I don't understand why anyone would pay for this, under any circumstances. You're not paying for exlusive access to the tweet, or even ownership in any meaningful context - you get a certificate of authenticity tied to a cryptographic signature. The tweet is still out there in the wild, and it's not like you can delete it or transfer it to your handle or anything like that.<p>I truly, genuinely have no idea who's bidding on this, or what their reasoning is. In fact, I'm not sure I understand the concept of NFTs at all. In the physical world, fine art holds its value because there is exactly one of each painting, and the human hoarding impulse nurtures a sense of reverence towards originality. However, art "sold" via NFT is still accessible and available for anyone to appreciate and download. I don't have to ask for permission from the owner to look at the art, or even go to a specific location (like a gallery for a physical piece). I can just download the art to my computer and stare at it whenever I want.<p>The only argument I've seen for NFTs is that many famous artworks have prints made, that are cheap and available to everyone. The original painting is expensive and owned by a single person, but anyone can have an imitation hanging on their wall. I don't know that I buy the translation of this concept to the digital world, because prints are very obviously not the actual piece (not least because they're printed and not painted). If I download an image or video, or grab a link to @jack's tweet, I have the exact same configuration of bytes that the "owner" has. In the case of a link, I'm staring at the exact same thing the "owner" is, and the fact that it's on a reputable website means I'm not looking at a fake - thus providing the same guarantee as a certificate of authenticity. Hell, there's even a cryptographic element, since the site will use TLS for encryption.<p>Am I missing the paradigm here? Or is this just the method by which crypto millionaires will become crypto penniless?
Remember in the early days of COVID, Marc Andreessen published his It's Time to Build essay? How America needs to start solving housing, education, transportation, manufacturing?<p><i>I expect this essay to be the target of criticism. Here’s a modest proposal to my critics. Instead of attacking my ideas of what to build, conceive your own! What do you think we should build? There’s an excellent chance I’ll agree with you.<p>Our nation and our civilization were built on production, on building. Our forefathers and foremothers built roads and trains, farms and factories, then the computer, the microchip, the smartphone, and uncounted thousands of other things that we now take for granted, that are all around us, that define our lives and provide for our well-being. There is only one way to honor their legacy and to create the future we want for our own children and grandchildren, and that’s to build.</i><p><a href="https://a16z.com/2020/04/18/its-time-to-build/" rel="nofollow">https://a16z.com/2020/04/18/its-time-to-build/</a><p>Well, it's been less than a year, and it looks like a16z is now big on NFTs.<p><a href="https://a16z.com/2021/02/27/nfts-and-a-thousand-true-fans/" rel="nofollow">https://a16z.com/2021/02/27/nfts-and-a-thousand-true-fans/</a>
Apart from the obvious questions such as "What does owning an NFT associated with a tweet actually mean?" an interesting aspect of this is: Is Jack Dorsey selling this tweet as CEO of twitter. Does he own it because he's the CEO of twitter and twitter owns the tweet, or does he own it because he wrote the tweet. If he owns it because he wrote it then does that mean I can sell my tweets? If he owns it because he's CEO of twitter does that mean twitter is selling it and it'll be listed on their accounts?<p>Also, the top bid is by Justin Sun at $2m, a man who from what I can gather is more famous as a "Tech entrepeneur" brand than for anything he's actually done. Also famous for bidding $4.5m for lunch with Warren Buffet.... and then failed to pay up.<p>Frankly, he looks like a great poster child for this transparent pump and dump.
The case for NFTs rests on a virtuous cycle between artists and buyers. On the artist side, there are temporary benefits, such as increased prices and pandemic-safe fundraising. But the killer feature is programmability - for example, it is possible to program the NFT such that the artist takes a chunk out of every resale on the secondary market. This means that as long as there are buyers, there will be artists issuing their work as NFTs.<p>The buy side is more complicated, because people buy art for different reasons. But there are benefits such as digitization making money laundering more convenient. The main issue is legitimacy concerns, but so long as artists can benefit from NFTs, they are incentivized to express the legitimacy of the NFT. In the equation of who gets to decide legitimacy, I would say the artist has the most sway.<p>Of course, it's entirely possible that NFTs will fail. First off, it could fail if the issuing blockchain failed or had a contentious fork. Secondly, it's possible that the primary blockchain or issuer for NFTs could change, which could reduce the value of "obsolete" NFTs. There is also regulatory risk. Finally, there is the possibility that people who abuse NFT system, such as repeatedly reissuing art or issuing pirated art, could poison the well. But that's entirely different from saying NFTs are doomed to fail and inherently worthless.
Problem is with physical art, you have guaranteed unique item. Basically item guarantees it is unique.<p>With NFT, auctioneer guarantees item is unique, but nothing prevents you selling the same item on different markets.<p>Basically you are betting on the market you are using will be the ‘one’ in the future.
I would like to see something like this but for media licenses.<p>It would be nice to be able to keep an offline NFT library (of, for example, music) where the tokens can be presented (with authentication) to streaming services like amazon or spotify in order to download a DRM-free copy of whatever media the NFT proves I own license to hold.
This reminds me of the 'buy an acre of Moon real estate and receive a certificate".<p><a href="https://lunarland.com/moon-land/" rel="nofollow">https://lunarland.com/moon-land/</a>
So I could just screenshot the tweet and would have more physical gain for my $100,000.00 than the purchaser?<p>I guess I don't understand the value of purchasing this or I'm missing something obvious.
I would be absolutely shocked if this wasn't a violation of some part of the Twitter Terms of Service.<p>Yes, I understand who Jack is. The Twitter legal team probably hasn't thought out all the ins and outs of tweets becoming a currency.
This is just the tech version of "Donate to Kylie Jenner" to become the world's youngest female billionaire.<p>I think it is just the reality of this world that there exists people in this world whose sole purpose in life is to be exploited by others, and they gain pleasure knowing that.
How do these things work? Wikipedia doesn't actually say. Do you hash the data and then transfer ownership of the hash on the blockchain to somone?
Value - the worth of something in terms of the amount of other things for which it can be exchanged or in terms of some medium of exchange.
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Game over. NFTs are validated publicly. From here is nothing new.