656
submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by yesman@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

The way I read the article, the "worth millions" is the sum of the ransom demand.

The funny part is that the exploit is in the "smart" contract, ya know the thing that the blockchain keeps secure by forbidding any updates or patches.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] Sheeple@lemmy.world 133 points 9 months ago

No one is gonna buy any NFTs for millions lmao

[-] Fermion@mander.xyz 17 points 9 months ago

They're priced like police drug busts.

[-] SCB@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

People buy them for millions or their value would not be in the millions

[-] andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 24 points 9 months ago

First, DO people buy them for millions, in the present tense? I know that people did in the past, but I thought the price on most of these took a huge hit.

Second: do people BUY them for millions, in the sense that they trade things of well-measured value (like fiat currency or gold) for coins to buy these? Or do they buy them for millions of dollars in equivalent coins that they already have, and don't want to actually sell for real goods or money because they'd realized huge losses if they actually cashed out, so they have to keep them circulating within the blockchain to maintain a hope that they'll return anywhere near their previous value? Because if you have 10 million dollars worth of etherium that you bought at 20 million and an NFT of questionable value, can't you just buy and sell it to a few wallets you own to make it look like it's recently been purchased for a few million to create the illusion of value without actually ever giving or receiving anything?

[-] xep@kbin.social 7 points 9 months ago

I'll get my friend to buy it from me for millions, then he can give the money back to me and when it sells again, we can split the profit. It's win-win!

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[-] StupendousMan@lemmy.world 99 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Sounds like a great way to make an insurance claim on a bunch of NFTs worth "millions" that you could not convince anyone to buy.

[-] gravitywell@sh.itjust.works 39 points 9 months ago

What insurance company is dumb enough to insure NFTs?

[-] ForgotAboutDre@lemmy.world 20 points 9 months ago

Ones that think they can't be stolen

[-] stom@lemmy.world 8 points 9 months ago

You can in fact insure things that it is possible to steal. Cars, bikes, household posessions, you name it. It's quite common.

[-] ForgotAboutDre@lemmy.world 10 points 9 months ago

If the insurance company thinks the nft can't be stolen, it's money for no risk. That's why they would easily accept insuring an nft.

I think you misunderstood my comment.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Crashumbc@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago

Ones that understand the Internet and/or technology. And believe the "secure" hype.

[-] eclipse@lemmy.world 13 points 9 months ago

I'd say more likely to be able to declare a capital loss on taxes.

[-] RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works 7 points 9 months ago

Can I carry that loss over for the next... 100 years or so?

[-] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 64 points 9 months ago

Accurate headline:

Millions of dollars lost as NFTs worth a total of $0 stolen

[-] RIP_Cheems@lemmy.world 58 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Let me get this straight, you can steal an nft but you can't own an nft?

[-] d3Xt3r@lemmy.nz 37 points 9 months ago

You wouldn't download an NFT...

[-] capital@lemmy.world 22 points 9 months ago
[-] Agent641@lemmy.world 10 points 9 months ago

No! I forbid it!

load more comments (9 replies)
[-] Lanusensei87@lemmy.world 14 points 9 months ago

You very much do own an NFT you purchase, what you don't own is the asset the NFT represents (the shitty RNG generated monkey for example).

[-] regdog@lemmy.world 45 points 9 months ago

I never had a jpeg stolen from me.

What a time to be alive.

[-] Kyoyeou@slrpnk.net 19 points 9 months ago

No no, they stole the link to a jpeg, careful you will make them angry

Here, take my link to get a feeling

https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/db03eae9-a3a9-42df-8cf2-f2aa8bfa2d95.webp

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Aceticon@lemmy.world 36 points 9 months ago

Another interpretation is that it's all an insurance scam were something worthless is "stolen by hackers" and then claimed to be worth millions for the insurance claim.

But surely nobody in the "well known as impeccably honest" NFT world would ever do something like that!

[-] mhague@lemmy.world 28 points 9 months ago

People trying to discuss the topic have their posts pushed down while "lmao nfts" are voted up. How do you see someone saying, respectfully, "I think there's a benefit to this." and try to push down their contribution?

Anyone who wants a good discussion about news in this community, must leave this community. If you want to add context or opposing perspectives, better go elsewhere. You build a community like this and you get people who know Hans had a vibrator, because jokes and legit opinions are treated as interchangable.

[-] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 51 points 9 months ago

NFTs are a joke, so it's totally fine for a topic like this.

Like what is there to discuss? The entire concept is stupid. With NFTs the object isn't even on the blockchain, the image isn't there. It's pretty much just some random information that says image x belongs to you (but you have to store image x somewhere else and can lose it).

When it comes to owning art either physical media or the rights to the image already do a much better job.

The only area where NFTs sound useful (but they aren't) is things like trading card games. Where you can have a card in a game and you own it, but because it's an NFT you could sell the card to another player outside the game. But the whole concept again breaks down, the game can simply block the card from being played later on or remove the card and you're left with nothing (besides "proof" that you own the NFT for a card that existed in the past). It adds nothing of value that a normal entry in a database couldn't provide.

One thing I'm still positive on: Crypto currency was a great idea, at least until Bitcoin was sabotaged with the 1 MB block size and transacting with it died along the way.

[-] Jomega@lemmy.world 16 points 9 months ago

I seem to recall digital trading card games existing long before NFTs were ever thought up, so not even that works. In fact, every "use" for NFTs I've ever seen suggested has been something we already had that is actually easier without involving the things.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] ExLisper@linux.community 12 points 9 months ago

Maybe it's because majority of people think that NFTs are a joke and don't agree that there are any benefits to this? Maybe they don't want to engage in a discussion because they already heard all the arguments and still think it's BS? I don't know, I'm just guessing.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] ICastFist@programming.dev 22 points 9 months ago

I guess the millions are in the transaction fees

[-] dylanTheDeveloper@lemmy.world 21 points 9 months ago
[-] yuki2501@lemmy.world 18 points 9 months ago

"Potential losses". I get the feeling that NFT owners got bit by the same bug that bit RIAA executives.

[-] crashoverride@lemmy.world 18 points 9 months ago

Think of it like this, when people make drug busts and they find huge amounts of cocaine or whatever and they say oh this is 300 something mod a million is worth of stuff. No it's not. It's maybe like not even half that not even a quarter of that, they just make it up just to make their bust even bigger

[-] DerisionConsulting@lemmy.ca 7 points 9 months ago

I also like the "10 Kilos of product was taken off of the street" which means like 12 grams of weed was turned into brownies

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Socsa@sh.itjust.works 17 points 9 months ago

ITT: a handful of people starting to sweat about their NFT retirement strategy

[-] MargotRobbie@lemmy.world 16 points 9 months ago

One of the great thing about the AI revolution is that since generating infinite number of unique random (and commonly, bad) pictures of literally anything you can think of takes only seconds, the entire concept of NFT has become completely worthless as it completely destroyed the value-from-scarcity argument. Not that it ever was a good argument to begin with.

[-] Linkerbaan@lemmy.world 16 points 9 months ago

How do you steal a hyperlink to a jpeg

[-] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 9 months ago

"Do I look like i know what an NFT is?

I just want a picture of some gaht dang shitposts."

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] echodot@feddit.uk 14 points 9 months ago

I'm having difficulty with the word "worth". It appears to be doing an awful lot of heavy lifting

[-] Etterra@lemmy.world 13 points 9 months ago

Just because the suckers that bought them paid millions doesn't mean that the NFTs are worth millions.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] BadWolf@kbin.social 11 points 9 months ago

…Been a minute since I’ve seen this fark headline meme.

[-] yesman@lemmy.world 11 points 9 months ago

Must be a real old-head if you know what fark is. ^me^ ^too^

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Treczoks@lemmy.world 9 points 9 months ago

There were sufficiently stupid people to pay money for NFTs. They will sufficiently stupid people around to pay the ransom.

[-] ShunkW@lemmy.world 8 points 9 months ago

Yeah the contract is how a few exchanges got stolen from in recent years

[-] solidgrue@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago

I'm just here for the Fark style headline. Well played!

[-] MNByChoice@midwest.social 6 points 9 months ago

Insurance scam? Not too be cynical, but after the price dropped a year(?) ago there were a number of thefts for which there was speculation about them being insurance fraud.

load more comments
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2023
656 points (100.0% liked)

Technology

58146 readers
4895 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS