kaitoren.eth on Warpcast

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What is the point of minting someone's work? (honest question) Minting seems to be a mix of bookmarking, sending money, and publicly liking something. Yet it's a strange bundle that does a mediocre job at each of these 🤔 Please help me make sense of web3 🙏🏼

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I’ve always viewed NFTs as app data. The most common apps we use are wallets, marketplaces, and maybe for some people galleries. Maybe you like seeing your collection in Rainbow, or maybe you like trying to make money on OpenSea. This is not sustainable. Minting someone’s work makes sense if there’s an app you can use it in, and my argument to date has been we’ve been building backwards. Everyone’s creating random data first, collecting money, and then hoping apps just magically appear. That well has run dry. Look how many artists in web3 complain about unsold work. I argue if you build the app first the collecting/minting will come naturally. I am currently building such an app I hope others look to for inspiration. Moshicam has more creators than collectors. TheGrid.eth is a collaborative photo grid that lets people use their collected photos.

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This is one of the best replies, thanks! Isn't a blockchain a slow and unwieldy backend to store your app data? You could use a regular database; add an API to make it interoperable; implement transfers between users (for the few types of app data where that makes sense). You imply that NFTs add something... what?

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Yeah a few things there: First, you're right if you're comparing databases on old metrics. Blockchains enable brand new metrics which aren't applicable to legacy databases. It's similar to how the original iPhone's camera was way worse in terms of pixel resolution and low-light capabilities when compared to DSLRs, but it was way better in terms of convenience, filters, software, immediate distribution (social media), etc. Blockchains enable every user root read status, something legacy databases don't enable (technically possible but little incentive to actually implement).

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Second, understanding what makes data valuable is everything here. Data's value is directly tied to how much it changes the user's state. More state change = more value. Not my theory, btw, this comes from Claude Shannon (as in Claude AI) he's a fascinating read: https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-claude-shannons-information-theory-invented-the-future-20201222/ A quick example: I tell you it's raining in Perth, Australia. If you have no connection to this town it offers you no value. If your family lives there it offers slightly more value. If you live there it offers more value. If you're about to step outside when I tell you and it causes you to get an umbrella, it offers much more value. If this information goes out over a broadcast and changes 30,000 people's state it's more valuable.

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So in the context of blockchains and NFTs what's novel is they allow more people to make your data valuable at scale. It's positive sum, every app built can add value. Facebook's database is only valuable if they develop the tools and apps which enable users to make use of that data. NFTs are open. Anyone can make Base Colors more valuable by making them useful in an app--TheGrid.eth loads a user's Base Colors which can then be used to theme the app's color scheme. It's a small feature but if more apps like Zora and Rodea do the same then Base Colors become more valuable. Sorry for the wall of text but...that's the context I think the "NFT Space" is sorely missing.

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This is a great reply! How much of this is tied to NFTs/Blockchain? Compared to public API-accessible data like Wikipedia/OurWorldInData/Reddit/Hacker News/... These sources are a bit more separate, but that's a feature and a bug... as a user, I often want to have separate accounts/identities. Yet with NFTs, unrelated data typically ends up in the same wallet. Getting privacy right is quite hard for users. It's a miracle that there's so little targeted advertising on Farcaster 😜 These sources are also richer, faster, and easier to query. I want to emphasize that I'm not trying to troll. If there are cool ways to use NFTs, I want to learn about them. It's just... hard to find truly compelling use cases.

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Regarding what is technically possible there’s not much difference. There is a huge difference, though, in ownership, incentives, and trust assumptions. I didn’t have to ask Moshicam or Base Colors if I could use their NFTs. I just built. Reddit data used to be public + free but is now permissioned. They can change the rules at any time. OpenAI trained their models on Reddit data for free and when this became public knowledge Reddit shut down that free access and charged a lot of money. Twitter did the same. There’s nothing’s wrong with that. Blockchains offer a new option with different incentives. Moshicam, Base Colors and I are aligned by default. Also, you can have separate onchain identities and ZK tech makes privacy + composability possible. You can have 1 ID prove a different ID owns something, for example. It would be like joining Farcaster and bringing your Reddit Karma without revealing your Reddit username. Or proving I own a CryptoPunk in a different wallet without revealing which one.

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This is great. I like your example of Base Colors: it's an NFT where the contract seems fixed and all data is onchain. NFTs often fall short of that bar. Many are just links to off-chain content. Some have upgradeable contracts. In all cases, interest can wane, or someone can make base colors v2 (OKLCH color space, anyone? There's an opportunity waiting here 😜). But despite all this, your example stands and is a good one. Thanks!

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