You're right that it's not necessary to have blockchain directly. However, NFTs show you're close to a group of people who are connected in the cryptocurrency world, just like CSGO/Roblox flair shows you've invested in those worlds. And a lot of crypto people made a lot of money so it's a good status signal to be close to those crypto people.

All power to you if you want to flex with your crypto bros. But this is a very niche end result for technology that is nominally meant to be revolutionary.

I agree with you about it being niche, but this is the main reason I can think of that would suggest NFTs could be valuable.

The blockchain aspect allows for easy interop: how do you use your csgo skin in roblox?

For a forum allegedly full of programmers and technical people, it is surprising to see this sort of statement posted uncritically.

What characteristic of an NFT makes for "easy interop". Please explain to me how the information in an NFT would add a new skin to another game, in a different engine, by a different company, using a different asset pipeline?

1) It's technically easy to integrate due to being able to access any data without needing special API access. Permissionless open system.

2) There's a more collaborative environment with NFTs because project owners are more open to others giving utility to their NFTs as it drives value back to the project itself. It's not a sell something and end customer relationship model.

3) You can target any specific asset and give it any usecase you want - you don't literally need to map 1-1 every single asset.

… not to mention, anyone here should be familiar with at least the basics of copyright and licensing. If you pull the Mario artwork into Doom and say an NFT gave you permission, Nintendo's lawyers are going to be laughing all the way to the bank.

You have to think blockchain = open access database. That’s all.

I’m not an NFT person, but I think the counterargument is that those are both centralized.

Kevin, the point here is whether that is a useful distinction or not. The article is putting forward a decentralised, cryptographic, non-blockchain equivalent that has the same guarantees as an NFT. My reply was specifically in answer to the parent comments point that it’s about status signalling on an easily accessible website. It’s immaterial in that regard whether the data source of said website is centralised or not because it’s about the social phenomenon not technical implementation.