It’s a great way to launder money.
Comment on Hackers steal NFTs worth millions. In other news, NFTs worth millions.
shortwavesurfer@monero.town 6 months agoAs crazy as it sounds, some people do.
TWeaK@lemm.ee 6 months ago
CaptainSpaceman@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Better than the current money laundering techniques? Using art appraisals to inflate assets and move dirty money, or straight up using banks like Deutsche or Credit Suisse (RIP) to move dirty money?
Socsa@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
The smart criminal understands the value of diversity.
kautau@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I mean yeah, it’s better to launder money using a difficult to trace digital ledger. But no, the things you mentioned won’t go away, because there’s also money in the laundering, and double dipping is the name of the game
shortwavesurfer@monero.town 6 months ago
Mmm, considering NFTs are all on transparent blockchains, I don’t know that I would choose that particular method to accomplish that.
Starbuck@lemmy.world 6 months ago
The transparency is the feature that makes it great. I can buy drugs or whatever, and exchange you buy an NFT from me of equal value. Now when the bank comes and says “where did this >$15k transaction come from?” I can point to the blockchain and say that I sold my fancy monkey pic.
This has been a thing in the physical art world for a while, complyadvantage.com/…/art-money-laundering/, this just made it easier.
shortwavesurfer@monero.town 6 months ago
Yeah, I know it’s happened for a while, but my big question would be why are you having to put your money back in the bank instead of leaving it on a blockchain such as Monero. The dollar is about the biggest scam around along with all other government fiat currencies.
ripcord@kbin.social 6 months ago
*did
shortwavesurfer@monero.town 6 months ago
wouldn’t the above article still point out that people do?
ripcord@kbin.social 6 months ago
Nope!
MonkderZweite@feddit.ch 6 months ago
Those who buy art and pack it in a safe until it’s worth more?
Im glad that doesn’t work as well in digital.
Wollang@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
Seth Green has entered the chat
AbidanYre@lemmy.world 6 months ago
They did. For like a week last year. Then everyone realized it was a scam.
IWantToFuckSpez@kbin.social 6 months ago
Love how the NFT hype was a big wealth transfer event. So many rich people, like wealthy oil Arabs, bought into the scam and moved so much money into artists pockets while they essentially got nothing in return.
triptrapper@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Is there any way to confirm this? Or are there examples of artists who made a significant amount of money from NFTs? I understand its potential benefit for artists, but I mostly remember already-rich corporations (e.g. UFC) using them as another way to extract money from consumers.
glimse@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Beeple made a lot
IWantToFuckSpez@kbin.social 6 months ago
There are curated NFT auction sites where only selected artists are allowed to sell their work. And you can see for how much they sell their pieces. During the hype many sold items for thousands to tens of thousands. Also there is Beeple who rode the hype early from the start and he became a millionaire.
merc@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
That’s not really what happened. Some people who had invested in companies that would make money if NFTs went up in value chummed the waters by buying NFTs for huge amounts, convincing a lot of people that NFTs were going to be great investments. Then celebrities with an interest in the scheme pumped up the value too.
That convinced a lot of idiots to “invest” in NFTs, then eventually the bottom fell out of the market.
As for artists, some made some money, but most of the money went into shit like “bored apes” which were algorithmically generated.
lunarul@lemmy.world 6 months ago
My favorite is Murakami, who after selling NFTs he made paintings after all all of them. So which one is the “original”? The actual physical painting, or the digital NFT?
yeather@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
Technically, the NFT. In reality, the physical. Is a lot harder to brag about your art assets if you have to log into your pc to show them off.
shortwavesurfer@monero.town 6 months ago
I do see potential use for them, but not in the way they are currently being used. I could see uses like door keys, tickets, memberships, etc being of practical value, but not stupid little pictures.
silverbax@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Tickets, yes, door keys, no.
shortwavesurfer@monero.town 6 months ago
Besides the obvious of your door lock needing to be connected to the internet, and that could be a problem, what else do you see as being an issue with using it for door keys?
notthebees@reddthat.com 6 months ago
I thought of it as a good way for artists to earn a living by more tokenized artworks, but then it gets hijacked by this shit.
ICastFist@programming.dev 6 months ago
Just like with everything else, all those things you suggested are already done much more reliably without NFTs.
If you still want to see a more “pratical” use of it, look no further than Decentraland, where it’s used as “ownership” of digital “land” and other “goods”.
CaptainSpaceman@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Im sure you dont keep up, but NFT market cap still pretty big rn at 5.5bn
AA5B@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I think of it like timeshare values. They’re really high …. Until you try to find someone who will actually buy it
mhague@lemmy.world 6 months ago
The person talking out of their ass is voted up.
The person bringing up facts is voted down.
The person posting dismissive nonsense is voted up.
Gross.
Womble@lemmy.world 6 months ago
The vast majority of NFTs are worthless now
And this is a report from a crypto website with a vested interest in pretending crypto has uses.
ImFresh3x@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
It’s like people who think their Beanie babies are still priceless.
merc@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
Those are the transactions that are actually happening.
I’m sure there are lots of transactions that aren’t happening because people have given up, and decided that a 99.9% loss in value is basically a 100% loss in value, so they’ve just walked away.
CaptainSpaceman@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Its hard to be definitive, especially from one data point, but theres no doubt that lots of NFTs are just copycats trying to ride the coattails of other succesful projects, and end up flooding the market with garbage.
But that doesnt mean all projects are garbage, nor that the tech is bad or unutilized.
I had a feeling id get flamed by even mentioning NFTs, so im not surprised a the downvotes or derision. Anyways, have a good one 😃
Honytawk@lemmy.zip 6 months ago
Nah, that is what the NFT owners want the greater fools to believe it is worth.