Blockchain is a technology that will revolutionize human civilization. Throughout history, new technology creates new economic possibilities, and these create new cultural and political possibilities. In my opinion, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are a blockchain-based technology that will create a cultural renaissance.
Blockchain brought scarcity to the internet. Once I internalized that novelty, I realized that a financial revolution was underway. In time, middlemen and clearinghouses would be rendered obsolete. Eventually, shares will not need a stock exchange, and at some time after that, currency will not need a government. Not only are these old financial organizations dying, but new financial organizations are arising. DAOs and anonymous community fundraising are two early examples.
We don’t work to make money as an end, but as a means to get what we spend money upon. After the essentials, we mostly spend our money upon the creativity of others. Our economy harnesses the energy of our organization and our greed. However, organization and greed do not distinguish us from the rest of the animal kingdom. We are human because we create. In Dead Poet’s Society, Robin William’s character John Keating tells his students, “We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”
As the structure of the economy has evolved since the industrial revolution, value was first most easily extracted from production, and then from services. In time, I expect that NFTs will enable value to be most easily extracted from creativity. As much as finance requires scarcity, creativity requires uniqueness. NFTs have unlocked a new door to the creative economy and new possibilities for human culture.
Two months ago, I bought CryptoPunk. This was a privilege afforded to me only because I have been obsessed with the underlying technology since its inception. I am an artist and a technologist. I see CryptoPunks as an important road sign in human history, and a front-row ticket to history to be made. To me, CryptoPunks indicate a point in time when technology unlocked the arts. Eventually, I’ll pass my CryptoPunk on to my daughter or donate it to a museum. Until then, I’ll look at it as something new that signifies a world on its way.
I'm a little less sanguine. I do think people are beating up on NFTs in ways they haven't been able to beat up on shit since they discovered furries, and I think they should feel bad about that. I also think that the current generation of chattering class has finally come around to understanding that "digital things have no value because they can be reproduced endlessly" and there's no way in hell they'll come around to "blockchain things have value because they can't" before they're embittered and shaking their fists at the clouds. But I also think the blockchain is terrifying to interact with. I rarely do it. It's funny - if you send a wire transfer you go to the bank and fill out a form and double-check it and the teller double-checks it and enters it in and triple checks it and says "here goes" and even then, you've still got do-overs. It's still a gentlemans' agreement between bankers. There's still clawback. "Give me your passcode and the money is gone forever" is a hard place for the normies to live. It's also pure Randian nonsense to presume that the only reason government exists is money. Graeber pointed out in The Utopia of Rules that states exist to hold a monopoly on violence. You belong to a state so that no one but that state can use violence on you, and you have an agreement with the state as to what you must do to avoid violence. A bunch of crypto-nerds and a bunch of Proud Boys coming together will end up with a bunch of rich Proud Boys and a bunch of blood on the tiles. I read a book on Paul LeRoux. I won't recommend it. The author doesn't understand Paul LeRoux. Tries, fails. The author dances mightily around the idea that he created bitcoin. He did. I have no doubts about this. It slots entirely too well with everything else Paul LeRoux did. And because Paul LeRoux is under proffer, every dime he made committing crimes has been legally surrendered to the United States so Paul LeRoux isn't gonna say shit about Bitcoin until he's out and beyond the reach of the Treasury. But Paul LeRoux literally tried to set up a libertarian kingdom in Somalia. Then tried to overthrow the Seychelles to do the same thing. There's definitely a "we don't need no steenking government" intent behind much of crypto and just like Paul LeRoux, it's gonna fail. People want their do-overs. Are we talking about essential liberty here? I think the freedom to get a chargeback on your credit card is the sort of thing people gonna want forever. After all, civilization evolved to mediate disputes and with crypto, there are no disputes - everything is forever irrevocable. Likewise, you didn't buy a cryptopunk because it was cool, you bought a cryptopunk because your friends and community thought it was cool. Which is worth more - a cryptopunk or a cryptokitty? Why? There's nothing technical there, it's all fashion. I would argue that the fundamentals are better for cryptokitties - they appeal less to Twitterbros, yeah, but they were also the NFT that broke Ethereum. The only reason Flow exists is that Cryptokitties demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that a blockchain for collectibles needed to be more feature-rich and responsive than Ethereum. Ten, fifteen, fifty years from now Cryptopunks could be Edison's DC lightbulbs while Cryptokitties are Westinghouse. There's also the unfortunate aspect that from an artistic standpoint, randomly-generated algorithmic stuff has never fared well. We like our art to be artistic. Ideally, the normies want it to be pretty. I think NFTs will provide a lot of opportunities for creativity and innovation but I can't get behind anything I've seen so far as an objet d'art. Did you know that you can doodle on the ETH2 beaconchain? Each persistent pixel will cost you (checks notes) one hundred thousand dollars. Yeah you can edit your graffiti each epoch (hour) and get it to draw another pixel so if you've got patience and time (and a hundred thousand dollars) you can put together something impressive. Or, you know, dickbutt. Wander into the heart of the beast and what are they going for? What profound statement for the ages are they building? That'll be a triforce some day. And remember - every pixel is a hunnert grand. I think there's some paradigm-shifting stuff afoot. I think the deck is being shuffled. I think cryptopunks will have value in the future as collectables. But I refuse to call them art. Art's coming, I think. But I mean we're what, 20 years past the mind's eye videos? And computers are still unacceptable in artwork.those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
I don't think that. I think money can exist independent of government. Of course it has in many forms, but I mean in a way that is more useful to more people than a governmental money. As for difficulty for newbs, these are still very early days. It's insanely more user friendly than it was in 2017, and many more people are using Ethereum regularly. Axie Infinity has 110k active players as I type this. I'd put my money on Kleiman rather than LeRoux, but it doesn't matter much. I think bitcoin will ultimately fail. Definitely CryptoPunks. I have a gob of kitties, including some Gen0's. Kitties got boring real fast and there's so many variations and kitties that 1) it's difficult to tell most of them apart, and 2) there's a bunch of kitties that look just like yours. It was an interesting moment in Ethereum, but the kitties weren't as interesting as the gas fees. IMO CryptoPunks succeed as art, because they have a nice aesthetic, they represent something similar to many people, and they are the center of a conversation about something new. Of course, I am of the opinion that it is all art, only that most of it is very uninteresting. I do think that an NFT collapse is imminent, and that most of the NFTs that are being swapped right now are going to become worthless really fast. Many thousandaires are going to be made of those that feel like millionaires atm. The horizon I am talking about above is a 10-20 year one. I didn't buy my CryptoPunk as an investment. That would have been a more difficult decision. I do see them as a Picasso or Warhol for these times. Warhol didn't let you mint free sneakers if you owned his work, but I bet he would have found it an interesting development.It's also pure Randian nonsense to presume that the only reason government exists is money.
Which is worth more - a cryptopunk or a cryptokitty?
Paper money is what created Venice. It created Flanders. It created Shanghai. Paper money means "finance" basically and I agree, crypto is orders of magnitude more versatile than "banks." But none of those trading powers would have existed without navies and at the end of the day, it doesn't matter where the money is or what it does. What matters is where the rubber meets the road. If I were Visa? I'd be prototyping the shit out of crypto escrow. I'd roll that shit out ASAP. First to the post on this one - if I gotta pay Visa 1% to get a service agreement that allows me to contest charges I'ma sign up. If I have a choice between buying insurance per transaction or buying it all the time, I'll pick and choose. If I can get miles? Bully. Hey maybe I can get pennies for viewing ads. Now you're talking about a centralized organization running on the blockchain, and it's going to be taxed. THAT is how the normies are gonna blockchain - they'll use Metamask by Visa. And it'll probably run Tether or whatever. It'll be big monolithic organizations assuming the risk for a percentage, same as it ever was. We're switching from phone lines to fiber but for the normies it'll still be a telco world. Normies bought beanie babies. Still do. 110k players on Axie Infinity? Million users on NBA Top Shot. I'm not saying "I'm right, you're wrong" I'm saying I feel your certainty is misplaced. "Cryptopunks...have a nice aesthetic" is a judgement call. Some people love Jeff Koons. I've never met them but I can objectively argue they exist. More people know Thomas Kinkade, though. Everybody knows the Mona Lisa. But everybody owns Maxfield Parrish. The market cap for all Punks is what, $5b right now? I believe we've definitely reached a point where the market is TBTF. Once the taste-makers get ahold of it there's no letting go (short of a scandal, and art scandals have to be outsized). NFTs-as-art have the additional advantage of legal tax evasion. Since there's nowhere for the article to physically reside, there's no tariffs to be charged. That's a good 20% incentive for piling into jpegs over Jackson Pollacks. There's also the constant online marketplace which changes the broker equation. But I don't think the question has even been properly posed yet, let alone settled. I'm a long-term guy and we're still this side of the event horizon.