Non-Fungible Tokens are a real mind fuck. It forces the question—why does art have value and where does the value reside? In traditional fine art, the artwork and the stamp of authenticity are fused as one. When you buy a Picasso, the signature is embedded in the artwork. Some artworks come with a separate certificate of authenticity. When the artwork is sold, the buyer gets both the art and the certificate. If the artwork is not provably authentic, it is worthless. Likewise, the certificate is worthless without the art.
A week or so ago, neitherconfirm exposed an exploit where he used the edit feature to replace purchased jpgs. It reminds us that the system is a little immature still, and has its bugs to work out. I have spent so many hours seeking exploits in software, and its kind of neverending. Do these services have a bug hunter program like other well endowed companies use? How fast can we expect NFT blockchain systems to mature to the point we feel our purchases are safe?
The interesting take in all of this is that value is conferred to the NFT-backed certificates (and not the art itself) because as you put it "people are voting with their wallets -- and that means society respects artists" (my paraphrasing of your point).
I respectfully disagree *at this point in time.*
My conjecture is that it's more likely than not that the money in the wallets used to buy the beeple, etc. NFTs that we see being purchased recently is a bit different than money used to buy an iPhone or a sandwich, i.e., it's *probably* coming from people who have been the beneficiaries of large gains in crypto value appreciation -- as opposed to money earned by your plumber for his plumbing job. If you're a newly minted crypto millionaire, or even *just* a hundred thousand-aire, and you use $40,000 USD worth of your crypto lottery winnings (not meant to be derogatory, but lets call a spade a spade) to buy a beeple... is the beeple really worth the same as a $40,000 Picasso?
Great piece, really appreciate you breaking the value down. I do have a theory question for you to help me with if you don’t mind. A piece of art that the Foo Fighters have the copyright to was sold by the artist in an NFT. Could you kinda talk about the legal ramifications with copyright in situations like this? Would appreciate any thoughts you had on the topic. Thanks in advance
A week or so ago, neitherconfirm exposed an exploit where he used the edit feature to replace purchased jpgs. It reminds us that the system is a little immature still, and has its bugs to work out. I have spent so many hours seeking exploits in software, and its kind of neverending. Do these services have a bug hunter program like other well endowed companies use? How fast can we expect NFT blockchain systems to mature to the point we feel our purchases are safe?
The interesting take in all of this is that value is conferred to the NFT-backed certificates (and not the art itself) because as you put it "people are voting with their wallets -- and that means society respects artists" (my paraphrasing of your point).
I respectfully disagree *at this point in time.*
My conjecture is that it's more likely than not that the money in the wallets used to buy the beeple, etc. NFTs that we see being purchased recently is a bit different than money used to buy an iPhone or a sandwich, i.e., it's *probably* coming from people who have been the beneficiaries of large gains in crypto value appreciation -- as opposed to money earned by your plumber for his plumbing job. If you're a newly minted crypto millionaire, or even *just* a hundred thousand-aire, and you use $40,000 USD worth of your crypto lottery winnings (not meant to be derogatory, but lets call a spade a spade) to buy a beeple... is the beeple really worth the same as a $40,000 Picasso?
Think about it :)
Great piece, really appreciate you breaking the value down. I do have a theory question for you to help me with if you don’t mind. A piece of art that the Foo Fighters have the copyright to was sold by the artist in an NFT. Could you kinda talk about the legal ramifications with copyright in situations like this? Would appreciate any thoughts you had on the topic. Thanks in advance
What do you think about artists that mint multiple NFTs?
Hi James, very interesting! And it's all just getting started... Hey I want to DM you about something. On Twitter? Thanks.
Nice! Love the article!
Nice! Love the the article!