BlockchainGandalf

Sometimes it's best to explain things backwards. Perhaps this is one of those times.

In this episode, I work backwards from the artwork through the metadata to what an NFT actually is, in order to help "content creators" (shudder - why can't we call them artists, composers, writers, and so on).

And in particular, why the NFT is not the art, but rather a pointer to a pointer to the art.

Samson - you need to watch this one: https://youtu.be/kqtfPSP-f0k

In this episode, I talk about the metaverse.

Oh, the metaverse. It's a hot topic, yet no one seems to really know what it is.

Perhaps it's a hot topic because no one knows what it is?

The problem I have with the definitions I see flying about is that they focus on "immersiveness".

But imersiveness isn't new. A good book is immersive. A story well-told is immersive.

Neither is the concept of a "collective online virtual experience" novel. These things have been around for over three decades - people were getting immersed in collective virtual experiences called MUDs (or multi-user dungeons) back in the late eighties.

So is there anything that could be different this time, other than better resolution and faster response and rendering times?

Yes - true decentralized ownership.

For the first time Neal Stephenson's alternate reality can posses this one key property that wasn't previously possible, thanks to blockchain. (And it's a property that the tech giants of today are going to have a problem fully embracing, because it goes against the very fibre of their world view).

And so now we have to ask ourselves the question - do we really want this to be implemented by a bunch of Silicon Valley tech-bros who don't seem to have realized that Snow Crash is a dystopia?

In this episode, I present an analogy for NFTs, which explains how they work and what the significance of various steps in the production and sale of NFTs actually is.

It will also help you to understand why an NFT isn't a piece of art (just a pointer), and how easy it is to make an NFT look like it was produced by someone else if the website used to display it lies (or if we're being charitable, presents information in a slap-dash manner).

You read that correctly - CryptoPhunks with a PH, not CryptoPunks, the iconic NFTs selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In the last day, OpenSea has had another public relations nightmare. Due to an oversight on their part, forty NFTs were sold at well-below market prices.

In this video I go through the timeline, covering the history of CryptoPunks and CryptoPhunks, copyright scuffles using DMCA takedowns, and the mistake made by OpenSea, which I explain in a non-technical manner.

Blockchain-based projects, eh? Never a dull moment.

If a tree falls in the forest and there's no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? Yes, but the sound has no meaning.

These days you'll find articles and reports that alarmingly imply that NFTs are disappearing. I give some examples at the end of this text.

The thing is, the NFTs aren't disappearing. The files they point to are, and that is very different.

NFTs are immutable (if the contract has been set up correctly) and persistent (as long as the blockchain they are on continues to exist).

The things they point to? Not so much.

Furthermore, websites that display them can come and go. Again, the NFTs still exist, even if your "window of choice" for viewing them doesn't.

And so I wish that journalists would choose their words more carefully. But ... they're journalists, not blockchain experts.

https://interestingengineering.com/nfts-are-mysteriously-disappearing-heres-how

https://cryptobriefing.com/tezos-nft-marketplace-hic-et-nunc-offline/

Are you confused by NFTs?

Have an idea for an NFT project, only to have it dismissed by the software developer you talk to?

In this episode, I present a short talk that explains the mechanics of NFTs in a manner that can be understood by anyone who has used a spreadsheet, or kept a list on a piece of paper for that matter. This video will help you:  

🤑 Understand what you are buying when you purchase an NFT 

👍 Determine where they might be useful  

🚫 Filter out pointless projects.  

The talk references a presentation, and you can download a copy from https://souls.fi/NFTs-primer.pdf to look at as you listen.

Don't forget to get a copy of my book on blockchain at https://mybook.to/moveover

Why would someone want to rent an NFT?

And if they did, how could such a borrowing and lending service be provided?

In this episode, I discuss these questions, and look at how one protocol, reNFT, has solved this problem, and what weaknesses their solution contains.

If this video title isn't the antithesis of clickbait, then I don't know what is. But the point of this video is  wider than just to comment on some quirky behaviour on a geeky chat channel in the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Internet. 

There's a platform called Gitter, which designed as a place for software developers to go to chat.

And there's a channel on that platform for the Ropsten Ethereum test network.

Except the people on that platform don't chat. They post their wallet addresses. Endlessly. Even though this achieves nothing, and even though there are a couple of us there who point out regularly that it achieves nothing.

In this video I discuss where this bizarre behaviour might be coming from, and at the end I talk about how similar things happen in other areas of life.

The IPFS has a lot in common with traditional file systems.

But the few distinct differences that it has, do not only mean that it is decentralized, they also occasionally pose problems for developers that are not easy to solve.

Yet.

In this episode I talk about one of those problems, namely "revealing" files over time. Reveals are important in the NFT world in order to prevent people "sniping" sales of particularly rare colletables.  It turns out to be a lot trickier than you would think at first, whereas with a traditional file system it's trivial.

What is the connection between the InterPlanetary File System and Non-Fungible Tokens (especially art tokens)?

Given the amount of money that has poured into art NFTs, getting those images that the NFT metadata points to up on a server that is unlikely to ever go away has become more and more important.

It's probably given more impetus to the adoption of the IPFS than anything else in its history.