For the absolutists who know BTC and Eth are going to zero.
I am not suggesting anyone here do any TA. I am suggesting look at a chart if you want to quickly size up the bigger picture of things. We look at charts with macro topics.
For the absolutists who know BTC and Eth are going to zero.
Oh, I donât think theyâre going to zero. As a highly speculative âinvestmentâ with no intrinsic value, I just think many of the portfolios of people who put actual money into them are âgoing to zero.â
âZeroâ, of course, is just a metaphoric tool. I still have to pay for tulips. $20 for a bag of 20 at Home Depot.
16 Likes
Like Goofy, I also donât think BTC or ETH are going to zero. Both are extremely useful, and therefore valuable, for a host of criminal activities. Theyâre an excellent vehicle for avoiding KYC/AML laws, and as a semi-anonymous payment system they are very useful for illicit transactions.
But that doesnât mean theyâre worth current prices, because quite frankly theyâre not very useful for anything other than criminal activity. Oh, sure, thereâs things you can do with those currencies - but very little that canât be done more efficiently, safely and easily using conventional financial systems and networks. Bitcoinâs been around for more than a decade now, and we havenât seen an actual use for it (other than criminal activity) that gets widely adopted.
Do you have any suggestions for what these things can be used for that would be an improvement over current financial systems (apart from criminal activity)?
Albaby
12 Likes
Al and Goofy,
I am not totally versed in how cryptos are used.
ButâŚ
The sale of high end digital art
Web3 is working on solutions for internet content creators. The DMCA is great for the free transfer of images and music on the major platforms like FB and Google but lousy for the creators.
There are exchanges of value that are not money laundering etc that are important. If you were leaving a country under duress, ie Russia right now, it is much easier to transfer your wealth.
Ethâs contracts, NFTs, offer opportunities in the digital world for exchange.
There are innovative solutions that are legitimate being developed, ie Arweave which has the Ar token. Arweave is for ultra long periods of computer storage, read 600 years, paid for in a one time payment. The Library of Congress and other major libraries etc may be using Arweave. The costs are stunningly low about 1 GB for $58. That is for their estimated 200 years, but that estimate does not factor in fully the deflation in storage. That estimate then goes over 600 years for the $58. The entire exercise is something of a non profit out of academia.
While the crazy financial businesses have mostly be wiped out by now, there are interesting upstarts outside of finance or not being crazy at least that matter. I am not versed in those.
I am not totally versed in how cryptos are used.
ButâŚ
The sale of high end digital art
Web3 is working on solutions for internet content creators. The DMCA is great for the free transfer of images and music on the major platforms like FB and Google but lousy for the creators.
That doesnât really answer the question. How does Bitcoin or Ethereum offer a better way of selling high end digital art than conventional means?
Thereâs a short answer right now, of course - because a lot of people are ânot totally versedâ in what cryptos are doing, artists are able to get a fair amount of money from people without actually selling them the digital art. But because purchasers donât understand that theyâre not actually acquiring the artwork by buying the NFT, and instead basically just making a donation to the artist, that actually works to get money to the artists. However, in order to actually sell high end digital art, rather than just take money from gullible purchasers, youâll need to basically recreate âordinaryâ purchase and sale documentation outside the blockchain.
IOW, the cryptos donât bring anything to the table. They donât make it any easier at all for a digital artist and a prospective purchaser to actually transfer ownership of the digital art from one to the other, because nothing on the blockchain actually transfers ownership of the art itself - just the NFT. Since everything you would normally have to do to effectuate a transfer of ownership the âold-fashioned wayâ still has to happen, the cryptos donât add anything except a payment method that is (for the most part) slower, more expensive, and less correctable if an error is made than just using Venmo or Zelle or what have you.
Until someone can answer how these specific currencies actually improve the process of, say, buying digital art (or anything else), itâs difficult to see their value proposition outside of illegal activity.
Albaby
8 Likes
Al,
Lets do this again.
Keep it much simpler.
Here is an example of the value of art. The example is meant for you to abstract from. It is not meant as a singular example.
The Mona Lisa is on the wall in the Louvre. Copies are everywhere, film, magazines, textbooks, prints on peopleâs wallsâŚetcâŚetcâŚthe value of the copies is the cost of the print plus a small premium for the people offering it for sale. The value on a TV show is a small cache of some art you know.
The value of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre is the museumâs ownership of the original art. There is the art and the ownership in one bundle. It is a hard copy and the ownership of the hardcopy.
Digital art is all copies. From top to bottom an infinite number of copies.
An Eth NFT allows an artist to create a singular ownership contract. That is where the abstraction is.
Ownership has a value.
Like the Mona Lisa any number of copies can exist. That does not diminish the Mona Lisa. It helps the value of the Mona Lisa. The public is engaged.
If you look at a movie today on TV the studio owns the movie. The movie is a digital work with infinite copies. The studios use contracts to sell and license the movie.
If you put it in the perspective of how the movie studios operate this is not a foreign concept.
Blockchain tech secures that the contract is a one off.
1 Like
I also think the big holders of crypto are in a circular shooting gallery. They all know each other and are propping up the price by not selling. So, whatâs the point? Theyâve gotten themselves in a pickle!
When Elon says heâs âsupportingâ Bitcoin or Dogecoin he means heâs propping it up. Now what?!
Now what?!,
Think reservoir dogs. One starts,a cascade of selling and Martin calls and selling and Martin calls,etc.
Or they all sit and wait and sell small portions into rallies,with one or more exiting unscathed.
Jk
2 Likes
Al,
There were and now are very few crazy finance companies and concept companies in the crypto industry.
If you are asking how those worked I would have said the ideas were nuts. We are in agreement. And some of them still exist. More will come along.
You are right to question all of those concepts.
You are right to question the better concepts as well. That is what I do as well.
There are much more solid concepts in the crypto industry.
If we are looking to kick the tires and hard, we need to also understand when the car does not need to be fixed. That means asking the questions is logical. Figuring out when a car is road worthy is the point. Speaking figuratively there are a lot of good cars on the road. There are probably far more cars in the junkyards.
An Eth NFT allows an artist to create a singular ownership contract. That is where the abstraction is.
No, it doesnât.
Thatâs where the disconnect is, I think. People think that this is true, but it is not. An Ethereum NFT doesnât transfer any ownership of the art. At all. If you buy an NFT on OpenSea (for example), the NFT doesnât give you any interest, rights, possession, or ownership of the underlying artwork. All youâre buying is the NFT.
Now then - the person who does own the copyright to that digital artwork can sell you the rights to that artwork. But if they do, itâs entirely through an offchain contract. The NFT doesnât transfer the rights at all. If you actually look at the fine print on some of these NFT platforms (Iâve linked OpenSeaâs below), it makes it very clear that the platform is not claiming that buying an NFT gives you any rights at all to the underlying works. The NFT doesnât âallowâ the artist to create an ownership contract, any more than Zelle allows you to create an ownership contract.
The only reason that this stuff is making money right now is because the public is (generally) either unaware of or unconcerned with the fact that buying an NFT doesnât convey any ownership interest or rights in the offchain item that is âassociatedâ with that NFT. The customers think theyâre buying digital art, but theyâre just buying NFTs - not the art itself.
If you actually wanted to transfer ownership rights to the artwork, youâd need to draw up a contract that transferred the copyright and other intellectual property interests in the artwork. The blockchain doesnât add anything helpful to that process, and you donât need it at all for that process - you could do the exact same thing more efficiently using Venmo or Zelle.
https://support.opensea.io/hc/en-us/sections/4404415252371-FâŚ
Albaby
16 Likes
JK,
The massive bloodletting is mostly over. Has been for a couple of weeks now. There have been a couple of bad losses more recently. It is all getting ironed out.
There are plenty of risks involved anyway.
I am not investing in any of it.
Give me the blue chips.
I am not investing in any of the blue chips yet either. There are massive risks involved. There is very possibly more down side in the stock market than in BTC or Eth. Even as BTC and Eth are far more volatile.
It will be interesting to watch if BTC and Eth rally this fall. I do not know. It is a possibility even as the general equity and bond markets tank. If they do tank.
No, it doesnât.
Thatâs where the disconnect is, I think. People think that this is true, but it is not.
That is a big difference of opinion.
A lot of savvy often younger businesspeople disagree with you. Those folks in the 10s of thousands created a very wealthy market for NFT art.
You can disagree however forcefully you want. The market does not have to care.
Besides none of your money is on the line I take it. So you can argue but you do not count. You have no skin in the game.
Speaking figuratively there are a lot of good cars on the road.
Name one.
Figuratively, that is - name a âgood car,â a use for bitcoin or ethereum that is an improvement over non-blockchain currency means of doing the same thing. Other than illegal uses, that is.
If I want to actually sell digital art (and not just hoodwink someone into falsely believing that theyâve bought the digital art), I need to have a contract that transfers the IP interest in the art and a means of obtaining payment. Cryptocurrencies donât add any value to that. They donât help at all with the contract, and as a method of payment they are slow and expensive and somewhat difficult compared to many other alternatives.
Iâve yet to hear a coherent explanation of a specific use for cryptocurrencies thatâs an improvement over non-crypto methods of doing the same thing. Again, apart from criminal uses.
Do you have one?
Albaby
4 Likes
Al,
The human condition is to wonder if everyone else is an idiot.
Tulips of lore proved that.
But the NFT market has been here as long now as the tulip mania.
The NFT market wont be disappearing.
The clientele I am discussing are multimillionaires generally under age 45. The collectors are ultra shrewd businesspeople. Most of them are tech savvy as well.
I think this is not your calling. The money the collectors have been amassing in business and in art is their forte.
I do not need to secure them to say they know their business. I do not need to secure you to say you know your business, but NFTs is not your thing.
Besides none of your money is on the line I take it. So you can argue but you do not count. You have no skin in the game.
Iâm not sure what it means telling Albaby âyou do not countâ because he does not buy, or buy into, NFTs.
Also, a question for the class: Do you really have to âhave skin in the gameâ to correctly analyze an issue?
Pete
5 Likes
That is a big difference of opinion.
A lot of savvy often younger businesspeople disagree with you. Those folks in the 10s of thousands created a very wealthy market for NFT art.
They donât disagree with me.
Those folks have created a very wealthy market for NFTâs, thatâs for sure. Theyâre making money hand over fist, creating digital files and selling âassociatedâ NFTâs for gobs of money.
But - I havenât seen any single one of them show how purchasing an NFT conveys any ownership interest in the artwork. Theyâre capitalizing (quite handsomely) on peopleâs ignorance of the difference between owning an NFT and actually acquiring legally cognizable and transferrable rights to the âassociatedâ artwork.
Perhaps you have a link, where one of these savvy, young businesspeople outlines how theyâre actually selling artwork, rather than NFTâs?
Albaby
4 Likes
At this point Al I can only say you are opinionated.
Good luck.
I am not hear to repeat myself when you only want your own opinions but ask me a question.
We disagree. Okay. Time to move on.
1 Like
I am not hear to repeat myself when you only want your own opinions but ask me a question.
Okay, hereâs my question -
How does purchasing an NFT transfer any ownership interest in digital artwork?
Albaby
5 Likes
Pete,
If you are not making a market and have an opinion the market is not going to care what you think.
Tulips they should have cared.
But the contrary opinions do not count good or bad to the market.
Yes anyone can analyze any of this. Included the market that disagrees with a lot of people here not in the market.
Lets put it this way I know more people that would never buy a stock because they totally distrust Wall Street. We all here discount their opinions on stock ownership. Even though we all distrust Wall Street.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/02/non-fungible-tokens-nâŚ.
Al the top two points on the link in purple discuss that more accurately than I have.
The metadata is owned.
One of the differences in that is because it is digital art.
The metadata is the transferred ownership.
This is in larger part true when a movie studio licenses a film to a theater. A copy is used with ether the film or the art underlying the NFT.