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Bitcoin The Almighty Buck

Why People's Expensive NFTs Keep Vanishing (vice.com) 189

Posted by BeauHD from the understanding-the-complex-working-of-NFTs dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report from Motherboard, written by Ben Munster: When you buy an NFT for potentially as much as an actual house, in most cases you're not purchasing an artwork or even an image file. Instead, you are buying a little bit of code that references a piece of media located somewhere else on the internet. This is where the problems begin. Ed Clements is a community manager for OpenSea who fields these kinds of problems daily. In an interview, he explained that digital artworks themselves are not immutably registered "on the blockchain" when a purchase is made. When you buy an artwork, rather, you're "minting" a new cryptographic signature that, when decoded, points to an image hosted elsewhere. This could be a regular website, or it might be the InterPlanetary File System, a large peer-to-peer file storage system.

Clements distinguished between the NFT artwork (the image) and the NFT, which is the little cryptographic signature that actually gets logged. "I use the analogy of OpenSea and similar platforms acting like windows into a gallery where your NFT is hanging," he said. "The platform can close the window whenever they want, but the NFT still exists and it is up to each platform to decide whether or not they want to close their window." [...] "Closing the window" on an NFT isn't difficult. NFTs are rendered visually only on the front-end of a given marketplace, where you see all the images on offer. All the front-end code does is sift through the alphanumeric soup on the blockchain to produce a URL that links to where the image is hosted, or less commonly metadata which describes the image. According to Clement: "the code that finds the information on the blockchain and displays the images and information is simply told, 'don't display this one.'"

An important point to reiterate is that while NFT artworks can be taken down, the NFTs themselves live inside Ethereum. This means that the NFT marketplaces can only interact with and interpret that data, but cannot edit or remove it. As long as the linked image hasn't been removed from its source, an NFT bought on OpenSea could still be viewed on Rarible, SuperRare, or whatever -- they are all just interfaces to the ledger. The kind of suppression detailed by Clements is likely the explanation for many cases of "missing" NFTs, such as one case documented on Reddit when user "elm099" complained that an NFT called "Big Boy Pants" had disappeared from his wallet. In this case, the user could see the NFT transaction logged on the blockchain, but couldn't find the image itself. In the case that an NFT artwork was actually removed at the source, rather than suppressed by a marketplace, then it would not display no matter which website you used. If you saved the image to your phone before it was removed, you could gaze at it while absorbing the aura of a cryptographic signature displayed on a second screen, but that could lessen the already-tenuous connection between NFT and artwork. If you're unable to find a record of the token itself on the Ethereum blockchain, it "has to do with even more arcane Ethereum minutiae," writes Ben Munster via Motherboard. He explains: "NFTs are generally represented by a form of token called the ERC-721. It's just as simple to locate this token's whereabouts as ether (Ethereum's in-house currency) and other tokens such as ERC-20s. The NFT marketplace SuperRare, for instance, sends tokens directly to buyers' wallets, where their movements can be tracked rather easily. The token can then generally be found under the ERC-721 tab. OpenSea, however, has been experimenting with a new new token variant: the ERC-1155, a 'multitoken' that designates collections of NFTs.

This token standard, novel as it is, isn't yet compatible with Etherscan. That means ERC-1155s saved on Ethereum don't show up, even if we know they are on the blockchain because the payments record is there, and the 'smart contracts' which process the sale are designed to fail instantly if the exchange can't be made. [...]"

In closing, Munster writes: "This is all illustrative of a common problem with Ethereum and cryptocurrencies generally, which despite being immutable and unhackable and abstractly perfect can only be taken advantage of via unreliable third-party applications."
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Why People's Expensive NFTs Keep Vanishing More

Why People's Expensive NFTs Keep Vanishing

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  • WTF's an NFT? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rta ( 559125 ) on Monday March 29, 2021 @11:35PM (#61215872)

    seriously people.... yes i can search or whatnot but i doubt i'm the only one who doesn't know and can't figure it out from context.

    • Re:WTF's an NFT? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Linsaran ( 728833 ) on Monday March 29, 2021 @11:49PM (#61215900) Homepage
      A non-fungible-token. Essentially it's a cryptographic token on a block chain that is functionally unique. Unlike say 1 bitcoin, which is functionally identical to another bitcoin, and is therefore 'fungible' (or how one 1 dollar bill is functionally identical to another dollar bill also making it fungible), an NFT is functionally unique. You cannot simply swap one NFT for another as they are not interchangeable. Each one represents something unique and ownership of the NFT is cryptographicly secured by the ethereum blockchain. The problem that this article is point out is that even if you have ownership of a token for digital artwork in the form of a URL or what not, if the original URL goes offline you basically own a permanent dead link.

      • Re:WTF's an NFT? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by mrclevesque ( 1413593 ) on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @12:23AM (#61215980)

        What I've been having trouble understanding is why people are paying for NFTs, which seem at best to always point to where something was, when it's copyrights that decide who owns what?

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re:WTF's an NFT? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by sound+vision ( 884283 ) on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @01:25AM (#61216094) Journal

          Pure hype. The closest thing you could compare it to would be a certificate of ownership, a deed, a copyright. I suppose you could also transfer a copyright along with the NFT. In that scenario, the NFT still doesn't do anything, other than giving some amount of your money to the blockchain hypemasters. An article in Time this week cited $40-120 as a typical fee for "minting" (mining I guess?) an NFT.

          The article in Time, to me, is a pretty good sign we're approaching Peak Blockchain. It's a tool for capital-B Black artists to finally get their fair share, they tell me. They found some college student who made $60,000 selling NFTs of artwork of "Black life", who of course, is enamored with it. The article has a side-box with a 6-step guide for artists on how to sell their own NFTs, complete with names of who to give your money to - several crypto exchanges ant NFT auction houses are mentioned by name. The very next article, about Bitcoin, quotes some CEO who bought a bunch of Bitcoin calling it "a good store of value... the Facebook of money, the Google of money." Then he repeatedly "no comments" when they ask him about his Twitter conversations with Elon Musk, even when the interviewer points out that the SEC shouldn't care, although he was quick to namedrop Musk in the first place and bring up their conversation "one rocket scientist to another."

          We've probably yet to see the peak of the bubble. Compared to 2017, there are large institutional investors and bigger celebrities on board to stretch it out and build hype to new heights. Money's still being printed, and all the stimulus checks have yet to go out, and who knows how many other rounds might come.

          • The NYT ran this article on a Thursday, as kind of a gag set up to sell the article itself as a NFT, and sold it Friday for $560,000

            https://www.nytimes.com/2021/0... [nytimes.com]

            There's a follow up article interviewing the people that bid on it, it's all kind of nuts.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

            It's not even close to a certificate of ownership, because you don't own anything.

            It's more like a mention in the YouTube comments on a video that you're a Patreon sponsor.

        • Your first point (that it's just a URL that could be broken at any point) is legitimate, but your second about it including copyright is not I'd think.

          I suppose it is in the sense that why does anybody buy any collectable, but collectables are already a thing. People spend lots of money on things that don't get them the copyright already. Why would anybody pay for a rare pokemon card? Because they want to have the thing for bragging rights. In theory an NFT does this for digital goods (except it doesn't sin

          • Re: WTF's an NFT? (Score:5, Insightful)

            by nagora ( 177841 ) on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @03:45AM (#61216266)

            Your first point (that it's just a URL that could be broken at any point) is legitimate, but your second about it including copyright is not I'd think.

            I suppose it is in the sense that why does anybody buy any collectable, but collectables are already a thing. People spend lots of money on things that don't get them the copyright already. Why would anybody pay for a rare pokemon card? Because they want to have the thing for bragging rights. In theory an NFT does this for digital goods (except it doesn't since it's just a URL).

            The real point of an NFT is that it's a certificate of wealth - a proof of conspicuous consumption. It's still bragging rights, but not for owning the ostensible collectable. The item it points to is largely irrelevant, since anyone can download that.

            • Re: WTF's an NFT? (Score:5, Funny)

              by stooo ( 2202012 ) on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @04:45AM (#61216368) Homepage

              >> The real point of an NFT is that it's a certificate of wealth

              I would rather say "it's a certificate of previous wealth associated with poor choices in life."

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by N1AK ( 864906 )
              Not that I'm sold on the idea of NFTs but the concept of "owning" a lot of original copies of pieces of art isn't so entirely different to owning an NFT. You can buy the Mona Lisa, and you would own the original and you could hide it away, but you can't stop people from distributing or displaying effectively perfect reproductions. You could print out a copy that you'd never be able to tell wasn't real and stick in on your wall, but plenty of people would pay millions for the copy on the wall to be real.

            • The real point of an NFT is that it's a certificate of wealth - a proof of conspicuous consumption. It's still bragging rights, but not for owning the ostensible collectable. The item it points to is largely irrelevant, since anyone can download that.

              Yes, for bragging rights. Especially any normal person will call you a bloody idiot. It's not a sign of being rich, it's a sign of being not quite as rich as you could be if you were not so f***ing stupid.

          • Re: WTF's an NFT? (Score:4, Informative)

            by sjames ( 1099 ) on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @04:37AM (#61216356) Homepage Journal

            If I buy (for example) a rare signed baseball card, I can display it on my desk or lock it in a vault. As long as I maintain physical security, it will be there. It will not disappear forever just because some intern has an oopsie while logged in as root.

            An NFT is basically a certificate that says you own 1 copy of a thing but you don't actually get the thing.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

            Also, NFTs aren't rare. The copyright holder of an artwork can make as many NFTs for that artwork as they want. In fact, since it's not actually selling anything to do with the rights to that artwork, I don't see any legal reason why *I* can't make as many NFTs as I want.

            Sure, it's probably worth more if the digital signature associated with Banksy signs the transaction, but is it really?

        • NFTs might have some value if you could treat them as proof of ownership of the rights to an image. Not sure if that’s the case though. You’d need to be able to link the NFT not just to the image, but to the issuer as well, and establish that they were in fact the original rights holder.

          • It's one of the fundamental problems with blockchain money. It isn't the final word on who owns what. Governments have that. Even if they should decide to permit ownership of some kinds of property to be notarized on blockchains (which none of them have, as far as I know), they can still just take back that permission.

            There are some truly esoteric things you can genuinely buy with blockchain money - zero-knowledge proof of mathematical theorems. But anything else will be firmly stuck in the messy economic w

        • Re: WTF's an NFT? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by flyingfsck ( 986395 ) on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @02:21AM (#61216178)
          People are paying for a URL to an item on somebody elseâ(TM)s computer and fail to see the problem with that idea...

        • They are like rare baseball cards: They don't convey any rights to the image on the card to to the player, but their value comes from their scarcity alone: They are valuable only because supply is limited.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by sjames ( 1099 )

            Except they can poof out of existence at any time for any reason or no reason at all, completely out of the "owners" control.

            Also unlike the card where physical limitations were in play, the scarcity of an NFT is purely artificial.

            here, let me get an old envelop and a pen... OK there, I now have a one of a kind abstract scribble. Nobody else in the world possesses this particular scribble. And it cost me practically nothing! I'M RICH!

            Don't like scribbles, let me pull up my camera app...There, a one of a kin

            • the entire point of the blockchain is that it doesn't "poof out of existence for no reason at all", as the transaction showing you as the owner has been stored on the blockchain, so as long as there are nodes supporting this blockchain, theoretically it will live there forever. in this regard NFTs as not unlike internet domain names; some of them are worth millions and others next to nothing, and each of them is only worth anything because we assume that there will "always" be people who plug their computer

          • They're scarce only by mutual agreement. Nothing prevents you to create multiple NFTs associated to the same image - and sell them.

        • As far as i can tell, an NFT is like owning a "print". The author/artist still owns the copyrights to a work, but the NFT is essentially a digital "print of said artwork. Therefore you own a copy of said artwork (or more precisely, a link to where a copy is held), but you don't actually own the copyright to said artwork.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by sjames ( 1099 )

            Actually, an NFT is a certificate that says in theory you own a print, but you don't actually get the print, you just own it wherever it is SUPPOSED to be.

            • "you just own it wherever it is SUPPOSED to be" - Yup - and whoever owns the computer on which your item is supposed to be, can erase it, or move it, leaving your NFT (fancy URL) pointing to nothing. This idea is beyond stupid. It is so stupid, even a Vogon would think it is stupid.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          All an NFT is a blockchain version of what we call a "Certificate of Authenticity". You know, if you buy some collectibles (coins, or other things) the CoA basically says "This item is genuine and was obtained from X".

          Of course, the thing is, ANYONE can issue a CoA. Just like ANYONE can issue an NFT. CoAs aren't generally worth the paper they're written on unless they're issued from a few places that have honestly evaluated the item and deemed it to be what it said it was, and is well trusted to do so.

          It's

        • Re: WTF's an NFT? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Pinky's Brain ( 1158667 ) on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @04:31AM (#61216342)

          It's mostly a pump and dump scheme, first movers throw money around to create publicity, journalists pretend the emperor has clothes, bag holders will get fucked.

        • Re:WTF's an NFT? (Score:4, Funny)

          by wisnoskij ( 1206448 ) on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @08:24AM (#61216714) Homepage

          Money laundering. The criminal organizations of the world have a huge problem moving money around and spending it at legitimate businesses.

        • Why did a middle class couple waste $200,000 in a fancy online casino app that uses no real money, and you get nothing out of it? Itâ(TM)s the power of the concept of ownership, meaning, the exclusion of others, that makes the motivation.

        • What I've been having trouble understanding is why people are paying for NFTs, which seem at best to always point to where something was, when it's copyrights that decide who owns what?

          It's no more or less meaningless than the value of actual art.

          An "original" is more valuable than a reproduction because of its ... "originalness". Which is a nebulous, abstract concept, just like these stupid NFTs.

          And in case it's not clear, I am not defending NFTs, lol.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by green1 ( 322787 )

            But here you don't even have the original, you have a link to it that you just pray no one ever takes down. Especially being that they already have your money, so what incentive do they have to maintain the server?

        • For the same reason people pay money for a certificate stating they "bought" a star or other such ephemera. Except for NFT's, it is mostly very wealthy people spending huge sums of money on bulls*** simply because they can, and they can post it on social media to score those even more valuable social media points. NFTs are the wealthy "pet rocks" of this new age.

      • Unlike say 1 bitcoin, which is functionally identical to another bitcoin

        It is functionally identical by convention only, that's one of the odd things about bitcoin. You can trace it back to when it was mined. It would be perfectly possible for me to sell a service, and only accept payment in a subset of bitcoins. There might even be good reasons for me to do that (for instance, I might try to avoid coins linked to crime).

        As far as I can tell, the only reason that doesn't happen, is that people holding bitco

      • What prevents anyone else from directly accessing the resource it points to? If that is cryptographically secured I could see value in using NFTs as a login token for web logins, but the notion of using them to commoditize the ephemeral is patently absurd.

        AS a side note, I have to wonder how many NFTs "vanished" because the person who sold them assumed they didn't need to keep hosting the resource, or that they had to stop hosting it, because selling something means you don't have it anymore.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by green1 ( 322787 )

          More likely they vanished simply because there was no longer any incentive to maintain the original resource. They already have your money after all.

      • The problem is you don't "own" anything (Score:5, Informative)

        by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @12:22PM (#61217512)
        you own a link, not the thing at the link. So the guy who bought the pop tart cat NFT owns a pop tart cat NFT, not the pop tart cat image and copyright to it.

        I'm pretty sure this NFT craze is 2 things:

        1. Crypto guys trying to create a new market to profit off of (all the big sales I've read have been from crypto guys).

        2. Money laundering. You're selling something that has basically zero cost but which you can claim is worth a lot. You get this in the retro game community, where you'll see $500 copies of John Madden Football for the Sega Genesis because to a non collector doesn't know the difference between that and a copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga that goes for $2k. You're not buying a $500 copy of JMF, you're buying a $1 copy of it with $500 of weed and/or meth.

    • WTF's an NFT?

      Glad I am only the second to last to know about these, I only read about them in the last month or so... and I even already knew what Ethereum was. Non Fungible Tokens seemed to rise to prominence incredibly quickly, not sure how long they have really been around as a thing.

      • It's the latest way to use blockchain technology to separate suckers from their money, ever since social networks started banning ads for shitcoin ICOs.

        • Up next - virtual medicie wagons selling virtual snake oil through non fumigationalblockchain watchiachallits.

          "Staring at this swirly image destroys Covid, stops cancer, and cures erectile disfunction Only [30,000 in real US dollars wort of] Bitcoin!

          Plenty of rubes WILL fall for it.

          • The only (only) value in an NFT is to discover the day when your access to the token is revoked. People might find some joy in having a image displayed in an electronic frame for the duration that their token exists.

            Maybe thatâ(TM)ll be enough.

    • ...Thus, the difference here is that cryptocurrencies are part fiction, part real -- tied to real world things. But NFTs representing artwork are pretty much completely fiction. They confer no control over the artwork in the real world. Whatever tie a token has to the artwork is purely in your imagination.

      https://blog.erratasec.com/202... [erratasec.com]

    • https://blog.erratasec.com/202... [erratasec.com]

      Quote:
      It makes you feel stupid that you haven't heard about it, when everyone is suddenly talking about it as if it's been a thing for a long time. But the reality, they didn't know what it was a month ago, either. Here is the Google Trends graph to prove this point -- interest has only exploded in the last couple months:

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Pollux ( 102520 )

      So, you know Bitcoin? And there's a digital ledger for every Bitcoin and who owns it? Now imagine a digital ledger that, instead of representing "coins", represents URLs to specific internet resources like photos. Tada, you have an NFT, or "non-fungible-token". If you buy one, you get "ownership" of this record in the ledger.

      One popular application of them involves digital artists that want to make money from their digital art. They create a work of art, post it on a website, then create an NFT that al

    • Like a title deed or ownership certificate, but on a blockchain.

  • NFTs Keep Vanishing (Score:5, Funny)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Monday March 29, 2021 @11:48PM (#61215898)

    Must be art thieves. Things just aren't the same as they used to be.

    A while back, a thief broke into the Louvre and made off with a bunch of priceless paintings. Police were stumped until they found the thief with his truck, stalled by the side of the road. When they asked him how one who could pull off such a brilliant heist but then make such a simple error he replied:

    "I did not have Monet to buy DeGas to make the Van Gogh."

  • Call me old-fashioned, but WTF??

  • Yes: Its nuts (Score:3)

    by labnet ( 457441 ) on Monday March 29, 2021 @11:58PM (#61215920)

    When you think the world can't get anymore nuts.

    https://www.dapp.com/article/1... [dapp.com]

  • Instead, you are buying a little bit of code that references a piece of media located somewhere else on the internet. This is where the problems begin.

    My guess is the *problem* started way, way before that. Probably in childhood somewhere.

  • If it hangs around too long Hollywood will latch onto the pointless drama and the digital-pet-rock concept itself. We'll get OpenOcean's 11 (maybe Ocean's ERC-11), or The Fast and The Fungible, or the James Bond film Loyalty Is Non-Fungible.

    It's already bad enough as it is.

  • money keeps vanishing (Score:3)

    by awwshit ( 6214476 ) on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @12:30AM (#61215996)

    I keep buying NFTs and my money keeps vanishing. I can't figure out whats happening.

  • Come on, fellow humans: are you really this dumb? Spending so much money on something that literally doesn't even exist except on some server somewhere?

  • Why People's Expensive NFTs Keep Vanishing

    (a) You don't always get what you paid for.
    (b) A fool and his money are soon parted.
    (c) Things aren't always what they seem.
    ...

  • Typo (Score:3)

    by hawguy ( 1600213 ) on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @01:11AM (#61216084)

    When they said "When you buy an NFT for potentially as much as an actual house, in most cases you're not purchasing an artwork or even an image file", I think what they meant to say was "When you buy an NFT for potentially as much as an actual house, you're helping prove that old adage: A fool and his money are soon parted"

  • If people want to take these kind of chances in order to brag to their fair weather phony 'friends' over 20$ lattes, let them.

  • The people who invest in ARTIFICAL scarcity are all suffering from anesthetized scrotum disease.

    They are numb nuts.

  • This is all illustrative of a common problem with Ethereum and cryptocurrencies generally, which despite being immutable and unhackable

    Bitcoin is generally unhackable, with many skilled people having tried to break it, and a skilled person having created it. The same is not true for many of the other cryptocurrencies, and thus be careful where you put your money.

  • I thought it was stupid when I first heard about NFT, but it's worse than that. NFTs are literally... retarded.

  • Bitcoin, NFTs, etc == Wealth-representation tokes that only increase in value and are objectively and completely useless for trade or service in any form. Rai stones [wikipedia.org]. Easter Island [wikipedia.org] anyone?

    Looks conclusive to me. Society as we know is undergoing an increasing rate of change, this bizarre NFT-Stuff fits the picture 110%. Pure cyberpunk, spot on. Just like in some Type-A William Gibson scenario.

    My 2 NFT cents.

  • If you're dumb enough to actually buy something stupid as an NFT and then loose it, you're the victim of your own stupidity.. Why on earth would you buy something intangible like an NFT? you're really up for just being frauded as there is no certainty that it's genuine and nobody would sell the same crap afterwards to someone else.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Alcari ( 1017246 )
      We buy intangible stuff ALL the time. Licenses, contracts, information, data, access to a database, services, etc.

      But NFT are a whole new kind of stupid. Instead of buying the right to download a file, you're buying a stickynote on which i've written the URL to download a file. Only it's even more stupid, because the stickynote is permanently attached to the outside of cityhall where everyone can see it and can never be removed.

  • That's the most convoluted explanation I've ever read for a broken link, HTTP 404 error.

  • At least when the Banksy work self-shredded, the buyer got to keep the shredder and the shreds.

  • People are paying money for and investing in the cryptocurrency equivalent of &some_artwork.

  • Can't believe what I'm reading. Seriously? The NFT is just a fucking hyperlink?

    Can someone please, please replace one of those links with a certain ricky rolly video?

    So in essence, you buy a hyperlink which can at any time disappear OR CHANGE into something else. That's just ridiculous. Anyone who pays more than three cents for that is a complete moron.

  • That the NFT vanished into has more intrinsic value. So does this sentence.
    • I can see potential utility in the form of login tokens for secure cloud resources, but creating commodity value for an ephemeral patch of ones and zeros on hardware that isn't even yours is just silly.

  • Also I am selling this comment.

  • ... and say that if I can't understand it, I'm not going to invest in it.

    That doesn't mean it isn't worth learning about today. That doesn't mean it won't be worth investing in, someday. But fads are a catalyst that speeds the reaction in which fools and their money are parted. And if you don't believe me, search some online estate auctions and see how many plastic tubs of Beanie Babies are being sold, and how little they're valued at.

  • The problem is buying an NFT for a URL.
    If I'm going to pay money for an NFT, I want it to be for an SHA-256 of the digital artifact and I want a copy of that digital artifact that I can keep and host wherever I want.

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