Oh no! NFTs are worthless!
September 21, 2023 5:52 PM Subscribe
New study suggests NFTs have died.
- 18% of top brand name NFT collections have a floor price of zero
- 41% of the top NFTs are priced between $5 and $100
- Less than 1% of these NFTs boast a price tag of over $6,000
Cherry on top:
There are 195,699 NFT collections with no apparent owners or market share. The energy required to mint these NFTs is 27,789,258 kWh, resulting in an emission of approximately 16,243 metric tons of CO2.
16,243,017kg of CO2 is 16,243 metric tons, which is equivalent to the yearly emissions of 2048 homes according to the EPA. Or it’s also the carbon footprint of 4061 passengers flying from London UK to Wellington NZ.
- 18% of top brand name NFT collections have a floor price of zero
- 41% of the top NFTs are priced between $5 and $100
- Less than 1% of these NFTs boast a price tag of over $6,000
Cherry on top:
There are 195,699 NFT collections with no apparent owners or market share. The energy required to mint these NFTs is 27,789,258 kWh, resulting in an emission of approximately 16,243 metric tons of CO2.
16,243,017kg of CO2 is 16,243 metric tons, which is equivalent to the yearly emissions of 2048 homes according to the EPA. Or it’s also the carbon footprint of 4061 passengers flying from London UK to Wellington NZ.
And nothing of value was lost.
posted by notoriety public at 5:56 PM on September 21, 2023 [55 favorites]
posted by notoriety public at 5:56 PM on September 21, 2023 [55 favorites]
And nothing of value was lost.
A lot of money was effectively stolen, and a lot more was laundered. This wasn't a victimless exercise.
posted by mhoye at 6:00 PM on September 21, 2023 [59 favorites]
A lot of money was effectively stolen, and a lot more was laundered. This wasn't a victimless exercise.
posted by mhoye at 6:00 PM on September 21, 2023 [59 favorites]
A lot of money was effectively stolen
Sure, but it was stolen from the kind of people who would believe in NFTs.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:13 PM on September 21, 2023 [38 favorites]
Sure, but it was stolen from the kind of people who would believe in NFTs.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:13 PM on September 21, 2023 [38 favorites]
Oddly those stupid Trump Trading Card NFTs are still holding their value. The price varies a lot and the market is quite thin but they hover around 0.125 ETH or $200. They were originally sold for $100 and IIRC got up to $450, maybe more. Of course it's impossible to tell whether these are real prices or just some market manipulation.
NFT fraud is common. The original headline $69M Beeple NFT was a shill bid fraud. Melania Trump bought her own NFT to prop up the price, too. In any normal auction this is illegal. But ✨NFTs✨ are the future and anything goes!
Or maybe it's everything must go. I can't find Melania's NFT on OpenSea, there's a sea of spammy "official Melania NFT" listings that are all more fraud. But in December 2022 it was reported by some mediocre AI script that "the value of Melania’s NFT collection has plummeted by over 100%". (Neat trick, that.) She's still launching NFTs as of June 2023 though. The grift keeps turning.
posted by Nelson at 6:19 PM on September 21, 2023 [14 favorites]
NFT fraud is common. The original headline $69M Beeple NFT was a shill bid fraud. Melania Trump bought her own NFT to prop up the price, too. In any normal auction this is illegal. But ✨NFTs✨ are the future and anything goes!
Or maybe it's everything must go. I can't find Melania's NFT on OpenSea, there's a sea of spammy "official Melania NFT" listings that are all more fraud. But in December 2022 it was reported by some mediocre AI script that "the value of Melania’s NFT collection has plummeted by over 100%". (Neat trick, that.) She's still launching NFTs as of June 2023 though. The grift keeps turning.
posted by Nelson at 6:19 PM on September 21, 2023 [14 favorites]
who could have possibly
posted by gottabefunky at 6:19 PM on September 21, 2023 [14 favorites]
posted by gottabefunky at 6:19 PM on September 21, 2023 [14 favorites]
China Starts Registering Trademarks Filed for NFTs and Virtual Goods in the Metaverse.
posted by clavdivs at 6:22 PM on September 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by clavdivs at 6:22 PM on September 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
I have no idea what the actual metrics are, I mainly feel bad for any naive content creators and artists that got bamboozled by these assholes, because there was definitely a period where cryptobros were actively seeking out basically any artist that would listen to their sales pitch to acquire any content they could to turn into NFTs and fast talking them into providing content or putting existing content up on OpenSea or other NFT projects.
Because of course the cryptobros didn't know how to create anything interesting beyond cookie-cutter algorithmically generated "art" like so many extra stupid Garbage Pail kid stickers and avatars.
But the part about when the backlash against NFT spammers and grifters really started happening on sites like reddit was fun to watch because it was happening in all kinds of unlikely places and subs.
It was hilarious watching cryptobros desperately trying to pitch NFTs and Web 3.0 nonsense to anyone and everyone and trying to explain the "technology" and insisting they didn't get it, and basically everyone was responding with "No, we get it and we don't want your stupid NFTs and links to jpegs with extra steps."
Even better was "Hey, nice NFT avatar, I think I'll right-click it and save it and use it in my profile right now" just to troll cryptobros and watch them go on totally insane meltdowns and tantrums that someone "stole" their stupid NFT or avatar and seriously thinking they could sue anyone who used it for copyright infringement and somehow missing the whole part about algorithmically generated art being generally uncopyrightable itself and they didn't have even half of a legal leg to stand on about the "theft" of their precious NFTs at all.
Those tantrums were absolutely hilarious.
posted by loquacious at 6:30 PM on September 21, 2023 [36 favorites]
Because of course the cryptobros didn't know how to create anything interesting beyond cookie-cutter algorithmically generated "art" like so many extra stupid Garbage Pail kid stickers and avatars.
But the part about when the backlash against NFT spammers and grifters really started happening on sites like reddit was fun to watch because it was happening in all kinds of unlikely places and subs.
It was hilarious watching cryptobros desperately trying to pitch NFTs and Web 3.0 nonsense to anyone and everyone and trying to explain the "technology" and insisting they didn't get it, and basically everyone was responding with "No, we get it and we don't want your stupid NFTs and links to jpegs with extra steps."
Even better was "Hey, nice NFT avatar, I think I'll right-click it and save it and use it in my profile right now" just to troll cryptobros and watch them go on totally insane meltdowns and tantrums that someone "stole" their stupid NFT or avatar and seriously thinking they could sue anyone who used it for copyright infringement and somehow missing the whole part about algorithmically generated art being generally uncopyrightable itself and they didn't have even half of a legal leg to stand on about the "theft" of their precious NFTs at all.
Those tantrums were absolutely hilarious.
posted by loquacious at 6:30 PM on September 21, 2023 [36 favorites]
The digital artists I know all did pretty well with the NFT craze. They saw an opportunity, got paid, and sometimes got meaningful exposure. I think they were all smart enough to turn the magic beans into real money too. There was no need for the NFT or crypto scam, but having a trading card craze for someone's obscure generative art is a good thing!
OTOH artists still got screwed. From August: A key feature of NFTs has completely broken
posted by Nelson at 6:36 PM on September 21, 2023 [32 favorites]
OTOH artists still got screwed. From August: A key feature of NFTs has completely broken
OpenSea, the biggest NFT marketplace still fully enforcing royalty fees, said today that it plans to stop the mandatory collection of resale fees for artists. Starting March 2024, those fees will essentially be tips — an optional percentage of a sale price that sellers can choose to give the original artist. If the seller doesn’t want to hand over any money, that’ll be their choice.The promise of embedding royalties in the NFT smart contract was one of the genuinely interesting new things in the NFT hype. Turns out it was all a lie. The royalties are not enforced in the crypto code, despite promises. And apparently going to just be ignored in the legal contract.
posted by Nelson at 6:36 PM on September 21, 2023 [32 favorites]
NFTs were a scam, but it did seem some good artists were making money off that scam, and since the only people who could afford to buy into the scam are categorically scumbags, well...in the immortal words of dril, "drunk driving may kill a lot of people, but it also helps a lot of people get to work on time, so, it;s impossible to say if its bad or not,"
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:40 PM on September 21, 2023 [17 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:40 PM on September 21, 2023 [17 favorites]
Even if all the suckers who lost money deserved it, lots of rich fucks got richer too. And that's still a hell of a lot of pollution that we all pay for (it's killing us all). Sure, shunting money from rubes to artists is a fine scam, but maybe try not to do it like a rutting elk in a clean room.
posted by SaltySalticid at 6:44 PM on September 21, 2023 [13 favorites]
posted by SaltySalticid at 6:44 PM on September 21, 2023 [13 favorites]
The bit about the energy footprint of NFTs is hilarious, in a 'might as well laugh since tears will only contribute to rising sea levels' kind of way.
>To put this in a broader context: Many daily activities and industries have energy footprints.
Yes, but unlike NFTs, many daily activities and industries have SOME use.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 6:45 PM on September 21, 2023 [24 favorites]
>To put this in a broader context: Many daily activities and industries have energy footprints.
Yes, but unlike NFTs, many daily activities and industries have SOME use.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 6:45 PM on September 21, 2023 [24 favorites]
What a shame.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 7:08 PM on September 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 7:08 PM on September 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
They needed a study to learn this?
posted by Ickster at 7:17 PM on September 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Ickster at 7:17 PM on September 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
And nothing of value was lost.
"The energy required to mint these NFTs is 27,789,258 kWh"
27,789,258 kWh at an average US price of ~0.16 USD/kWh is 4.5 million dollars worth of electricity ! That's an awful lot of opportunity value that has been lost (even without the markup) :(
posted by Popular Ethics at 7:22 PM on September 21, 2023 [10 favorites]
"The energy required to mint these NFTs is 27,789,258 kWh"
27,789,258 kWh at an average US price of ~0.16 USD/kWh is 4.5 million dollars worth of electricity ! That's an awful lot of opportunity value that has been lost (even without the markup) :(
posted by Popular Ethics at 7:22 PM on September 21, 2023 [10 favorites]
Sure, but it was stolen from the kind of people who would believe in NFTs.
Being stupid is not a crime, nor should it be.
posted by deadwax at 7:32 PM on September 21, 2023 [16 favorites]
Being stupid is not a crime, nor should it be.
posted by deadwax at 7:32 PM on September 21, 2023 [16 favorites]
I'm never going to get tired of the phrase "right-click mentality" though.
posted by mhoye at 7:37 PM on September 21, 2023 [18 favorites]
posted by mhoye at 7:37 PM on September 21, 2023 [18 favorites]
Cryptocurrency and its offshoots are a dead end for at least two reasons
posted by krisjohn at 7:46 PM on September 21, 2023 [13 favorites]
- Most people's opsec is so appauling that they're completely incapable of managing something like a bitcoin wallet. The fully distributed nature of the network means that there's no location-based security. Your money is not in the safe in your house, the digital keys to an account in an unregulated bank-like ledger accessible by everyone anywhere in the world are in the safe in your house. Or, more likely, unsecured on a device that might even sync/backup to the cloud.
- 51% attacks are so trivially easy that pools have to go out of their way to avoid doing it accidentally. The crypto-compatible processing power out there means that pretty much every altcoin is at risk of a 51% attack if any big player wants to focus their energies on it.
posted by krisjohn at 7:46 PM on September 21, 2023 [13 favorites]
Thank God I’ve still got my tulip bulbs. Those will always be golden!
posted by Naberius at 7:53 PM on September 21, 2023 [31 favorites]
posted by Naberius at 7:53 PM on September 21, 2023 [31 favorites]
I online dated a woman who was huge into NFTs and tried to proselytize me on that. I swore I was listening, but my inner voice drowned out her words by screaming “It’s a Ponzi scheme!”.
I wonder how she’s doing today. She could tell me, but my inner voice would again drown her out, now saying “I told you so”.
posted by Capt. Renault at 8:08 PM on September 21, 2023 [6 favorites]
I wonder how she’s doing today. She could tell me, but my inner voice would again drown her out, now saying “I told you so”.
posted by Capt. Renault at 8:08 PM on September 21, 2023 [6 favorites]
The digital artists I know all did pretty well with the NFT craze.
It's funny, the newspaper has an occasional financial/investment glossy supplement magazine, and last year they had an article about NFTs as investments. They actually never used the word "art" even once! The whole thing was about sports branding NFTs attached to superstar basketball player names.
posted by ovvl at 8:10 PM on September 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
It's funny, the newspaper has an occasional financial/investment glossy supplement magazine, and last year they had an article about NFTs as investments. They actually never used the word "art" even once! The whole thing was about sports branding NFTs attached to superstar basketball player names.
posted by ovvl at 8:10 PM on September 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
Looks like we can say NFTs were a ridiculous concept after all.
Of course, we mostly said that before all as well.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:15 PM on September 21, 2023 [7 favorites]
Of course, we mostly said that before all as well.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:15 PM on September 21, 2023 [7 favorites]
Why not the rest of crypto, yet? What's holding up Bitcoin that didn't hold up NFT's?
posted by officer_fred at 8:20 PM on September 21, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by officer_fred at 8:20 PM on September 21, 2023 [5 favorites]
Bitcoin and other cryptos are mostly being "held up" by wash trading and (likely) outright fraud on the part of Tether and/or Tether's collaborators.
I have looked into NFTs at depth, and let me tell you, they are even stupider than they seem.
When you buy one, you are buying something that is even closer to nothing than if you were actually buying a link.
What you are paying for, instead, is:
For that particular NFT collection's "smart contract" (which is neither smart nor a contract, but that's a different rant) to associate your wallet ID with a particular index in its data store, at least for now.
That's it.
There is also a URL associated with that index. That URL is not necessarily unique — there is literally nothing that stops two different NFT collections from pointing at the same set of URLs. That URL is also not necessarily stable: almost every NFT "smart contract" has a method that allows the contract's creator to update any/all URLs in the NFT collection. A whole bunch of people found this out recently when a prolific NFT creator went and replaced every single URL across all of the collections they created with the URL of an animated GIF of a middle finger.
Anyway. I could go on a lot further, but NFTs are fractally stupid: no matter where or how you look at them, they are a terrible idea, and their only actual "utility" is in being just confusing enough to sucker some people out of their money.
posted by reventlov at 8:37 PM on September 21, 2023 [34 favorites]
I have looked into NFTs at depth, and let me tell you, they are even stupider than they seem.
When you buy one, you are buying something that is even closer to nothing than if you were actually buying a link.
What you are paying for, instead, is:
For that particular NFT collection's "smart contract" (which is neither smart nor a contract, but that's a different rant) to associate your wallet ID with a particular index in its data store, at least for now.
That's it.
There is also a URL associated with that index. That URL is not necessarily unique — there is literally nothing that stops two different NFT collections from pointing at the same set of URLs. That URL is also not necessarily stable: almost every NFT "smart contract" has a method that allows the contract's creator to update any/all URLs in the NFT collection. A whole bunch of people found this out recently when a prolific NFT creator went and replaced every single URL across all of the collections they created with the URL of an animated GIF of a middle finger.
Anyway. I could go on a lot further, but NFTs are fractally stupid: no matter where or how you look at them, they are a terrible idea, and their only actual "utility" is in being just confusing enough to sucker some people out of their money.
posted by reventlov at 8:37 PM on September 21, 2023 [34 favorites]
know what i made?
i made a sammich while capitalism ate itself and folded into nothingness!
i'm selling it for $15,000.
posted by not_on_display at 8:55 PM on September 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
i made a sammich while capitalism ate itself and folded into nothingness!
i'm selling it for $15,000.
posted by not_on_display at 8:55 PM on September 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
NFT of Jack Dorsey's first tweet, originally purchased for $2.9 million, now worth less than $4.
" I know I'd go from # to riches
If you would only say you care
And though my pocket may be empty
I'd be a millionaire"
posted by clavdivs at 8:55 PM on September 21, 2023 [9 favorites]
" I know I'd go from # to riches
If you would only say you care
And though my pocket may be empty
I'd be a millionaire"
posted by clavdivs at 8:55 PM on September 21, 2023 [9 favorites]
So, uh, this is the website that the article is on and the people behind the "study":
Your Crypto Gambling Made Easy
Everything about Blockchain, Crypto Gambling & dApps
Welcome to dappGambl, your premier destination for all things crypto gambling and crypto gaming.
The world of web3 can be complex and overwhelming with a wide range of options. At dappGambl, we make your crypto gambling journey easy by providing you with the knowledge and resources you need to navigate Web3 and make informed decisions.
I know it's an article critical about NFTs, but all of these numbers are garbage anyway. It's not "the vast majority of NFTs are worthless" but ALL NFTS ARE WORTHLESS. The study is done by a crypto gambling website. Let's not even grant them a fig leaf, please.
posted by AlSweigart at 8:56 PM on September 21, 2023 [14 favorites]
Your Crypto Gambling Made Easy
Everything about Blockchain, Crypto Gambling & dApps
Welcome to dappGambl, your premier destination for all things crypto gambling and crypto gaming.
The world of web3 can be complex and overwhelming with a wide range of options. At dappGambl, we make your crypto gambling journey easy by providing you with the knowledge and resources you need to navigate Web3 and make informed decisions.
I know it's an article critical about NFTs, but all of these numbers are garbage anyway. It's not "the vast majority of NFTs are worthless" but ALL NFTS ARE WORTHLESS. The study is done by a crypto gambling website. Let's not even grant them a fig leaf, please.
posted by AlSweigart at 8:56 PM on September 21, 2023 [14 favorites]
Previouslyin Line Goes Up Dan Olson was taking down NFTs and we were all talking about it. I am not surprised it only took 18 months for the market to collapse, but their 18 month seems like forever in crypto. And although it fair to hate to rich folks and the Money laundering, I know folks in the precarious middle class who put bought into to the hype and lost a non trivial amount of money to FTX.
posted by CostcoCultist at 8:58 PM on September 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by CostcoCultist at 8:58 PM on September 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
I looked up the middle finger NFT thing. These pro crypto dolts get way out into the weeds but included the twitter gif.
It's not just a middle finger, it's a middle finger with middle finger arms and legs and an extra special little fourth middle finger.
posted by zenon at 9:08 PM on September 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
It's not just a middle finger, it's a middle finger with middle finger arms and legs and an extra special little fourth middle finger.
posted by zenon at 9:08 PM on September 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
perhaps the large oil concerns and potash industries will snap them all up, upload them into some sort of electronic device or and hand them out like Green stamps at gas stations.
21st century whacky packs.
posted by clavdivs at 9:24 PM on September 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
21st century whacky packs.
posted by clavdivs at 9:24 PM on September 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
Not For Terribly (Long)
posted by brundlefly at 9:56 PM on September 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by brundlefly at 9:56 PM on September 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
All my apes gone :(
posted by potrzebie at 9:56 PM on September 21, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by potrzebie at 9:56 PM on September 21, 2023 [8 favorites]
URLs shouldn’t require licensing anyway. NFTs shouldn’t have been required to license materials because they were totally meaningless. I admit this throws some of the artists under the bus who managed to squeeze fiat out of the scammers but unfortunately that’s all it is.
NFT people trading content they don’t own is equivalent to me and my friends choosing to pretend that we are titular owners of the Mona Lisa and spending real money to buy and sell this imaginary non corporeal ownership. It’s willful. The best thing you can say about the NFT folks is they didn’t impact anyone who didn’t choose to play. Besides the energy thing.
posted by Wood at 10:16 PM on September 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
NFT people trading content they don’t own is equivalent to me and my friends choosing to pretend that we are titular owners of the Mona Lisa and spending real money to buy and sell this imaginary non corporeal ownership. It’s willful. The best thing you can say about the NFT folks is they didn’t impact anyone who didn’t choose to play. Besides the energy thing.
posted by Wood at 10:16 PM on September 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
Sure, but it was stolen from the kind of people who would believe in NFTs.Hard agree here. Anyone feeling superior to the people who got taken advantage of and saying they deserved it should maybe stop and realize that that's exactly how the perpetrators of these schemes think and feel—it's how they justify their actions.
Being stupid is not a crime, nor should it be.
posted by angrynerd at 10:17 PM on September 21, 2023 [17 favorites]
What's holding up Bitcoin that didn't hold up NFT's?
Winklevii and a larger pyramid of suckers. Mostly winklevii.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:13 PM on September 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
Winklevii and a larger pyramid of suckers. Mostly winklevii.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:13 PM on September 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
It's easy to say with hindsight that NFTs are a stupid scam but it was also easy at the beginning to say that and through the middle too
posted by Pyrogenesis at 11:40 PM on September 21, 2023 [35 favorites]
posted by Pyrogenesis at 11:40 PM on September 21, 2023 [35 favorites]
NFT of Jack Dorsey's first tweet, originally purchased for $2.9 million, now worth less than $4.
That's actually a fairly accurate depiction of the company itself, now known as "X," so maybe art does imitate life
posted by chavenet at 1:19 AM on September 22, 2023 [15 favorites]
That's actually a fairly accurate depiction of the company itself, now known as "X," so maybe art does imitate life
posted by chavenet at 1:19 AM on September 22, 2023 [15 favorites]
I think we really missed an opportunity a couple of years ago when we didn't call NFTs “grift certificates”.
posted by Homemade Interossiter at 3:46 AM on September 22, 2023 [32 favorites]
posted by Homemade Interossiter at 3:46 AM on September 22, 2023 [32 favorites]
Does this mean the Web3 thing will fade out soon? Or will they just make it about blockchain or something non-NFT? As someone who grew up with Electronic Arts games in the '80s, I was surprised and sad to see founder Trip Hawkins out there pushing this stuff the other day on LinkedIn.
posted by earthstarvoyager at 4:04 AM on September 22, 2023
posted by earthstarvoyager at 4:04 AM on September 22, 2023
As AlSweigart points out above, the article is from a very crypto-invested site, so it's mostly interesting for a) if the crypto boosters are saying NTFs are dead, well, then they are really even deader than that, and b) their arguments for "possible use cases" will get trotted out elsewhere as proof that NFTs aren't really dead, so it's probably worth noting them.
As for what's holding BitCoin up, the answer seems to be market manipulation. I am not sure that's the Winklevosses, as they are having trouble managing the bankruptcy of their own platform(s). Binance/Changpeng Zhao are probably more likely as leaders, along with large investors desperate not to see their holdings drop in value. As nations get better at regulating crypto, these shenanigans, illegal in real financial markets, get harder and harder to pull off.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:09 AM on September 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
As for what's holding BitCoin up, the answer seems to be market manipulation. I am not sure that's the Winklevosses, as they are having trouble managing the bankruptcy of their own platform(s). Binance/Changpeng Zhao are probably more likely as leaders, along with large investors desperate not to see their holdings drop in value. As nations get better at regulating crypto, these shenanigans, illegal in real financial markets, get harder and harder to pull off.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:09 AM on September 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
I always told people I was happy to accept crypto as payment for my art, only just convert it to USD first because I am too stupid to understand digital wallet whatevers
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:08 AM on September 22, 2023 [11 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:08 AM on September 22, 2023 [11 favorites]
Does this mean the Web3 thing will fade out soon?
Grift shift
posted by chavenet at 5:19 AM on September 22, 2023 [8 favorites]
Grift shift
posted by chavenet at 5:19 AM on September 22, 2023 [8 favorites]
Kids, what time is it?
It's shadenfreude time!!!!!
posted by tommasz at 5:36 AM on September 22, 2023
It's shadenfreude time!!!!!
posted by tommasz at 5:36 AM on September 22, 2023
I don’t think that’s the right take: NFT boosters were specifically trying to take advantage of other people – that’s the entire point of the breathless “buy now before the price goes up!” marketing, and unlike traditional MLMs you don’t even have the fig leaf excuse that your mark benefits from using some cosmetics or handbag since anyone on the internet could look at the image.Sure, but it was stolen from the kind of people who would believe in NFTs.Being stupid is not a crime, nor should it be.
Hard agree here. Anyone feeling superior to the people who got taken advantage of and saying they deserved it should maybe stop and realize that that's exactly how the perpetrators of these schemes think and feel—it's how they justify their actions.
Also, the “stupid” part above is wrong: many of the people involved are quite smart. The problem is that their desire to score a quick profit lead them to use that intelligence to come up with marketing hooks and rationalizations for why you shouldn’t trust basic economic analysis.
That last part is why I don’t think mockery is undeserved. These were always bad investments, and very easily recognized as such, and the people who were caught out deserve sympathy for having let greed cloud their judgment but only predicated on the understanding that they were caught out before being able to do the same to others.
posted by adamsc at 6:02 AM on September 22, 2023 [14 favorites]
chavenet has it right. "web3" has been dead for months. ChatGPT and DALL-E captured the imaginations of the general public, so now the grifters have moved on to "AI", by which they largely mean chatbots and creepy pictures. If they're sophisticated enough they'll qualify it as "generative AI" to project a bit of credibility to actual techies.
The vast majority of "AI" startups' entire business is predicated on calling a small number of other people's APIs or invoking other people's models, with close to zero actual value-add. Like the blockchain bubble, they promise all kind of miraculous benefits based on wishful thinking that is preposterous at best and dangerous at worst (e.g. that their chatbot trained on WebMD can make medical diagnoses).
posted by xthlc at 6:31 AM on September 22, 2023 [10 favorites]
The vast majority of "AI" startups' entire business is predicated on calling a small number of other people's APIs or invoking other people's models, with close to zero actual value-add. Like the blockchain bubble, they promise all kind of miraculous benefits based on wishful thinking that is preposterous at best and dangerous at worst (e.g. that their chatbot trained on WebMD can make medical diagnoses).
posted by xthlc at 6:31 AM on September 22, 2023 [10 favorites]
For anyone wondering about "web3", it's continually failing status has been well documented here: https://web3isgoinggreat.com/
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 7:11 AM on September 22, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 7:11 AM on September 22, 2023 [8 favorites]
Being stupid is not a crime, nor should it be.
On the other hand, perhaps idiots have been too coddled of late, what with QAnon being an utterly moronic movement, the antivax dipshits, and on and on and on. Just look into meme stocks, and you'll find literally hundreds of people screaming at the SEC and threatening violence for having the gall to try stopping them from losing all their money on a bankrupt towel retailer, or a dying movie chain, or (yes really) fucking Sears (still!).
Well OK then, maybe we should just let them lose everything, if they want it so bad. Same with NFTs. Idiotic, but hey, if you wanna go broke maybe I ain't gonna stop you, and then you can learn about just how shitty our social safety net really is, eh sport? Some people seem to need to learn their lessons the hard way.
posted by aramaic at 7:15 AM on September 22, 2023 [5 favorites]
On the other hand, perhaps idiots have been too coddled of late, what with QAnon being an utterly moronic movement, the antivax dipshits, and on and on and on. Just look into meme stocks, and you'll find literally hundreds of people screaming at the SEC and threatening violence for having the gall to try stopping them from losing all their money on a bankrupt towel retailer, or a dying movie chain, or (yes really) fucking Sears (still!).
Well OK then, maybe we should just let them lose everything, if they want it so bad. Same with NFTs. Idiotic, but hey, if you wanna go broke maybe I ain't gonna stop you, and then you can learn about just how shitty our social safety net really is, eh sport? Some people seem to need to learn their lessons the hard way.
posted by aramaic at 7:15 AM on September 22, 2023 [5 favorites]
I would prefer not. There are a lot more silent stories of good but naive people losing their shit and winding up in literal hell-on-earth to grift than loud stories of rich idiots momentarily inconvenienced by grift. Bad systems, like capitalism, need regulation and guard rails to keep people whose main skill isn't a perfect spider-sense about the latest grift, which even I have a hard time keeping up on. Have some empathy, think about all the people who'd slip into destitution without the fraud laws we already have and perhaps advocate for more fraud protection instead. Regulation of food, health, transportation, finance and product safety saves millions of people's lives and livelihoods each year. A trombone wah-wah when someone is fooled is not the theme song of a healthy society.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:22 AM on September 22, 2023 [16 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:22 AM on September 22, 2023 [16 favorites]
Former SEC chief on Twitter, commenting on the Business Insider writeup of this story.
This Rolling Stone article attracted the attention of some NFT boosters (not-entirely-terrible media criticism and a response article, respectively).
posted by box at 7:28 AM on September 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
This Rolling Stone article attracted the attention of some NFT boosters (not-entirely-terrible media criticism and a response article, respectively).
posted by box at 7:28 AM on September 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
Fantastic hopefully Ponzicoins are next.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 7:51 AM on September 22, 2023
posted by GallonOfAlan at 7:51 AM on September 22, 2023
I love how the linked article concludes by saying, despite the shambling collapse of this scam, that there's still hope! "Not dead yet!"
posted by doctornemo at 8:26 AM on September 22, 2023
posted by doctornemo at 8:26 AM on September 22, 2023
This Rolling Stone article attracted the attention of some NFT boosters (not-entirely-terrible media criticism and a response article, respectively).
There were social media experts telling people that Google+ had a rich future and the mainstream was crazy to say no one cared about it six months before it shuttered (I know, I know, some mefites really loved circles: most people didn't give a shit). The only fair shot at the mainstream media in there is that Rolling Stone was part of the NFT hype, and they're now getting lots of eyeballs for their summary of the decline.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 8:39 AM on September 22, 2023
There were social media experts telling people that Google+ had a rich future and the mainstream was crazy to say no one cared about it six months before it shuttered (I know, I know, some mefites really loved circles: most people didn't give a shit). The only fair shot at the mainstream media in there is that Rolling Stone was part of the NFT hype, and they're now getting lots of eyeballs for their summary of the decline.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 8:39 AM on September 22, 2023
Being stupid is not a crime, nor should it be.
I agree. But maybe being willfully stupid in the face of overwhelming evidence because you're greedy and trying to promote the latest digital snake oil should carry some consequences. At the very least the NFT proponents should be held up as an object lesson in how not to behave in the future.
I encountered a lot of the "kind of people who believe in NFTs" and I don't think this was just garden variety dumb. People saying "hey, this is a bad idea, it's a Ponzi scheme, it's also bad for these other reasons (list of reasons) and you shouldn't buy into or promote this - stop it" was met with hostility, denial, and bullshit.
It's not like people were selling NFTs out of the back of a car in parking lot to credulous people too naive to know better – shortly after NFTs started being A Thing™ there was an overwhelming chorus against them, and that was met with a resounding "nuh-uh, we're all gonna be rich and I refuse to hear any evidence to the contrary!"
I don't like to see people preyed on, but it's hard to have sympathy when the people not only willingly bare their necks for the vampires but try to lure other people to the Count's castle too in the hopes they'll make a buck.
posted by jzb at 8:55 AM on September 22, 2023 [15 favorites]
I agree. But maybe being willfully stupid in the face of overwhelming evidence because you're greedy and trying to promote the latest digital snake oil should carry some consequences. At the very least the NFT proponents should be held up as an object lesson in how not to behave in the future.
I encountered a lot of the "kind of people who believe in NFTs" and I don't think this was just garden variety dumb. People saying "hey, this is a bad idea, it's a Ponzi scheme, it's also bad for these other reasons (list of reasons) and you shouldn't buy into or promote this - stop it" was met with hostility, denial, and bullshit.
It's not like people were selling NFTs out of the back of a car in parking lot to credulous people too naive to know better – shortly after NFTs started being A Thing™ there was an overwhelming chorus against them, and that was met with a resounding "nuh-uh, we're all gonna be rich and I refuse to hear any evidence to the contrary!"
I don't like to see people preyed on, but it's hard to have sympathy when the people not only willingly bare their necks for the vampires but try to lure other people to the Count's castle too in the hopes they'll make a buck.
posted by jzb at 8:55 AM on September 22, 2023 [15 favorites]
All the apes being free should be the plot for Rampage II. At the very least they should have a scene with a finance bro using the line.
posted by srboisvert at 9:35 AM on September 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by srboisvert at 9:35 AM on September 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
I have seen a few things lately using "not NFTs" like, "these are digital items whose ownership records are stored on a blockchain, but we promise they aren't NFTs"
posted by RobotHero at 9:49 AM on September 22, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by RobotHero at 9:49 AM on September 22, 2023 [3 favorites]
as I mentioned (perhaps controversially) in another thread, I recently had a meeting with a pretty reputable somebody who wanted to pay me cash money to create some stuff for "digital items whose ownership records are stored on a blockchain" ... but they would definitely not be calling them NFTs.
NFTs are dead.
Long live digital items whose ownership records are stored on a blockchain.
Acronym for that would be: DIWORASOAB or maybe tighten it up to DISOB.
I'll be honest. I'll probably take their cash because I need it, but I'm still leaning toward all (certainly most) of this blockchain stuff as solution-in-search-of-a-problem.
posted by philip-random at 10:07 AM on September 22, 2023 [3 favorites]
NFTs are dead.
Long live digital items whose ownership records are stored on a blockchain.
Acronym for that would be: DIWORASOAB or maybe tighten it up to DISOB.
I'll be honest. I'll probably take their cash because I need it, but I'm still leaning toward all (certainly most) of this blockchain stuff as solution-in-search-of-a-problem.
posted by philip-random at 10:07 AM on September 22, 2023 [3 favorites]
“fractally stupid” is my new favorite phrase.
posted by valkane at 10:07 AM on September 22, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by valkane at 10:07 AM on September 22, 2023 [3 favorites]
Is it a token?
—Yeah.
Is it fungible?
—Nope.
So it’s a non-fungible token?
—Absolutely not!
posted by mbrubeck at 10:13 AM on September 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
—Yeah.
Is it fungible?
—Nope.
So it’s a non-fungible token?
—Absolutely not!
posted by mbrubeck at 10:13 AM on September 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
People saying "hey, this is a bad idea, it's a Ponzi scheme, it's also bad for these other reasons (list of reasons) and you shouldn't buy into or promote this - stop it" was met with hostility, denial, and bullshit.
Man Who Lost Everything In Crypto Just Wishes Several Thousand More People Had Warned Him
posted by Pyrogenesis at 10:17 AM on September 22, 2023 [13 favorites]
Man Who Lost Everything In Crypto Just Wishes Several Thousand More People Had Warned Him
posted by Pyrogenesis at 10:17 AM on September 22, 2023 [13 favorites]
Every time people write about NFTs they always use pictures of bored apes in the articles. But in this case, those bored apes apparently still sell for like 20 ETH, which is still a big discount over the record 400 - 800 ETH they sold for at the peak of the madness, and even less in real dollars. But 20 ETH is still like $30,000. It is, however, not surprising that most of the less famous NFTs are now completely worthless.
posted by 3j0hn at 11:08 AM on September 22, 2023
posted by 3j0hn at 11:08 AM on September 22, 2023
Acronym for that would be: DIWORASOAB or maybe tighten it up to DISOB.
Be careful, or you’ll find a Barbarous Word that will stick.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:20 AM on September 22, 2023
Be careful, or you’ll find a Barbarous Word that will stick.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:20 AM on September 22, 2023
We can call 'em DIBS: Digital Items, Blockchain-Secured.
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 11:24 AM on September 22, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 11:24 AM on September 22, 2023 [7 favorites]
The digital artists I know all did pretty well with the NFT craze. They saw an opportunity, got paid, and sometimes got meaningful exposure. I think they were all smart enough to turn the magic beans into real money too. There was no need for the NFT or crypto scam, but having a trading card craze for someone's obscure generative art is a good thing!
Strong disagreement with this statement because it only works if consider any amount of profit in the artist's pocket to be a net positive if you willfully ignore everything else going on
The only way for any of these artists to realize or take a profit out of any known cryptocurrency system or scheme is for someone else to lose money because they are inherently zero sum or negative sum games.
While any given artist may be naive about how this works or where the profits are coming from, it doesn't make it victimless or ok.
In addition to this the problems aren't limited to other people losing their speculative investments.
These systems are being used for wash trading and money laundering on large scales and some of the largest beneficiaries are organized crime and even whole nations like North Korea, which has been increasingly active in using cryptocurrencies for profits, money laundering and evading economic sanctions.
There's also the very real and serious issue about how much energy these transactions require to maintain, and it's not a one time cost, but an ongoing energy cost as whichever given block chain is maintained and secured by the distributed computing that backs it.
So at its most innocent maybe someone bought some art and supported an artist they actually like just to own it and have a dubious digital receipt for it, but it is functionally impossible to participate in that without wittingly or unwittingly supporting a lot of really terrible things.
And if someone really wanted to support a digital artist they could have just bought something directly or commissioned a work for hire piece if they wanted to own the copyright for reproduction and re-use.
The only real, true meaning why anyone is willingly buying art/media NFTs instead of directly supporting an artist is the motivations of greed and speculative investment.
While this kind of speculative investment, money laundering or wash trading is not even remotely a new concept in the art world and has long been a tax haven and money laundering tool for the wealthy, NFTs of art are arguably even worse.
This entire fad and scheme of cryptocurrencies, tokens and blockchains is the very likely the largest, most complicated and most dangerous financial scam the history the world has ever seen, ever, possibly only short of actual slavery and the Enclosure Movement.
And when (not if) Tether, BNC, USDC and other stablecoins that are propping up the current state of the main Bitcoin (BTC) fork collapse shit is going to hit the fan and get really real in a hurry in complicated ways that's going to make Enron or the sub-prime mortgage collapse of 2008 look uncomplicated and easy to understand.
We're well past the point where it would have minimal real world impact. It's now well past the point where it's going to negatively impact more traditional investment funds, groups and hedges, and the collateral damage is going to be immense.
posted by loquacious at 11:36 AM on September 22, 2023 [8 favorites]
Strong disagreement with this statement because it only works if consider any amount of profit in the artist's pocket to be a net positive if you willfully ignore everything else going on
The only way for any of these artists to realize or take a profit out of any known cryptocurrency system or scheme is for someone else to lose money because they are inherently zero sum or negative sum games.
While any given artist may be naive about how this works or where the profits are coming from, it doesn't make it victimless or ok.
In addition to this the problems aren't limited to other people losing their speculative investments.
These systems are being used for wash trading and money laundering on large scales and some of the largest beneficiaries are organized crime and even whole nations like North Korea, which has been increasingly active in using cryptocurrencies for profits, money laundering and evading economic sanctions.
There's also the very real and serious issue about how much energy these transactions require to maintain, and it's not a one time cost, but an ongoing energy cost as whichever given block chain is maintained and secured by the distributed computing that backs it.
So at its most innocent maybe someone bought some art and supported an artist they actually like just to own it and have a dubious digital receipt for it, but it is functionally impossible to participate in that without wittingly or unwittingly supporting a lot of really terrible things.
And if someone really wanted to support a digital artist they could have just bought something directly or commissioned a work for hire piece if they wanted to own the copyright for reproduction and re-use.
The only real, true meaning why anyone is willingly buying art/media NFTs instead of directly supporting an artist is the motivations of greed and speculative investment.
While this kind of speculative investment, money laundering or wash trading is not even remotely a new concept in the art world and has long been a tax haven and money laundering tool for the wealthy, NFTs of art are arguably even worse.
This entire fad and scheme of cryptocurrencies, tokens and blockchains is the very likely the largest, most complicated and most dangerous financial scam the history the world has ever seen, ever, possibly only short of actual slavery and the Enclosure Movement.
And when (not if) Tether, BNC, USDC and other stablecoins that are propping up the current state of the main Bitcoin (BTC) fork collapse shit is going to hit the fan and get really real in a hurry in complicated ways that's going to make Enron or the sub-prime mortgage collapse of 2008 look uncomplicated and easy to understand.
We're well past the point where it would have minimal real world impact. It's now well past the point where it's going to negatively impact more traditional investment funds, groups and hedges, and the collateral damage is going to be immense.
posted by loquacious at 11:36 AM on September 22, 2023 [8 favorites]
So, I think most people have heard some variation of the old saying "you can't con an honest man". On its face, the statement is obviously ludicrous since honest people get conned all the time (e.g.: romance scams, "we're calling from Microsoft Windows IT" computer hijack scams, just plain ol' fraud, etc...). However, I'm under the impression that this saying is actually applicable to a particular kind of con: the ones that crucially depend on the mark's greed. This would be cons like the classic pigeon drop (seen at the beginning of The Sting) or the more estoteric black money scam. These scams rely on basically luring the mark into questionable activity with the promise of quick, ill-gotten gains, relying on the mark's own greed override their better judgment. Whether or not NFTs fall into this category of scam, I shall leave as an exercise to the reader.
posted by mhum at 11:57 AM on September 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by mhum at 11:57 AM on September 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
Every time people write about NFTs they always use pictures of bored apes in the articles. But in this case, those bored apes apparently still sell for like 20 ETH
One thing that's interesting is that 20 ETH is the average price. I wonder what the median and the mode are, and whether there's a handful of outliers driving that average. Like "Ape owned by Paris Hilton"= still 400 ETH due to added celebrity value, next highest price = 5 ETH for an ape once owned by Jason Calecanis, next ape below that =.005 ETH for one currently owned by Joe Nobody.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 12:16 PM on September 22, 2023 [4 favorites]
One thing that's interesting is that 20 ETH is the average price. I wonder what the median and the mode are, and whether there's a handful of outliers driving that average. Like "Ape owned by Paris Hilton"= still 400 ETH due to added celebrity value, next highest price = 5 ETH for an ape once owned by Jason Calecanis, next ape below that =.005 ETH for one currently owned by Joe Nobody.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 12:16 PM on September 22, 2023 [4 favorites]
It's now well past the point where it's going to negatively impact more traditional investment funds, groups and hedges, and the collateral damage is going to be immense
Being stupid isn't a crime on its own, but stupid and greedy should be. We've been lucky so far, in that crypto has not yet been tied to enough legitimate economic activity that its crashes impact regular people. Even ignoring the vast energy cost — in the face of a worsening climate crisis — criminalizing cryptoscrip should be a priority by any sensible government, before banking institutions accept it as a means for backing real-world economic activity.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 12:23 PM on September 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
Being stupid isn't a crime on its own, but stupid and greedy should be. We've been lucky so far, in that crypto has not yet been tied to enough legitimate economic activity that its crashes impact regular people. Even ignoring the vast energy cost — in the face of a worsening climate crisis — criminalizing cryptoscrip should be a priority by any sensible government, before banking institutions accept it as a means for backing real-world economic activity.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 12:23 PM on September 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
To compile the report, the researchers analysed more than 73,000 NFT collections (73,257, if you want to be exact) using data provided by the world's largest NFT data infrastructure, NFTScan. Of those collections, they found that a massive 69,795 have a market cap of 0ETH. To put that into perspective, 95 per cent of NFT collectors – an estimated 23 million people – are now holding onto investments that are completely worthless.
Though, I think it doesn't logically work to translate 95% of collections to 95% of collectors. That would only work if they're evenly distributed, right? If a collection has a price of zero it's because nobody's buying them. A lot of those could still be in the possession of whoever made the collection, thinking it would be an easy way to make money.
posted by RobotHero at 12:36 PM on September 22, 2023
We've been lucky so far, in that crypto has not yet been tied to enough legitimate economic activity that its crashes impact regular people.
This also isn't true.
I don't have citations handy and I'm too tired to go digging for them, but I've already seen examples of crypto spot prices crashing that have harmed regular people who had no idea their investments were even involved in crypto at all through general investment hedge funds and similar instruments because fund managers were investing in crypto or related crypto companies through brokers.
There are major firms, funds and brokerages heavily involved in crypto as we speak. It's one of the main reasons why the SEC and FTC has been increasingly involved in going after crypto exchanges, because of the risk and exposure happening to "real world" or "legitimate" economic activity.
The Bankman-Fried FTX scandal and case is an example of this regulatory action.
Seriously, if you don't think the world's default, regulated finances and economics aren't going to be impacted at this point by the collapse of crypto prices or systems, dig deeper if you dare, because you're going to be in for a very rude surprise.
The current made up market cap of Tether stands at over 80 billion dollars right now, and they claim to hold actual USD greenbacks for every one of those funny Tether bucks.
80 billion puts Tether somewhere near the the same market cap range as the 100-200th largest "companies" sorted by market cap, and this is *just* Tether, not crypto as a whole system, any other "stablecoins". That doesn't include BTC itself, BCH, Ethereum.
Right now the total aggregate (and totally made up) market cap of all/most crypto is claimed to be something north of 1 trillion, which at the time of this comment is just shy of Amazon as an entire company, and more than Berkeshire-Hathaway, Tesla, Visa, Exxon Mobile and many more.
While this is orthogonal, here's also the whole issue of criminal activity with stuff like ransomware or call center scams demanding to be paid in crypto, and it's been a common enough practice now in the last few years of bystanders or retail clerks intercepting elderly people trying to deposit huge piles of cash into crypto ATMs.
There's also the whole issue of power consumption causing consumer energy prices to spike and nonsense like crypto miners getting paid massive multi-million dollar stipends in Texas for turning off their mining farms during peak power loads, which is the real reason why crypto miners have been flocking to Texas. They get to make more money than they can actually mine just by agreeing not to run their mining farms during peak power events, and then when they do mine they get sweetheart deals on energy prices per kilowatt.
Crypto is definitely financially impacting "regular" people as we speak and many of them have no idea what crypto even is.
And for the record it's really uncomfortable and awkward for me to be ostensibly defending "legitimate" banking and finance like this because I'm no statist or 1%er, and that whole system is also totally fucked.
But I also realize that crypto is just the same bullshit with even less regulation, more manipulation and it's just mirroring modern finance and speed-running the problems of unregulated asset speculation, trading, wildcat banking and so-called investment instruments and strategies.
posted by loquacious at 1:25 PM on September 22, 2023 [8 favorites]
This also isn't true.
I don't have citations handy and I'm too tired to go digging for them, but I've already seen examples of crypto spot prices crashing that have harmed regular people who had no idea their investments were even involved in crypto at all through general investment hedge funds and similar instruments because fund managers were investing in crypto or related crypto companies through brokers.
There are major firms, funds and brokerages heavily involved in crypto as we speak. It's one of the main reasons why the SEC and FTC has been increasingly involved in going after crypto exchanges, because of the risk and exposure happening to "real world" or "legitimate" economic activity.
The Bankman-Fried FTX scandal and case is an example of this regulatory action.
Seriously, if you don't think the world's default, regulated finances and economics aren't going to be impacted at this point by the collapse of crypto prices or systems, dig deeper if you dare, because you're going to be in for a very rude surprise.
The current made up market cap of Tether stands at over 80 billion dollars right now, and they claim to hold actual USD greenbacks for every one of those funny Tether bucks.
80 billion puts Tether somewhere near the the same market cap range as the 100-200th largest "companies" sorted by market cap, and this is *just* Tether, not crypto as a whole system, any other "stablecoins". That doesn't include BTC itself, BCH, Ethereum.
Right now the total aggregate (and totally made up) market cap of all/most crypto is claimed to be something north of 1 trillion, which at the time of this comment is just shy of Amazon as an entire company, and more than Berkeshire-Hathaway, Tesla, Visa, Exxon Mobile and many more.
While this is orthogonal, here's also the whole issue of criminal activity with stuff like ransomware or call center scams demanding to be paid in crypto, and it's been a common enough practice now in the last few years of bystanders or retail clerks intercepting elderly people trying to deposit huge piles of cash into crypto ATMs.
There's also the whole issue of power consumption causing consumer energy prices to spike and nonsense like crypto miners getting paid massive multi-million dollar stipends in Texas for turning off their mining farms during peak power loads, which is the real reason why crypto miners have been flocking to Texas. They get to make more money than they can actually mine just by agreeing not to run their mining farms during peak power events, and then when they do mine they get sweetheart deals on energy prices per kilowatt.
Crypto is definitely financially impacting "regular" people as we speak and many of them have no idea what crypto even is.
And for the record it's really uncomfortable and awkward for me to be ostensibly defending "legitimate" banking and finance like this because I'm no statist or 1%er, and that whole system is also totally fucked.
But I also realize that crypto is just the same bullshit with even less regulation, more manipulation and it's just mirroring modern finance and speed-running the problems of unregulated asset speculation, trading, wildcat banking and so-called investment instruments and strategies.
posted by loquacious at 1:25 PM on September 22, 2023 [8 favorites]
Crypto companies are buying Super Bowl ads. My local gas station and supermarket have kiosks that claim to be Bitcoin ATMs, because that's something that makes total sense to manage at the Uni-Mart. The average person may have no idea what a Bitcoin or a Tether or an Ethereum is, but we're so far past "no real world impact" that it's not even funny any more.
So you have people who are curious about this One Weird Trick that maybe they can make some money off of, and the predators above them on the pyramid are emitting ten-foot streamers of drool. You have financial entities who have no business putting good money anywhere near crypto treating it as even a semi-valid investment. It goes beyond apes and the kind of people who could be duped into investing in them.
posted by delfin at 3:39 PM on September 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
So you have people who are curious about this One Weird Trick that maybe they can make some money off of, and the predators above them on the pyramid are emitting ten-foot streamers of drool. You have financial entities who have no business putting good money anywhere near crypto treating it as even a semi-valid investment. It goes beyond apes and the kind of people who could be duped into investing in them.
posted by delfin at 3:39 PM on September 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
Today…
I said “Self!” (‘Cause I knew it was me, as I was wearing my socks)
Self! Today I will actually start investing in stocks.
Chicken.
Beef.
Vegetable.
Fish.
In a few years, I hope to be a bouillonaire.
posted by SeanAngus at 3:58 PM on September 22, 2023 [15 favorites]
I said “Self!” (‘Cause I knew it was me, as I was wearing my socks)
Self! Today I will actually start investing in stocks.
Chicken.
Beef.
Vegetable.
Fish.
In a few years, I hope to be a bouillonaire.
posted by SeanAngus at 3:58 PM on September 22, 2023 [15 favorites]
+1 to the recommendation to check out Web3 is Going Just Great. Molly White is smart and funny, and I subscribe to the (free) version of her newsletter.*
I attended an online seminar about NFTs for an arts group given by someone at one of the large auction houses. The speaker was a friend of someone in the group, I think. At one point, they mentioned a new work by a dead artist - seems the foundation for the artist had found something on a hard drive. The auction house was excited to be part of the sale. I asked where the image would be located: on the cloud somewhere, on the old computer, whatever? They said that was a good question and they didn’t know.
To this day, I have no idea what they were selling. It’s very possible they didn’t either.
*I have no connection with Molly White whatsoever except finding her website a while back.
posted by AMyNameIs at 4:14 PM on September 22, 2023
I attended an online seminar about NFTs for an arts group given by someone at one of the large auction houses. The speaker was a friend of someone in the group, I think. At one point, they mentioned a new work by a dead artist - seems the foundation for the artist had found something on a hard drive. The auction house was excited to be part of the sale. I asked where the image would be located: on the cloud somewhere, on the old computer, whatever? They said that was a good question and they didn’t know.
To this day, I have no idea what they were selling. It’s very possible they didn’t either.
*I have no connection with Molly White whatsoever except finding her website a while back.
posted by AMyNameIs at 4:14 PM on September 22, 2023
Well OK then, maybe we should just let them lose everything, if they want it so bad. Same with NFTs. Idiotic, but hey, if you wanna go broke maybe I ain't gonna stop you, and then you can learn about just how shitty our social safety net really is, eh sport?
This is fucked up. People don't deserve to be fleeced just because they want to make some money. I've said this before in these types of threads- lots of ordinary people were targeted by these schemes, not just annoying crypto bros living with their parents who hoped to be able to take advantage of other people. Lots of regular people thought they were making an investment, like the people who buy coin sets or timeshares thinking they'll pass them on to their kids. Just the same lousy superiority complex that allows people to convince themselves that the poor or disenfranchised deserve the life they lead because they're too dumb or incompetent to bootstrap themselves out of it. Fuck that.
posted by oneirodynia at 4:27 PM on September 22, 2023 [5 favorites]
Exactly how obligated are we in trying to stop a fool being parted from their money?
posted by krisjohn at 4:54 PM on September 22, 2023
posted by krisjohn at 4:54 PM on September 22, 2023
I realize it doesn't represent all those who lost money on this, but the ambient Have Fun Staying Poor vibes at the fad's peak leached some poison into the sympathy well.
posted by german_bight at 5:10 PM on September 22, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by german_bight at 5:10 PM on September 22, 2023 [4 favorites]
The current made up market cap of Tether stands at over 80 billion dollars right now, and they claim to hold actual USD greenbacks for every one of those funny Tether bucks.
Of course, no one believes that Tether is backed 1:1; there is significantly less money in the system than it looks. Similarly, “market cap” is nonsense; it’s calculated on what something sold for x the number of tokens. So I mint a billion GaPcoins and sell you 1 for $10, then I claim to have $10B, because the market cap calculation says so. In reality, I have $10. There is orders of magnitude less money in crypto than people claim. Now, some banks have gotten involved, to their (and their investors’) sorrow; this is one reason why US financial regulators have moved very quickly to block crypto from central banks and made it very clear banks getting involved in crypto are playing with fire. I think there is less exposure than you suggest, because crypto enthusiasts have to pretend their holdings have value.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:10 PM on September 22, 2023 [3 favorites]
Of course, no one believes that Tether is backed 1:1; there is significantly less money in the system than it looks. Similarly, “market cap” is nonsense; it’s calculated on what something sold for x the number of tokens. So I mint a billion GaPcoins and sell you 1 for $10, then I claim to have $10B, because the market cap calculation says so. In reality, I have $10. There is orders of magnitude less money in crypto than people claim. Now, some banks have gotten involved, to their (and their investors’) sorrow; this is one reason why US financial regulators have moved very quickly to block crypto from central banks and made it very clear banks getting involved in crypto are playing with fire. I think there is less exposure than you suggest, because crypto enthusiasts have to pretend their holdings have value.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:10 PM on September 22, 2023 [3 favorites]
Who said anyone was obligated to do anything? I'm pointing out that being contemptuous of people who can ill afford to lose money being duped into losing it is the same point of view that the people doing the duping operate by. No one here can make people stop blaming the victim if they have their heart set on it.
posted by oneirodynia at 5:10 PM on September 22, 2023
posted by oneirodynia at 5:10 PM on September 22, 2023
I appreciate the pushback on the contempt here. Crypto is an industry of last resort and has a lot of marginalised folks in it.
posted by The Last Sockpuppet at 5:16 PM on September 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by The Last Sockpuppet at 5:16 PM on September 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
Usury, ponzi schemes, and insider trading are prohibited, there's no inalienable right to rip people off with crypto either.
posted by StarkRoads at 5:19 PM on September 22, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by StarkRoads at 5:19 PM on September 22, 2023 [3 favorites]
Crypto is an industry of last resort and has a lot of marginalised folks in it.This cuts both ways, though: the grifters who saw legitimate concerns with the existing financial system, generational wealth, etc. and hijacked them to make their scam sound deserve full contempt – think about all of the guys who wrote paeans about helping the unbanked with an eye to getting rich while doing less than nothing for the actual unbanked – and the people who helped that marketing spread through their family, religious, and social networks deserve some sympathy for being conned but only to the extent they acknowledge that they actively harmed everyone else in those communities.
posted by adamsc at 6:44 AM on September 23, 2023 [3 favorites]
Malevolence, willful ignorance, whatever. People owe it to society to stop being so fucking stupid.
posted by whuppy at 12:07 PM on September 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by whuppy at 12:07 PM on September 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
There are people involved in this who were and are ripping off others with full intent and with every ounce of their being.
There are people who were and are being misled by others to believe that these "investments" are sound and safe, are more along-for-the-ride than active and enthusiastic investors, and are getting rooked.
And there were people who stared at the concept of NFTs when the fad was taking off and shouted at the top of their lungs, "I Am Going To Punch Myself In The Groin WIth These Patently Ridiculous Investments Repeatedly And No One Will Stop Me And Everyone Else Should Do The Same."
Land of contrasts.
posted by delfin at 1:14 PM on September 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
There are people who were and are being misled by others to believe that these "investments" are sound and safe, are more along-for-the-ride than active and enthusiastic investors, and are getting rooked.
And there were people who stared at the concept of NFTs when the fad was taking off and shouted at the top of their lungs, "I Am Going To Punch Myself In The Groin WIth These Patently Ridiculous Investments Repeatedly And No One Will Stop Me And Everyone Else Should Do The Same."
Land of contrasts.
posted by delfin at 1:14 PM on September 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
Being stupid is not a crime, nor should it be.
I agree. But maybe being willfully stupid in the face of overwhelming evidence because you're greedy and trying to promote the latest digital snake oil should carry some consequences.
But it does carry consequences. Real people who took the word of 'experts' at face value have lost their life savings through NFTs and every single pyramid/ponzi scheme that ever existed. This isn't even restricted to stupid people - plenty of otherwise intelligent people listened to financial 'experts' being lauded by the press everywhere and thought they were making sound investment choices. As it always was. The extent of people's stupidity in these schemes is limited to a lack of understanding that, yes, people have made squillions of dollars from these schemes.
But the only people who make money do so by taking it away from the gullible people who trust them.
It's easy to say that people should just stop being so stupid and, of course, this would be correct if we lived in a perfect world. But we don't - we live in a world where there is a never-ending supply of people who will gleefully lie to separate trusting people from their money. The solution to stopping this is not for people to stop being stupid, it's for people to stop being thieves.
posted by dg at 3:56 PM on September 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
I agree. But maybe being willfully stupid in the face of overwhelming evidence because you're greedy and trying to promote the latest digital snake oil should carry some consequences.
But it does carry consequences. Real people who took the word of 'experts' at face value have lost their life savings through NFTs and every single pyramid/ponzi scheme that ever existed. This isn't even restricted to stupid people - plenty of otherwise intelligent people listened to financial 'experts' being lauded by the press everywhere and thought they were making sound investment choices. As it always was. The extent of people's stupidity in these schemes is limited to a lack of understanding that, yes, people have made squillions of dollars from these schemes.
But the only people who make money do so by taking it away from the gullible people who trust them.
It's easy to say that people should just stop being so stupid and, of course, this would be correct if we lived in a perfect world. But we don't - we live in a world where there is a never-ending supply of people who will gleefully lie to separate trusting people from their money. The solution to stopping this is not for people to stop being stupid, it's for people to stop being thieves.
posted by dg at 3:56 PM on September 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
People owe it to society to stop being so fucking stupid.
Consider that many of the crypto bros may have very well been saying exactly this same thing about you.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:53 AM on September 25, 2023
Consider that many of the crypto bros may have very well been saying exactly this same thing about you.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:53 AM on September 25, 2023
Molly White critiques the article a bit and makes the same nit pick that I did above:
https://newsletter.mollywhite.net/p/news-flash-95-of-nfts-have-always
https://newsletter.mollywhite.net/p/news-flash-95-of-nfts-have-always
They then do some simple division to proclaim that “95% of people holding NFT collections are currently holding onto worthless investments”, even though the percentage of 0ETH-market-cap collections out of their total sample should not be assumed to be representative of NFT holders.posted by RobotHero at 6:19 PM on September 25, 2023 [3 favorites]
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One project, said the researchers, had a floor price of more than $13 million, but all-time sales of just $18. "It becomes clear that a significant portion of the NFT market is characterized by speculative and hopeful pricing strategies that are far removed from the actual trading history of these assets," dappGambl said."
If you're in any way into cryptocurrencies, just get out. Run. They're next.
posted by mhoye at 5:55 PM on September 21, 2023 [16 favorites]