Growing NFT Industry Sees Signs of 'Amiss' Behavior, Study Shows (bloomberg.com) 54
The non-fungible token industry is continuing to grow, though there are also signs of some less-than-desirable activity, according to a study from blockchain analytics platform Nansen. From a report: The industry "remains spotted by certain profit-seeking practices," Nansen cautioned, citing patterns in transactions that suggest token founders might be buying up the floor for certain projects. That could be an indication of "wash trading," a practice where a trader or group of traders buy and sell the same asset to create the illusion of heightened demand. "While something appears amiss, it definitely isn't incriminating evidence of wash trading, because they aren't being sold directly to each other," Nansen analyst Ling Young Loon said in an email. "The wallets that they eventually sell to may be related, but that would require a much more rigorous study."
NFT is a solution looking for a problem (Score:5, Insightful)
The tech is great. Absolutely interesting idea.
But it does not contribute to society in any meaningful way.
They could end up being an incredibly useful technology, if we add the right thing to it. But now, it is worthless. It's kind of like having smart phones before the internet.
And people are understanding that while the tech is cool, it doesn't really do much.
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The problem seeking a solution is dumb investors who want to invest something crypto, but they want it to be new or different somehow. The solution is whatever zany idea was thought up this week.
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Is there any way someone out here can make money off this...without being in one of these "rings" for a better word...of people just selling to each other and artificially driving prices up?
Is there a good resource anyone could point out on how to learn about NFT's, and how to create and manage them, etc for a crypto noob?
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Can't tell you how to do it, but a lucky few are making silly money in auctions. ... crazy stuff.
If you've created anything that has become a meme, you can turn lead into gold.
Look up "disaster girl nft" or "charlie bit my finger nft"
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I"m just really curious if anyone on here is working with this to make money on it....
I remember when bitcoin was in the early days, like before 2005.
I almost set up a computer to try this new "mining" thing...if I had, geez, I'd be rich.
Then again, knowing me...I'd have lost my wallet keys.
But anyway, wondering if anyone else here is working this to make a little $$.
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Same here. Didn't know anything was happening before 2008, which is when I started seeing things on message boards. Also considered setting it up, but that was long before it turned into a money machine. It was not at all clear (to me) where it was headed. There was the Bitcoin Pizza Day guy that paid 10000 mined coins for a couple of pizzas, but I'm sure you know about that.
I'm a digital artist, so I've been considering doing something with NFT, but still maybe a year away from trying. The marketplace
Re: NFT is a solution looking for a problem (Score:2)
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Easy, start a blockchain. That's about it. An NFT is an entry into a blockchain.
If you want to start from what m
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Honestly, I can't think of a better way right now for organized crime to launder their ill gotten gains.
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It's a money transfer tool. It sucks fools money and deposits it into a much smarter persons account.
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Smarter? Yes. But definitely more evil too. Which isn't really a smart thing either, if you think further than to your next bank statement.
Very evil is just stupid and very stupid is just evil.
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Won't argue with that. But evil people can be smart too.
It solves a couple problems (Score:5, Informative)
There's also a tax Dodge. Do some googling about tax dodging and the art market and you'll find that the modern art market is basically a way for millionaires to reduce their tax burden. The way the scam works you buy a painting for a half a million dollars suddenly the artists work is high in demand and your painting is now worth 2 million dollars. Then you donate the painting to some nonprofit or another and write off $2 million dollars on your taxes. For high income earners this might lower their tax burden by a million dollars at the cost of half a million. NFTs make that even easier to do because you don't even have to wait for a painting.
There's probably more borderline or actually criminal use cases that I can't think of, but none of this is good for anyone who does anything honest. Practice really just needs to be banned. Maybe not directly, but by tightening tax law and money laundering laws.
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Two words: 51% attack.
It only "works" at all, as long as there are morons falling for it. So it is literally defined as working by virtue of circular reasoning.
So: Great? It's literally snake oil with an asterisk. DRM with pixie dust. Apart from being not-yet-illegal organized crime.
Slap me silly and call me susan (Score:2)
Tulips by Any Other Name... (Score:1, Offtopic)
are Tulips.
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For anybody marking this Offtopic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Tulips were the NFTs of the early 1600s.
Who believes in NFT? (Score:3)
Look, folks, it's an entirely "digital" asset - meaning that if the infrastructure goes away, it's nothing more than bits in a computer. It's not like a bank account, where the digital bits on my computer represent a real quantity of cash I can withdraw from a bank.
Even fiat currency is tied to societal norms - no, the paper may not have any intrinsic value - but changing societal behavior requires either long periods of time, or other very unlikely catastrophes. An NFT is just a ledger entry. It may as well be a file on a CD-R.
However, the noise made about NFTs is certainly revealing - because it shows that there exists an entire industry designed to scam people who want something for nothing by preying on their love of money and desire to profit from another's loss.
If I sell you a painting, regardless of whether it goes up or down in monetary value, you'll always have the enjoyment value of the painting. If I sell you an NFT, and the server hosting the URL goes down, you'll lose even the enjoyment value of the work.
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However, the noise made about NFTs is certainly revealing - because it shows that there exists an entire industry designed to scam people who want something for nothing by preying on their love of money and desire to profit from another's loss.
There's already a term for that: rent seeking [wikipedia.org]
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Great. I just wish they had chosen a term that has anything to do with the actual behavior described by it.
How about: Real-world capitalism?
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there exists an entire industry designed to scam people who want something for nothing
I think you have that backwards. The people being scammed are looking for nothing for something.
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No, "something for nothing" is literally the definition of "profit".
(If it's something for something, the term is "earnings". In practice, profit always comes with a side of earnings, to justify the crime.)
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The issue I see with crypto assets in general is that every day a new one is popping up, diluting and convoluting the market and causing wild volatility against assets that do have a tangible, stable value. For that reason they're nothing more than a glorified electronic casino in my opinion, except you're gambling against other people instead of "the house". Get in early,
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Consider though that I could probably by a replica of the Mona Lisa for ~ a few X $10K that no one but a real expert, possibly needing instruments, could distinguish from the original. But the *real* Mona Lisa would sell for hundreds of millions of $ if it ever came on the market.
The same is true for other things. What would someone pay for a real moon rock, rather than one that was indistinguishable from real. Or the real excalibur (if it existed) rather than
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You have misconception about currency, most is digital and not physical, your bank account is just bits in system of computers.
The owner of an NFT just has a pile of bits, and as long as they can prove ownership and sell they're fine. Ditto for your bank account.
NFT might be stupid but that's not your problem
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Nobody believen in NFTs.
You're just being told that "everybody" does and they are "normal", for the *purpose* of you starting to believe that through repetition, until you yourself tell it to others.
Nobody has even seen anything related to NFTs in the real world. It's all just slightly elaborate theater acts between buddies that benefit from it. They shove things back and forth so you believe real things are happening.
Just when you think.. (Score:3)
..things can't get any stupider, someone invents an even stupider thing, NFTs ... Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe
As Einstein is rumored to have said
Who could have predicted this? (Score:1)
nt
I'm shocked, shocked to see... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm shocked, shocked to see that fabrication of trade volumes is going on in a crypto-currency marketplace!
Here are your bitcoin, Sir.
Oh, thank you.
Remember the hilarious presentation from SolidX in 2018 where they told the SEC that a reason why their proposed Bitcoin ETF should be approved is that while most of the Bitcoin trade volume is entirely faked, they were going to invest only in the non-fake exchanges? The SEC didn't quite buy that argument. Here's the presentation with their analysis: https://www.sec.gov/comments/s... [sec.gov]
Nothing has changed about this. Bitcoin trades are faked by wash trading, by the exchange owner just shovelling balances around their own accounts in a circle and claiming it's all client trading, or by just lying directly about the trade volumes.
Pass (Score:2)
NFT Industry (Score:3)
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NFTs are an "industry" now? Give me a break.
Why not? [merriam-webster.com]
Definition 1b: "a distinct group of productive or profit-making enterprises"
Emphasis on the or .
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NFTs are an "industry" now? Give me a break.
Why not? [merriam-webster.com]
Definition 1b: "a distinct group of productive or profit-making enterprises"
Emphasis on the or .
I wouldn't even go so far as to call it an enterprise. It's a small number of people spending large sums of money for the bragging right of having the means to do so.
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So the Newcaledonian Mafia is an "industry" then.
Alright. America got its values straight.
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The retro game community is seeing this (Score:2)
Outlaw ALL Cryptocurrency NOW!!! (Score:3)
The specious, fabricated, "good" that could allegedly come from the continued existence of Cryptocurrency and the whole pseudo-bartering of NFTs is far, far outweighed by the already realized and very real damage and danger caused by its typical (and basically only) actual use-cases.
It is long past time to Outlaw Cryptocurrencies globally.
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Hilarious when some kid makes proclamations about solving a problem.
There is no global government, nothing can be outlawed globally. Governments prefer to tax vices and bad behavior, they get their piece of the action they're happy.
The subject of this article is taxable as capital gains when sold, so not a problem.
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They do, despite your made up head canon. They are in fact paying over a third of all collected income tax doing so. Quit being a jealous loser, educate yourself and get a real job so you can be paying capital gains on your investments too like the rest of us who worked hard and made something of ourselves.
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Hilarious when some kid makes proclamations about solving a problem.
There is no global government, nothing can be outlawed globally. Governments prefer to tax vices and bad behavior, they get their piece of the action they're happy.
The subject of this article is taxable as capital gains when sold, so not a problem.
Of course there is no Global Government; but that’s where international Treaties can reach across Geopolitical lines to have disparate countries agree to/not do/allow almost anything with "contracts" with each other that those Countries accept as being binding with the force and effect of Law.
So, not so "hilarious" as it is the usual way various important stuff is (usually) peacefully worked out between Governments. Sometimes even between Governments that are otherwise sworn enemies.
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Riiiight, Russia and former soviet states, African, most asian and middle east will sign treaties with us to make your happy Utopia.
Yes you're hilarious, irredeemably so. I don't even want to make the world a uniform place with them. Ain't happening, rose shades boy.
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Riiiight, Russia and former soviet states, African, most asian and middle east will sign treaties with us to make your happy Utopia.
Yes you're hilarious, irredeemably so. I don't even want to make the world a uniform place with them. Ain't happening, rose shades boy.
You wouldn't think our sworn enemies would agree to things like limiting nuclear testing, let alone manufacturing and deployment, and right in the middle of the Cold War period; but they did.
And when the rest of the world stops allowing you to participate at all in the international money market (or, pick whatever "stick" you wish); you may be surprised what these nations suddenly find more palatable.
It's got nothing to do with a "Happy Utopia". Just practical business decisions.
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You're living in the past, Russia and USA declared each other in violation of INF and that was terminated, and Russian compliance with "new START" and other treaties in serious question now.
You may have heard of OPEC+? Russia has things that other countries want to buy, so they will have a market. Nothing can stop that.
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Not living in the past; just speaking generally about the power of Treaties. Sorry to confuse you by citing an example.
Buf you already knew that.
Art community goes online (Score:2)
SEC Announces Charges Against Owner..wash trading (Score:2)
"Spotted by certain profit-seeking practices"? (Score:2)
"Profit-seeking practices"? Doesn't that phrase describe, uh ... being in business?
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No. Only in Ferengi-America.
Normally, the idea is that you offer something with your business. Something that took work, and hence is worth something. Something for which you *earn* money.
Instead of taking more than that, just because you can pressure others into it, because the market is not balanced, in other words: not healthy.
This "taking more" is usually called robbery, theft, or extortion, etc. But an euphemism for those acts is "profit'.
Yes, profit and a free, balanced, healthy market, are mutually e
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It's wonderful when people redefine words to support their fringe point of view.
The GP is correct. Your "earned money" is called profit.
The phenomenon you're railing against isn't profit, it's anticompetitive behaviour. I.e. a distortion of the free market.
Weird parallel ./ editor reality. (Score:1)
Where " there are also signs of some less-than-desirable activity" is not a completely ridiculous sentence that can only be meant sarcastically.
"NFTs" are literally pure and total scams. Literally anyone with half a brain cell realizes this. I WILL bet you money that I can show a monkey, a crow, or even an octopus or a pig realize this, if you translate the game for them.
It's just that certain humans... let's call them criminal psychopaths... tend to immediately want to use NFTs to rip off the stupid, and t