no purpose. Unless you print that JPG (but you don't have to buy it for that).

In the end, I don't care if people want to spend their money on this. Ultimately, we all make investment decisions based on our personal experiences and values. People into art may be super excited to be able to support their favorite artists without the problems associated with storing physical art.

Well let me know, I’ll go acquire some cheap land out west and sell it to you to start a farm. Disclaimer: land will have no water sources, very little annual rainfall and mostly clay soil so a great deal of money will be needed to make it fertile, but don’t worry it is still valuable

 

[Art777]

I watched some of Alex Becker's videos on NFTs, but I ignore them now. Honestly 99% people should go back to work and forget about this. The only ones who should invest are people who appreciate digital art (creative/collector types) with money and time to spare.

Otherwise this seems like a massive waste of time, especially for people with businesses.

 

[dollars]

For the record, cryptocurrency doing these kind of things have been around since Ethereum first started (so many many years at this point). Why is it picking up now? I don't know. When I heard about NFTs I did some research and saw people talking about crypto to verify things (such as if a Gucci bag is fake or not) as if it was new technology. This new hype is entirely fomo imo. It doesn't mean you can't make money, but anybody comparing something digital (which can be copied pixel for pixel) with the difference between a Chinese Gucci wallet and a legitimate Gucci wallet is falling for the hype. The better comparison would be the difference between owning a pirated movie and a real copy of the movie. Assuming both movies are exactly the same (same quality, same pixel by pixel movie), then do you think people would pay more money for one? The funny thing is that yes, some people would. But that would likely be due to convenience or other variables (maybe wanting to support the creator, or just not knowing how to pirate), rather than the quality of the movie itself.

 

[BlackPebbles]

Hands up who owns cryptokitties they can no longer access The technology moved on and I can’t get in even with my seed phrase. I wonder how people will feel over their fancy works when that happens. Lesson is, check on your shit.

 

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