Sjlver on Warpcast

Content pfp

0 reply

20 recasts

20 reactions

Sjlver pfp

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 🙏🏼

13 replies

5 recasts

98 reactions

kaitoren.eth pfp

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.

1 reply

0 recast

1 reaction

Sjlver pfp

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?

3 replies

0 recast

1 reaction

Chris Carlson pfp

@chrislarsc.eth

The fact that it’s verifiable and immutable is a key element you’re overlooking. It makes it so that the ownership is “real” and not just “because single-point-of-failure-database-owner/operator said so”

1 reply

0 recast

0 reaction

Sjlver pfp

I agree! At least for the subset of NFTs that have all their data onchain. @kaitoren.eth mentions Base Colors, which is a great example. Unfortunately, the majority of NFTs are not like that. They are just links to off-chain resources. If you're lucky, they pine to Arweave or IPFS, but more often than not they point to a centralized entity. Also, many NFT contracts are upgradeable, making their NFTs less immutable than you think. Finally, a large part of the ecosystem are big players like OpenSea, which have their own databases, spam filters, etc. If OpenSea says that an NFT doesn't exist, then for many purposes it is so, no matter what the underlying chain says. So yes, you are right in principle 🙃

1 reply

0 recast

0 reaction

Sjlver pfp

It's also important to see that the usefulness and value of an NFT stands and falls with its main app. Even if some or most of the app state is onchain, it is usually not an option to recreate an app if the original disappears. Consider Axie Infinity or any other abandoned game whose state is now dead data.

1 reply

0 recast

0 reaction