There are currently [2] insecure techbros downvoting reality.
Comment on “Should art be regulated by the SEC?” NFT artists file lawsuit
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 weeks ago
This article makes my brain want to bleed.
I’ll say it louder one last time for the people in the back:
THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH BITS IN ANY TYPE OF NFT TO STORE ART ON THE BLOCKCHAIN. THE BEST YOU CAN DO IS A URL WEBLINK TO THE IMAGE AND AN IMAGE HASH. THAT IS FUNCTIONALLY NOT THE SAME AS STORING THE ACTUAL IMAGE ON THE BLOCKCHAIN. IF THE ORIGINAL IMAGE GETS DELETED, THE URL AND HASH ARE BOTH EFFECTIVELY USELESS.
nightwatch_admin@feddit.nl 4 weeks ago
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
Yes, and a deed for land ownership is not the same thing as land itself. Nobody care. That’s not the point.
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 weeks ago
And regulations around the deeds for land ownership are different laws than the regulations for how you can use the land.
But conflating the two as the same thing is the purpose of this lawsuit, even though it’s clear as fucking day that they are regulating the deal-making-instrument (the NFT) and not the art itself, which, once again, is a separate entity from the NFT.
thesmokingman@programming.dev 4 weeks ago
Let’s assume you’re arguing in good faith here so we can understand why land deeds and URLs are completely different.
Deeds are managed by a central authority. There is an agreed-upon way(s) to view and search those deeds. There is a single authority to update or remove deeds. The items the deed refers to also are controlled by a single authority and changing them has a single process.
URLs are registered (loosely) with a central authority but the similarities end there. I can impersonate a URL on a network (even up to large chunks of the internet if I’m able to confuse DNS in a large enough attack). So just because you’ve bought the domain referenced in the blockchain and set up some name servers doesn’t mean any consumer of the blockchain or even the internet is guaranteed to hit your instance of the domain. All a URL is is a reference to something so let’s assume for a minute we can have a global reference. What’s behind it? Again, completely uncontrolled. For now it could be your NFT; what happens if I am your hosting provider and destroy your instance? Move your hardware? What’s to prevent you, the owner of the assumed global reference, to change what that uniform resource locator is actually locating?
Land deeds and URLs are not analogous. Land and the content served at a URL are not analogous. Let’s look at NFTs quickly to see if we can actually do something about this!
Since we have a single-write, read-only database, why not store the full thing in the DB? Well, first you have to agree on a representation. It has to be unchanging so we can’t use a URL. It can’t ever duplicate so realistically hashing is out (unless our hash provides a bijection which is just a fancy way of saying use the fucking object itself). Assuming we’re only talking about digital artifacts (attempting to digitize a physical asset is a form of hashing meaning we get collisions so you can’t prove ownership), we’re now in an arms race for you to register all of your assets and their serialization methods before I brute force everything. Oh and this needs to live everywhere so it can be public so you need peta-many petabyte drives. But wait! Now we’re burning the sun in power just to show you have ownership of 10 and I have ownership of 01. Fuck me that’s dumb.
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 weeks ago
The end of this fucking killed me. Thank you.
fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
I think that is why IPFS is a popular option for NFTs. With its content addresses.
Honestly ledgers, deeds, etc. Its crazy how much energy and human effort is put into them.
Like deeds aren’t just paper, they are bueracracies, buildings, computer systems, and people with guns and batons cracking skulls.
Traister101@lemmy.today 4 weeks ago
There are a couple projects with native block chain art but as you might expect it’s low resolution pixel art due to the nature of block chain being prohibitively expensive to use as storage
Etterra@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Dude you might as well try to explain algebra to cats. When you inevitably fail then at least you can pet the cats.
hddsx@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
Clearly, the answer is more blockchain. In fact, let’s blockchain the blockchain and then blockchain that blockchain to… Woo, I got carried away. What were we talking about?
BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Don’t recall… let’s check the Blockchain!
LapGoat@pawb.social 4 weeks ago
blockchain where we buy hashes linking to the image library of babel.
hddsx@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
What do you mean babel? My links are on megaupload! Wait…