Free Clipart of a Cartoon Rock Is Selling For $300,000 As NFTs (vice.com) 98
EtherRock, an early NFT project consisting of 100 discrete images of the same cartoon rock, each tinted a slightly different color, is seeing the price of its NFTs soar after crypto-savvy media personality Gary Vaynerchuk tweeted about them a couple of weeks ago. According to Motherboard, "the lowest listed price for a single EtherRock is now 95.2 ETH, or about $300,000. And of the 761 total EtherRock transactions, 581 have happened within the last two weeks. The current highest price paid for an EtherRock is 96 ETH." From the report: The anonymous developer behind EtherRock is still actively maintaining the project. "I was a complete amateur when I built it," they said in an interview with Motherboard. "It was originally intended as a) a joke and b) an exercise for me to learn [the Ethereum coding language] Solidity." They said they would've "spent a lot more effort" on the NFTs had they known they were going to get this expensive.
You could be forgiven for thinking it's "stupid" to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on tokens tied to royalty-free clip art, but EtherRock owners figure they'll get the last laugh. Prominent token-holders include Bitcoin advocate Meltem Demirors and former BitMEX executive Arthur Hayes (the latter of whom is still facing federal prosecution for allegedly violating the Bank Secrecy Act). "Rocks are about flexing," she said. "There are only 100 rocks, and people who try to pretend they own one get called out quickly. Because the data is all public domain, you can see when a rock is moved to a new wallet address."
You could be forgiven for thinking it's "stupid" to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on tokens tied to royalty-free clip art, but EtherRock owners figure they'll get the last laugh. Prominent token-holders include Bitcoin advocate Meltem Demirors and former BitMEX executive Arthur Hayes (the latter of whom is still facing federal prosecution for allegedly violating the Bank Secrecy Act). "Rocks are about flexing," she said. "There are only 100 rocks, and people who try to pretend they own one get called out quickly. Because the data is all public domain, you can see when a rock is moved to a new wallet address."
Seems legit (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Seems legit (Score:5, Insightful)
Since the payment is in Eth, which many people have a lot of because they got in mining it early, and because it's basically untraceable it's fairly obviously what is happening here. Someone puts up clipart as an NFT auction, bids a ridiculous amount from a sock puppet account, and if no other suckers bid on it then they pay themselves. But more than likely someone will bid on it because of the hype.
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What you're describing is money laundering. You create an asset for no cost then sell it for cryptocurrency. When you exchange cryptocurrency for real currency that transaction is one step more removed from the source of your income.
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No, it is called wash trading.
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Tomayto tomaato
So obvious no one dare say it (Score:3)
Indeed, the emperor has no clothes but until the few smart people in tech media thinks its safe to state the obvious they'll just play along and let people get scammed.
This article being a case in point.
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Re:Seems legit (Score:5, Interesting)
One of my favorite art things is Marcel Duchamps Fountain.
Its literally a toilet nailed to the wall and put in a gallery.
Duchamp was a renound surrealist/Dada/Cubist type painting, but he was kind of growing wary about the sorts of shit people where paying for so he nailed a toilet to the wall and said "There you go, apparently thats art you fucking idiots, are you gonna buy THAT?"
And they did. And to this day said idiots are paying millions for the bloody thing. Banksy has nothing on Duchamp when it came to trolling the trust fund millionaires of the art world.
Re:Seems legit (Score:5, Funny)
Actually I need to correct myself here, because part of ths legend I apparenly have missed, and the truth is even sillier.
Apparently the actual artwork isn't selling for millions, its been missing for decades.
Its *replicas* of the stupid thing that have been selling for millions.
Duchamp would likely find that hilarious.
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To my knowledge, Duchamp was not about selling at all.
Ready-made objects were disrupting concept itself, since everybody knew, that, as
everyday objects, they do NOT have any exclusive value outside of the art exhibition space.
They were not even created by this greatest of the artists, who has made an end to the myth of the art long ago.
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For those, really inclined to know:
"Fountain, originally titled "le Bouddha de la salle de bain" (Buddha of the bathroom), represented a sitting Buddha"
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Only idiots.
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One of my favorite art things is Marcel Duchamps Fountain.
Its literally a toilet nailed to the wall and put in a gallery.
BTW, Fountain was NOT nailed to the wall. Sent to the original exhibition, it spent its time being hidden behind its structural panels. Suppressed. Then rediscovered there and Duchamp kept it in his studio suspended in the air. Was not even submitted in Duchamp's name, as he was on the board of event organizers.
Then, there is so much more to Duchamp, what he did, also himself experienced, in relation to the art. I happened escaping from Paris to Rouen upon occasional suggestion, and stumping on his exhibit
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What could possibly go wrong?
Criminals have one more venue to launder money electronically.
Instead of sending bitcoins, crooks can send bribes through bids of NFT "art" that result in $$ legally passed to the recipient.
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Still small time stuff, Etherium and its ilk have a LONG way to go before they pose a threat to the money laundering business of the international bankers. Over a TRILLION dollars is laundered just through the US banking system every year, plus tens of billions more through real estate like the Trump buildings. Money laundering is such big business that the CEO of the NY Stock Exchange went to the jungles of Colombia to do a sales call on the FARC. Crypto-currencies are just for penny-ante stuff.
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Proof that there's too much stupid money afloat. (Score:5, Insightful)
You could be forgiven for thinking it's "stupid" to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on tokens tied to royalty-free clip art [...] "Rocks are about flexing"
Flexing. So yes, stupid. This is "I am rich" stupid, but at least with that app you did get something on your phone for an instant flex. It kinda loses some of its power when you have to flex by following transactions on a blockchain. Kind of like rocking up in a Lambo, then having to put the dealer on speakerphone to prove to the onlookers that it's not a rental.
But hey, if you can extract largesse from a few dumb rich kids, more power to you. And yes, getting a celeb to tweet about it is good strategy. Just look at what Musk did for Dogecoin.
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Seems like a good reason to start heavily taxing the ultrarich.
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Why?
It is about the ultrarich paying a lot of money for essentially nothing, it is already some sort of tax.
Unless it is a money laundering trick, which is common with the art market, because the value of art is subjective. But it is not a problem that taxation can solve. If anything, high taxes makes it worse, by encouraging undeclared work.
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Why?
because this is evidence that the system is so out of whack that it needs to be balanced once more.
Unless it is a money laundering trick, which is common with the art market, because the value of art is subjective. But it is not a problem that taxation can solve.
Nah... just tax them based on the amount paid for the art.
If anything, high taxes makes it worse, by encouraging undeclared work.
That's what auditors are for. The fines should be proportional to your tax bracket.
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The IRS was hobbled by Gingrich back in the '90s when he realized that while he couldn't get rid of its enforcement arm (or that of the EPA, etc.) he could make the enforcement a line item in the budget and the squeeze it almost out of existence. Then just to add injury to insult Congress passed a law (and Clinton signed it) making the Earned Income Tax cheats the top priority of IRS investigations, and diverted the monies recouped by enforcement to the General Fund rather than rolling part of it back into
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Yeah, Gingrich is a real piece of shit and he really can't die soon enough.
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Valuable art has always been the Rich folks way to show off. The art from all the Ninja Turtles and Doctor Who characters which are often priced high on the market, are often not that much better than someone else at that time, whom didn't have as wealthy patron may have made some wonderful art, however never got much credit and has been lost in time, and allowed such art to rot away.
Re:Proof that there's too much stupid money afloat (Score:4, Informative)
Cool, cool (Score:3)
Can we track down the people spending money on these NFTs and send them to Mars on Elon's next rocket?
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No just send me their email addresses. I have some NFTs for some bridges they might be interested in buying.
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I think going on Bazos rocket mey be a better option.
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Unfortunately the Bezos rockets seem to land on Earth again which is the opposite of what's needed.
Oxygen theft (Score:2)
"crypto-savvy media personality", i.e. an oxygen thief.
Really? (Score:2)
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Slashdot is news for nerds, not for cranky old men who are no longer with what is happening.
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Still don't understand what you are 'buying' (Score:2)
As long as you can make a perfect digital duplicate, what's the point? No one cares if you have this verified version. Much like movies, music and anything digital, as long as you have the perfect copy, that's all you care about.
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Much like movies, music and anything digital, as long as you have the perfect copy, that's all you care about.
Most people don't even care if it's perfect. Think of all the MP3s and MKVs people have that aren't the full bit depth/resolution
Re: Still don't understand what you are 'buying' (Score:1)
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You're not buying the actual file (well, not really - it'll be given to you, but that's not the point). You're buying the unique, immutable ownership of the thing. Sure, there could be thousands of copies, but only you will actually "own" it.
This is probably best explained by a fake rolex. Lets say there is just one real Rolex XYZ model watch in the world. There are thousands, if not millions of fakes, sold on street corners and dodgy markets the world over. If you're rich, you want to be able to wear your
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ALL of them are.
No you're not or rather, only in the abstract. As Killall-9-Bash points out, at best you're buying a token with text pointing to a URL, said URL existing at the whim of the domain owner.
Wonder how long it will be before someone sells a "thing" then tells the purchaser they have N days to move the item because they're closing the domain, doing nothing i
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You're literally just buying a URL with your name on it.
As of why people think this has any value, your guess is as good as mine.
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An NFT doesn't have to be a URL, it can be made of any block of data. I think this misconception comes from NFTs of URLs that were a way of "selling ownership" of famous tweets.
Coin Laundry (Score:2)
Is it just me or does this smell suspiciously like money laundering?
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Not just you. Swapping imaginary coins for an extrinsically worthless but faddish token seems like an excellent way to give the impression that a price-inflated transaction is justified.
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>"Is it just me or does this smell suspiciously like money laundering?"
I was thinking the same thing.
Otherwise, I mean, it is their "money" to spend as wisely or as stupidly as they like. But I am hard-pressed to think of something more stupid than "NFT."
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No that would be the Canadian housing market.
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Not at all. This IS money laundering 101. The choice du jour used to be lousy art items, but NFTs are evidently much better for this purpose.
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The transactions themselves, yes, but what's public is the wallet IDs for them, not their actual numbler. Go through a tumbler, or an exchange, and that association is effectively lost forever.
This is precisely why the US Is now pushing to have exchanges legally classified as financial brokers.
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...not their actual owner....
I need to cut down on caffeine.
there is nothing which does not exist (Score:2)
I wonder (Score:2)
They keep their money and NFTs, but now "valued" at X amount...
100 rocks at $300k each (Score:2)
Am I understanding that correctly? They're saying the rocks are going for $300k each and they have 100 of them? So ~$30 million for a bunch of pictures of a rock?
Wow I really don't understand this market...
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Money laundering.
You use dirty money to buy a bunch of cryptocurrency and move it around through exchanges and tumblers to anonymize it on your first account. Next, buy a relatively inexpensive NFT through a second account. Then sell the NFT to yourself. Now you have 'clean' money that came from a legitimate transaction.
It's not perfect, but it's easier than most other forms of money laundering and it currently doesn't raise enough eyebrows to get you investigated.
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It's not perfect, but it's easier than most other forms of money laundering and it currently doesn't raise enough eyebrows to get you investigated.
This. Cryptocurrencies platforms such as Ethereum make it way to easy to obfuscate transactions. Going through a tumbler or a couple exchanges is all it takes.
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Yeah, that works for penny-ante shit, but if you have real money to move around, like the Mexican cartels, the Russian mob or a lot of corporate executives, you still have to go to Goldman Sachs, Citicorp, or the NYSE. Their money laundering services are actually cheaper (10-15%) and a lot faster than fooling around with crypto-currencies.
Money laundering (Score:3)
I guess NTFs are much easier to deal with than art purchases.
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Only 100 rocks (Score:2)
There are eight of them. One is at my home. Has made me smile every time I look at him for the last 30 years. You can shove your pet rocks where the sun don't shine.
Bonus points for anyone who can identify the artist.
Make NFTs of Rai stones (Score:3)
But (Score:2)
Everyone here keeps telling me crypto isn't real money and its worthless. So according to slashdot logic no money was wasted.
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And as long as we don't burn loads of coal to produce the electricty to mine them.
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Oh, make no mistake. Plenty of money is being wasted.
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Real money is used to buy the electricity to mine them.
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Real money is used to buy the electricity to mine them.
And won't it be totally fucked-up-hall-of-mirrors-surreal when you can pay your electricity bill in crypto-currency? Talk about externalities!
The digital version of the Pet Rock (Score:2)
Duchamp (Score:2)
An off the shelf urinal sold as art by Marcel Duchamp sold for $1.7 million. This is small potatoes.
So, can we officially call it a bubble now? (Score:2)
Someone replied to the linked twitter thread with something so clear and illustrative that I think it bears repeating here:
Tulips at least had some value, people like flowers. They're pretty. Tulips are also tangible. They just weren't wort
huh? (Score:2)
Are actually people stupid enough to buy NFTs, and aren't laundering money?
No explanation (Score:2)
You could be forgiven for thinking it's "stupid" to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on tokens tied to royalty-free clip art, but EtherRock owners figure they'll get the last laugh. Prominent token-holders include Bitcoin advocate Meltem Demirors and former BitMEX executive Arthur Hayes (the latter of whom is still facing federal prosecution for allegedly violating the Bank Secrecy Act). "Rocks are about flexing," she said. "There are only 100 rocks, and people who try to pretend they own one get called out quickly. Because the data is all public domain, you can see when a rock is moved to a new wallet address."
I see no explanation why it would not be stupid. But at least I'm glad that I am forgiven.
Look at their Bitcoin-plated endorsements! (Score:2)
EtherRock owners figure they'll get the last laugh. Prominent token-holders include Bitcoin advocate Meltem Demirors and former BitMEX executive Arthur Hayes (the latter of whom is still facing federal prosecution for allegedly violating the Bank Secrecy Act).
If I minted my toenail clippings, those guys would probably bid on them.
And you thought (Score:2)
all those Tulip buyers were stupid.
Money laundering (Score:2)
Much like modern âoeartâ and other weirdness. Not for us normal folk.
The wild west days if NFTs (Score:1)
This reminds me of the early days of iOS apps when people would put up totally useless one-button apps and charge stupid amounts of money for them just to see what would happen. Eventually, the riff-raff will go away but high quality NFTs will be few and far between. The real question is whether or not an NFT can be loaded with a virus.
My only question (Score:2)
...is "how do you find fantastically rich people so fucking stupid that they fall for this?"
That's the real treasure here.
Asking for a friend.
Wow - a clear example. (Score:4, Interesting)
NFTs are the reductio ad absurdum of digital-only property. They are based on scarcity, non-duplicability, and nothing more.
If you believe digital currencies such as bitcoin and ethereum have some real, tangible value, you must therefore believe NFTs have that same value.
I'm not sure which one is the absurd one. Crypto has the running start, that's all.
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NFTs are the reductio ad absurdum of digital-only property. They are based on artificial scarcity...
FTFY
I should start a clothing company: (Score:2)
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The GOP is a fascist political organization and wants a one party ethnically controlled state.
So the answer is yes.
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Pleasantly surprised that I get a supportive reply to my sigline for once. Thank you.
NFT Derivatives Anyone? (Score:1)
Well folks, you're in luck! Now, you can buy NFT derivatives.
Get your very own NFT of an NFT today!