this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2023
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Oh, don’t get me wrong - the technology behind them is something we should be embracing more than we currently are. Being able to publicly have transactions out in the open is great, and ensuring that both parties have to authenticate on both their ends helps a ton in preventing stuff like fraud.
I just think cryptocurrencies and NFTs are squandering the blockchain and the tech behind it. There are a couple of cryptocurrencies that make sense because they have something backing it (which I just personally prefer straight-up, even with fiat money), but it’s otherwise pretty much all crypto follows Bitcoin’s trend, which in turn is more akin to a stock where it just… sort of arbitrarily goes up and down. NFTs as we currently know them, on the other hand, are just a huge scam through and through lol.
"Squandering" is a great description of what they've been used for. The only implementations I've seen thus far that seem genuinely useful are FileCoin and a few decentralized computing attempts like ICP (not Ethereum). I could see a potential niche use-case for NFTs to decentrally coordinate ownership of abstract properties like domain names, but speculative monkey jpegs ain't it chief.
NFTs could also be used as ownership proofs of DRM protected stuff, like games, software, music, videos, books... no more "buying" an ebook until Amazon pulls it out of your "library". Arguably any certificate is a kind of off-chain NFT, and vice versa, so using one or the other may become interchangeable depending on whether it should be made public or kept private.
Ethereum focuses on being a generic platform for DeFi services, so it's logical that it has the largest amount of trashy attempts at reinventing the wheel. ICP I still haven't found a real use for, and FileCoin storage costs are crazy high, way above most cloud solutions.