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

[MaxKhalus]

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.

 

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[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!

 

[Empires]

NFTs created a way for digital items to be uniquely identifiable.

Compare it to me printing a Picasso on my HP printer at home vs a true original Picasso.

One is worth millions, the other one is worth the price of a piece of paper.

Now digital assets can be impossible to counterfeit. Sure, you can screenshot a picture online.. but it is not the original so it has no value.

Counterfeiting IRL is really advanced and can be indistinguishable unless examined by the highest level of experts. And even they can be fooled. This takes human error out of the equation.

 

[MTF]

You're witnessing a FOMO-driven mania.

Just focus on your own business that you control and (hopefully) provide real lasting value through it.

 

[Mike Stoian]

I agree. There's no real value to be created there. At least not yet. I expect a huge boom, which we see now, then there will be a bust. Then later, this technology will become more entrenched and we'll see the actual uses for it and where value can be created. At least that's what I think.

On a side note, I used to love Alex Becker but this new wave of crypto and NFT he's on is triggering some flags for me. Sounds like he's just making videos on whatever's popular or trending. And what's popular and trending has always been a bad idea.

 

[The-J]

Just like crypto itself, it's a combination of overzealous speculation and a truly awesome (and purely capitalist) method for digital rights management.

Always be wary of "everyone's doing it". Even real estate isn't free from speculation-driven boom-bust cycles.

When the mania calms down, look at the people who continue to profit and see what they're doing.

 

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[Simon Angel]

You're witnessing a FOMO-driven mania.

Just focus on your own business that you control and (hopefully) provide real lasting value through it.

GME to the moon

 

[pmaloneus]

GME to the moon

To da fuuqin mooonnnn. Apes strong together.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

1) I wouldn't say "everyone is doing it" but it seems that way because of the media spotlight.

2) Right now, we're dealing with a Greater Fool market -- and that can continue for years until the fools run out.

You're witnessing a FOMO-driven mania.

Just focus on your own business that you control and (hopefully) provide real lasting value through it.

Best advice right here...

Between Gamestop, NFTs and BTC, we're seeing money-chasers who have been given a media bullhorn.

 

[Raoul Duke]

Between Gamestop, NFTs and BTC, we're seeing money-chasers who have been given a media bullhorn.

And when it goes *pop*. They will blame the 1%.

 

[Devampre]

There are potential opportunities with NFTs, but you likely won't find success by watching a clickbait youtube video or reading an article online from a popular source.

I can already picture the flood of charlatan guru's and their ads trying to sell me $997 courses on how to sell millions of dollars worth of NFT content.

 

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[PizzaOnTheRoof]

The real value is in the "tokenization" of assets. Imagine in the future you want to buy a piece of rare art as an investment, but you don't have a climate controlled space nor knowledge of preserving a 100 year old painting.

Instead, you buy the art from the previous owner through an online exchange, but the art stays in a museum, where it is meticulously cared for and stored.

You simply own the digital "deed" to the art. A deed that cannot be faked, stolen, or reproduced.

Now imagine you own a portfolio of rare art, cars, stamps, coins, historical documents, baseballs, etc, that are all secure and taken care of for you. No house fire or burglar can steal it to sell on the black market. You don't need a $5M insurance policy because the museum/warehouse takes care of it for you.

When you're ready to cash out your investment, you simply put the tokenized item for sale on an exchange and take payment within hours.

Cheesy 8-bit digital art that some YouTuber made in 2 hours? Eh.

I'd rather invest in Paxos.

 

[Xeon]

Part of the mania phase of the crypto craze. When this whole thing eventually busts and people realize it's all purple tulip syndrome, you'll see many supermen and superwomen flying down from high rise buildings.

You know those deviantart furry drawings? Stuff like that are selling for $300,000+ on some of the NFT boards. It's not a Rembrandt or Rubens, it's those kind of shit that 12 year olds like to draw.

 

[SlideHustle]

Smells like;

Dot-com bubble​

 

[SlideHustle]

This theme sounds very familiar.

 

[MaxKhalus]

Thank you all. That kinda answers my question.

To better understand this, I'll have to figure out too why anyone would pay high for a collectible/art work (not just NFTs).

Or why one seller sells higher than the other while selling the same product (branding).

But yeah, better not to touch those NFTs for a while.

 

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[Dwight Schrute]

To better understand this, I'll have to figure out too why anyone would pay high for a collectible/art work (not just NFTs).

Or why one seller sells higher than the other while selling the same product (branding).

"Veblen Goods"

It's the purchase of bragging rights, and reaffirmation of the customer's
self-image, as in "I'm the kind of guy who appreciates these nice things, whatever the price."

Same story with NFTs, only digital.

 

[Timmy C]

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.

 

[Mike Stoian]

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?

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

 

[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.

 

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[ElleMg]

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

 

[csalvato]

NFTs are going to change the world of art, music, publishing and rights management. It will give more power back to the creator, which is why artists of all kinds love it.

To dismiss it as a FOMO induced tulip bubble is missing the bigger picture.

NFTs arent just like collectibles, they are collectibles. And most collectibles are worthless, with a few being very highly valued.

While I agree with the sentiment to “focus on your business”, I also think you shouldn’t have so much tunnel vision that you totally miss new technologies that will disrupt entire industries, including your own.

@MJ DeMarco and @MTF, As self publishing authors, I think it’s worth it for you to learn a lot about NFTs including how they work and how they might change your entire industry.

Mark Cuban did a good interview on NFTs here:

View: https://youtu.be/l3ptz8qvZcg

3LAU also did a good one here, that should hopefully get creatives to see how this can change everything:

Artist who tokenized album for $11M explains why the NFT boom isn't like the ICO craze

Listen to this episode from The Scoop on Spotify. The market for non-fungible tokens, digital collectibles, and tokenized music is hitting the mainstream. On Thursday, Beeple's NFT-powered suite of 5,000 images sold for a staggering $69 million, making it the third-highest figure paid for work...

open.spotify.com

 

[csalvato]

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

No it doesn’t. It exists on that platform or in your wallet, just like BTC exists on an exchange or in your own wallet.

 

[csalvato]

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.

This is like saying if you paint your own version of the Mona Lisa it’s the same thing.

It’s not.

Mona Lisa’s aren’t fungible. Neither are NFTs.

 

[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.

 

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[csalvato]

To better understand this, I'll have to figure out too why anyone would pay high for a collectible/art work (not just NFTs).

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

 

[csalvato]

2. It has no intrinsic value

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 wants that thing you have, and the number of options they have to secure that thing.

 

[Sethamus]

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 think you have, and the number of options they have to secure that thing.

Agree, I could go find and sell you a few acres of land that is worthless. No utilities, limited access, no supporting local population, and too small to actually do anything productive with besides park a trailer on. Until someone has an idea to improve the land its intrinsic value is nothing. So the theory that there is no more land being made so the value always goes up does not hold true.
If people think this nft crap has value, well then they purchase it. Some of these might end up having lasting value, but most probably won’t and will be out the money spent until someone comes along and decides it is valuable again. There is a reason we have junk yards and every country house has old cars or farm equipment parked on it. Almost zero value until you need that spare headlight off a 2003 Ford F-150 and the old man has it for $30 on a vehicle he got for free.

 

[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.