It’s pretty funny witnessing the prior generation grasp for straws and act as if anything of financial value must be met with a stamp of approval from them. Lately, the biggest gripe has been against NFTs.
NGMI
In case you’re one of these boomers curious of the semi-derogatory slang that gets filled in your misappropriated comments on social media – it means “not going to make it”.
In other words, keep enjoying the “safe and secure” 0.015% APY and inflation outpaced returns on your cash and “stable” investments in the name of our great protector, Gary Gensler.
Now that we have that out of the way, let’s look at a thread that was popular on twitter recently.
First let’s talk about what the NFT market actually is. Unlike buying bonds, equities, real estate, or actual art you’re not buying something with any tangible existence, rights or utility. You’re buying an expensive entry in someone else’s database.
Uh huh. Let’s keep the safe and secure mindset because you missed a NFT mint you were hyped about.
There is one comparable market to NFTs: The Star Naming Market. Back in the 90s some entrepreneurs found you could convince the public to buy “rights” to name yet-unnamed stars after their loved ones by selling entries in an unofficial register.
Cope.
Thing with star registries is they’re not unique and don’t actually convey ownership. The entire grift is in convincing other people that it has meaning. The value of naming is a star is precisely how much bullshit your loved one is willing to buy in this enterprise.
While I’m more than aware of platforms like Solana clearly selling opaque JPEG’s with little creativity behind them, this doesn’t hold a lot of weight with what we’re seeing on other platforms like Tezos. There’s ALOT of popular artists minting and creating daily on there.
Their works are an insurgence towards the income generators of the previous generation, we don’t care what they think. This is a movement of it’s own that will outlive you.
The core of the NFT grift is outsourcing the marketing for this artificially scare registrar to artists who are forced to pay large sums of money upfront to list URLs to their artwork in the hopes of recovering their lost costs.
It’s pretty funny seeing “premier” auction houses like Sotheby’s and Christies rush into NFTs. They’ve auctioned several large collections now, more notably a Bored Ape collection. I think this particular statement detracts from the very nature of what’s attracted interest in NFTs to begin with – mitigating away from Grandpa and Grandma’s stamp of approval on something that’s deemed to be of value.
Kids and everyone in between are loving this stuff. They’re also learning about crypto in the process. Why would you stand in the way of the future generation and income generators creativity?
Relatively easy question to answer, salty!
NFTs impart no legal ownership, give no rights to the artwork, are non-unique, and provide nothing of intrinsic value except the sign value of owning bragging rights to announce to other crypto bros about a shared collective delusion about database entries.
Imagine thinking something based upon an immutable database has no apparent sign of ownership. Jeez.
Like every market madness since the South Sea Bubble or Tulip Mania, everyone knows that selling million dollars JPEGs is an irrational exercise in greed. Yet people suspend their sense of reason and believe in popular delusions when in fact there is no there there.
This entire thread is pretty disgusting but, this particular statement isn’t wrong entirely (for the short term). I think today’s age has been met with numerous amounts of possibilities. We’ve already chipped away at typical workplace structures with the rise of remote work. This will certainly trickle down towards corporate structures in the use of DAO’s.
But, the boomers are being outpaced by the current generation. As time and history has shown us, it’s not usually kind to those who refuse to adapt. What becomes of this movement is a much deeper question I shared some thoughts on here.
Until then, consider the sources you hear information from. If someone has zero exposure or lots to JPEG’s, chances are… it’s a precursor for their mindset.