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Remember when NFTs sold for millions of dollars? 95% of the digital collectibles are now probably worthless. (markets.businessinsider.com)

submitted 2 years ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Remember when NFTs sold for millions of dollars? 95% of the digital collectibles are now probably worthless.::NFTs had a huge bull run two years ago, with billions of dollars per month in trading volume, but now most have crashed to zero, a study found.

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[-] Adderbox76@lemmy.ca 208 points 2 years ago

correction... always were worthless.

It's always been a con game.

Their so-called "value" was always determined by the ability of the person shilling it to make up bullshit. Literally the definition of a "confidence" game. Same problem as crypto in general. It's only has value if you have confidence in the person shilling it. The moment that person loses the confidence of their marks, the entire thing crumbles to nothing because it isn't backed by any real tangible assets.

[-] Jagermo@feddit.de 35 points 2 years ago

Also money laundering and tax rebate schemes.

[-] nudnyekscentryk@szmer.info 25 points 2 years ago

akshuallllyyyyyyyy, monetary value of anything is derivative to someone else's willingness to purchase the item

[-] ram@lemmy.ca 35 points 2 years ago

You can use this logic to explain away any other ponzi scheme too.

[-] brsrklf@jlai.lu 21 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

It's not really logic, and I don't think it's defending anything, it's just the definition of monetary worth.

For better or for worse, stuff is always as valuable as people consider it to be. Which may be related to how useful that stuff is, but often is not.

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[-] hstde@feddit.de 14 points 2 years ago

So like art. No tangible assets, but the value is derived by the highest bidder.

[-] MotoAsh@lemmy.world 40 points 2 years ago

No, because with art, there's still a literal piece of art.

With NFTs, it's just a shitty jpeg some tech bro photoshopped up in five minutes.

[-] yata@sh.itjust.works 37 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

With NFTs there aren't even any art. The NFT is a receipt for the art, not the art itself. You didn't buy the copyright for the actual art with an NFT, you bought a link to a specific copy of the art.

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[-] hark@lemmy.world 13 points 2 years ago

Not even photoshopped, that would be too much effort. Nah, the most infamous NFTs are a few different elements (different mouths, eyes, accessories, etc) and then a whole bunch of permutations generated from those elements. For a technology with a supposed selling point of scarcity, you'd think they'd try to make the art special instead of procedurally-generated trash, but of course the real purposes were scams and money laundering.

[-] nbafantest@lemmy.world 16 points 2 years ago

Actually you're still a bit overestimating it.

Most NFT's are literally just hyperlinks, where the hyperlink could suffer link rot and stop working OR the image on the other side of the hyperlink could be changed.

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[-] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 15 points 2 years ago

The thing with art is that even if the art itself is completely worthless, the materials used are not.

You can sell a "worthless" painting to be used as firewood.

Same with digital assets, they can be sold to be used as templates or even to train an AI.

But a location in some useless database (which is essentially what an NFT is) does not.

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[-] stormtrooper@sopuli.xyz 127 points 2 years ago

Well I am shocked!

No not actually.

[-] Veraticus@lib.lgbt 107 points 2 years ago

Out of the top collections, the most common price for an NFT is now $5-$10.

Still overpriced!

[-] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 49 points 2 years ago

I'm honestly amazed they're worth anything at all.

[-] jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de 27 points 2 years ago

We have been attributing a huge value to a metal that's mostly remarkable for being yellow and shinny for millennia, one of the biggest investment bubbles in history was over a flower, and people thought that using a loophole to profit from the arbitrage of international reply coupons was going to last forever. Hell, people paid for fake property titles for land on the Moon and Mars. It's not that surprising that some people think that buying a random number in a distributed database is an investment.

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[-] OldQWERTYbastard@lemmy.world 72 points 2 years ago

You mean to tell me that purchasing what is essentially a URL hosted on someone else's server is a poor investment?

Shocked Pikachu Face

[-] Osnapitsjoey@lemmy.one 12 points 2 years ago

I like how the url could also have the picture changed if someone wanted to lol. You don't even own the picture that the url points to, you just have a receipt that says "this url is my url, no I don't own the url, because someone can change what's on that. No I also don't own whatever is hosted on that url either"

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[-] mightyfoolish@lemmy.world 67 points 2 years ago

Small correction: Even though some NFTs sold for millions, the NFTs have always been worthless.

[-] Wogi@lemmy.world 46 points 2 years ago

They literally provide no value. I don't see how people didn't get that.

It's a link, you bought a link. If the power goes out at the server hosting it, you can't even access it anymore.

If I told you I had a magic box, and for a million dollars you could look inside whenever you wanted, you'd tell me to go fuck myself. But do it on the Internet and it's beanie babies all over again. But at least THOSE were tangible.

[-] III@lemmy.world 31 points 2 years ago

Never work in tech, friend. It is an endless parade of buzzwords. Idiots will think it is a revolution, people who put even the smallest amount of effort into understanding it will know it isn't. Sadly, the idiots tend to be the ones making the decisions. So you get to spin your wheels on a fool's errand until their surprisingly lengthy attention span moves to the next buzzword. As the parade continues you just lose more and more faith in humanity.

I wish I had an answer for you other than some people are really fucking stupid.

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[-] Shadywack@lemmy.world 59 points 2 years ago

So it was like we thought all along, cool.

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[-] pavnilschanda@lemmy.world 53 points 2 years ago

Does anyone else think that NFTs are an allegory/miniature version of how art is easily commodified by capitalism? IIRC, NFTs were there to help finance artists who work on a purely digital medium, but then grifters coopted the NFT space and try to sell sets of same-looking artwork. Complete with "fandoms" and drama, as well.

[-] fubo@lemmy.world 46 points 2 years ago

NFTs are simply a straightforward con, without the financial hullabaloo of cryptocurrency. The con is simple: convince someone that something is valuable when it's not. Selling a brass ring as gold to a mark too naïve to check, has been around as long as there have been gold rings.

[-] aleph@lemm.ee 26 points 2 years ago

Nah, NFTs were always about the grift first and the art second.

After all, all an NFT token is is a digital receipt which links to an image hosted somewhere off-chain, not the image itself. All the "art" does is help to persuade people that the tokens are actually worth something and hype up the price even further.

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[-] who8mydamnoreos@lemmy.world 47 points 2 years ago

The whole point was to get dollars into crypto so the holders could cash out. The value was never meant to stay.

[-] RawrGuthlaf@lemmy.sdf.org 41 points 2 years ago

I'm sure they were a great way to launder money at the time.

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[-] atzanteol@sh.itjust.works 41 points 2 years ago

Not my Donald Trump trading cards! Nooo!

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[-] Fish@midwest.social 39 points 2 years ago

95% seems a little low. I assume that it's closer to 99.9%.

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[-] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 38 points 2 years ago

It is all worthless?

Always has been

[-] peopleproblems@lemmy.world 38 points 2 years ago

I find it fascinating that NFTs were supposed to be a proof-of-ownership technology, but because people are stupid & greedy made pictures to sell with it

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[-] soulfirethewolf@lemdro.id 36 points 2 years ago

Maybe now I'll finally be able to buy the ones I want

(There aren't any)

[-] rifugee@lemmy.world 20 points 2 years ago

It sounds like you could have always bought the ones that you want!

[-] Varyk@sh.itjust.works 33 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Started laughing when nfts were introduced, still chuckle today.

It's great. Love it.

Grab the tulips! Grab them!

[-] CAVOK@lemmy.world 24 points 2 years ago

Whomever named them NFTs instead of grift cards missed an opportunity.

[-] Moobythegoldensock@lemm.ee 24 points 2 years ago

Wowie gee whiz, no one in the universe could have seen that one coming. /s

[-] nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org 24 points 2 years ago

Oh man. I remember getting downvoted to hell for stating that they were a scam and provided no actual value or true, to technical "non-fungibility".

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[-] Heavybell@lemmy.world 24 points 2 years ago

I still think NFTs could be used to make a form of DRM that is actually fair to the consumer, by maki g it so you can resell your digital goods and also make it so your digital rights don't vanish as soon as the seller gets bored. But nobody in a position to make that happen wants that.

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[-] answersplease77@lemmy.world 23 points 2 years ago

All those rappers and celebrities with cartoon donkey and monkey profile pics showed how much for sale they are. They will promote poison to you for money

[-] DeathsEmbrace@lemmy.world 20 points 2 years ago

Ponzi schemes have an oversaturation problem like every other one.

[-] Polar@lemmy.ca 19 points 2 years ago

My favourite part of NFT/Crypto is all of the creators that outed themselves by pushing for it, taking sponsorships, etc.

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[-] fne8w2ah@lemmy.world 18 points 2 years ago

Not dissimilar to money laundering or MLMs.

[-] MargotRobbie@lemm.ee 18 points 2 years ago

Don't put your reputation on the line to sell links to ugly JPEGs, please.

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[-] edgemaster72@lemmy.world 18 points 2 years ago

Now? Always were.

[-] Wahots@pawb.social 16 points 2 years ago

Lol, classic. Where's Ubisoft's NFT collection they were selling so hard last year?

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[-] Mojojojo1993@lemmy.world 13 points 2 years ago

Mostly used for money laundering

[-] negativeyoda@lemmy.world 12 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

All my apes, gone

This is even funnier in retrospect

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this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2023

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