What is an NFT from an artist’s perspective? (opens in new tab)

NFT sellers are dodging the elephant in the room: Buying an NFT is more like buying a print of an artwork than buying the artwork itself. Or more accurately, a link to a print of the artwork.

Yes, using crypto and blockchain you can prove that this was the first NFT print of the artwork, but that's it. It's an expensive way to proclaim that you have the keys controlling the NFT that links to the print of the artwork, and that it was associated with a crypto-denominated transaction of a certain value, but that's it.

These NFTs are also a goldmine for wash trading scams. NFT holders can "sell" the NFT to themselves over and over again at increasingly higher prices, creating an illusion of a very valuable and high-demand NFT.

Want to own an expensive NFT? Buy a cheap NFT, then use a second wallet to "buy" it from yourself. The last trade price gets recorded in the blockchain and you can now brag about having an NFT worth as much money as you were willing to scrounge up for the transaction.

It's amazing the absolute bullshit people will force themselves to believe when their might be some money in it for them.

All these articles gloss over the technical side (which is really not complicated, because there's very little THERE). And gloss over the demand side (sure, people want to "own" the art even when "own" means absoluely nothing in that context). I can only assume that on the demand side there's a mixture of stupid money ("I don't know what this is but it seems like it might be the next big thing so I'm buying") and people working one of various angles.

At least some artists are getting paid stupid amounts of money, if someone's got to get a windfall it might as well be them. But let's not pretend thing actually makes sense as an overall thing.

Proof of authenticity, whether being digital or not, doesn't mean anything until

1) the culture of the general people around you support it, or

2) there is an entity with political power (such as the state) that forcefully protects that authenticity through law/police/the military/etc (for example, intellectual property supported by law enforcement).

But firstly I think NFTs are totally antitheical to the current culture of the Internet era, where it is given without question that data can be freely copied and shared (regardless of the countless efforts by DRM technologies), and virality and mass transmission is regarded as an important communal cultural value. Who cares if someone "owns" the Nyan Cat meme, when you can freely Google it and view it on your smartphone, and can also save it to your hard drive if you want to preserve it? And I really don't think state power is really supportive of general crypto right now, so number two is off from the start. The problem I have with NFTs (and cryptocurrenties in general) isn't about the technology, it's more about the culture surrounding it.

(Also, think the blockchain is permanent, because it's supported by "math"? If the infrastructure surrounding Ethereum vanishes, your piece of NFT is essentially gone. And Ethereum's consuming a hell of a lot of energy and infrastructure to maintain, and you might start to think backing it up in a few hard drives is the easier and saner option...)

It has all the hallmarks of an MLM or Ponzi scheme. Lots of people hyping it up, hoping to sell on their "asset" to a bigger fool.

You can't restrict ownership of digital goods. Decades of DRM have shown us that.

This part made me wonder.

> So, if you were to buy an NFT from me, in a sense, you are buying STOCK in me because you believe that I (or my art piece) will continue to create more work and add more “value” to that stock over time.

So essentially, this has nothing to do with art, it's a way for artists to get in on the stupid money speculation train everyone else seems to be addicted to. You "own" the token in order to buy low and sell high, rather than it really mattering in itself.

We really are doomed, aren't we?

I’m extremely skeptical of all cryptocurrencies and most usages of blockchain. However this seems like the first interesting and potentially practical application I’ve heard.

It deals with art - something that’s value is inherently subjective. Plus it gives makers of digital art a better/additional way to fund themselves. Further, transactions would likely be limited reducing environmental impact. Finally, it could provide some competition to company’s like Sotheby’s.

Obviously there a lot of open questions (couldn’t someone else just duplicate a work and make their own coin, why not just pay an artist directly, money laundering, etc). But I think this at least warrants further discussion. It’s an interesting way to make digital art collectible/tradable

Q: What's to stop me taking sometime else's art I find online, claiming it's mine, turning it into a NFT and making money from it?

A: Absolutely nothing ... I think?

I think the reason it doesn’t make sense is that when you buy art IRL you actually own the original which can’t be duplicated.

This is not true of a JPEG. I can perfectly duplicate it.

Now where it might make sense is if everyone views the asset through an authoritative “viewer”.

For example cryptokitties website.

In that case it somewhat makes sense.

As an analogy if I create a private World of Warcraft server and give my character a billion gold, no one cares.

But if they see my character on the official server (the official “viewer”) has a billion gold then its impressive.

I was the first person to allow bitcoin donations for music and netted roughly $10 at the time, which today would be worth nearly half a million dollars. I happened to be lucky my interests in emerging tech and music lined up when I had an album finished. So I'm definitely an artist who has benefited from cypto. That said, I've read a few NFT FAQs and this seems wholly pointless and idiotic.

So when I first heard about NFTs for art it seemed pretty silly. As it is now there is nothing stopping some one from copying the digital asset and still deriving as much enjoyment strictly from that digital asset. The other added benefit strictly from the token might be as a status symbol and the ability to profit by selling that status symbol to some one else. So if you are buying the art for solely personal enjoyment then there isn’t much of a value add it seems (maybe you can acquire the digital asset again if you lose it by proving ownership of the token to some service?)

However if a DRM ecosystem pops up supporting this which adds enough friction to showing digital assets without tokens (ex a high end DRM only digital photo frame, DRM only music and video players, DRM enforced public hosting services, ...) then I could start to see how this might gain some traction. Legal enforcement would help as well.

As other comments have stated this does seem pretty antithetical to the culture of the original internet. Though that seems to be less relevant as the years march on.

Does anyone know where to find resources on how taxation works with NFTs? I'm in Canada. My understanding is the seller is supposed to pay 13% HST. Do they also have to consider it income, or does that only happen when transferring back to fiat?

Reading https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/programs/about-canad... it says "trade or exchange cryptocurrency, including disposing of one cryptocurrency to get another cryptocurrency" but are NFTs considered an asset rather than a security? (cryptocurrency isn't considered currency)

Not sure how taxes work out fair market value of art

FYI: I curate some awesome pages on non-fungible token (NTF) pages, that is, the Awesome CryptoKitties & Copycats [1] and the Awesome CryptoPunks & Copypastas [2]

[1]: https://github.com/cryptocopycats/awesome-cryptokitties-bubb... [2]: https://github.com/cryptopunksnotdead/awesome-cryptopunks-bu...

Smells like a bottomless pit and quacks like a bottomless pit

I see it mainly as a way of supporting the work of an artist

I like this "stock" analogy.

In textbooks I've seen that stock is a "share of a company's future profits" but seeing as many don't pay dividends it really is more like "share of a company's future perception."

This makes sense. However, it's not "perfect".

If I believe in KAWS and Jeff Koons and I'd like to buy some of their "stock" to resell when I retire, what jpg my shares are linked to are irrelevant. So it's a bit of an inconvenience that I need to invest in stock of an artwork rather than stock of an artist. It's like that in real life sure, but artists should just be doing their own ICOs no?

>For example, I had a friend who worked in fiber-optics and phone lines. He once tried to explain to me how a phone call worked and I almost threw up. Instead, I just accepted that it DOES exist

This explanation of "the" blockchain almost made me throw up. It's absolutely fine if you are too lazy to understand certain things, just don't assume everyone is and please do not try to explain things you do not understand, unless you're honest about it or it is simply exercise.

Once again the HN community completely missing the point on crypto and this time on NFTs. Bunch of unimaginative people who think they're smarter than everyone else but have missed out on the biggest technological investment opportunity of the past decade and continue to remain petty and close minded on something they somehow still don't even understand.

I'll throw you guys a little bone. Imagine sports card collecting, in the real world the hassle of keeping it in good condition, sending it to get it graded, then finding a buyer online, sending it again, and then hoping to get paid...all of that is full of friction and generally a terrible experience. NFTs like NBA Top Shot allow you to bypass all of that and the process of opening a pack, finding the price of it, and selling it can be done all in seconds. It is legitimately a 10x improvement from a logistical standpoint. And that's just scratching the surface, it's not only 10x more convenient and easier to find liquidity but it's actually programmable so there's pretty much infinite stuff that can be built on top of it like analytical tools, games that it integrates with and tracking ownership and getting athletes involved and displaying in virtual spaces and attaching digital custom signatures etc etc.

Even if you personally don't like it or think "its stupid", the popularity of some of these products is undeniable. It is legit blowing up and has disrupted previous industries that people who get it refuse to go back to old ways. Sorry the market has spoken and your take is wrong.

Aren't NFTs just digital authenticity certificates, complete with blockchain protected provenance?

In some artworks the certificate is the only non transitory asset (e.g. banana taped to wall, or the famous lawyers dot painting)

In what way is an NFT token like a stock? A stock is bound to a company via dividends and voting power. An NFT only bears a name.

Interesting point of view from an artist.

Made me wonder if authors of open source code could use something similar to provide for themselves.

No really, officer, I wasn't laundering those drug proceeds, I was just buying a non-fungible token from Pablo Escobar in order to resell it to El Chapo. NFTs are just like artwork, officer. You know, the kind of artwork that billionaires use to launder money? We're just doing the same thing they do, but on the blockchain!

Is there any NFT that reserve the right of printing for an artwork?

Bitcoin is my favourite non-fungible token.

I really hate and distrust Medium. You get garbage like this gussied up like it's coming from a trustworthy and informed source. I'm not sure why it seems that way in a way that, say, LiveJournal didn't, but it does.

The "you don't have to understand it, just accept that it exists and believe in it" line of nonthinking is a memetic neurotoxin. It sucks whether it's applied to blockchain, NFTs, gods, homeopathy, or an MLM, and a healthy mind should expel it on exposure.