This is how NFTs work. If you own the $10k hat on a blockchain you own the $10k hat on that blockchain. There is nothing anyone can do about the fact that the monkey bitmaps can be copied. The ownership only applies to the ownership on a ledger, not copying or usage. Same with owning a hat on the Activision blockchain and not the EA blockchain. If they both agree to store it on the ETH ledger, then obviously there is only one copy.

To prevent copying or usage, studios would obviously need to agree (which is why this is so ridiculous - and "fungible"). In your scenario EA obviously weren't in on the scheme together with Activision. There could well be different ledgers, or studios that just use a centralized store like they always have. But those studios can't use the NFT buzzword, so they'll miss out on the sweet $$ that they can make in the 15 minutes this is a thing.

> I start selling GOLDEN HAT WITH A DICK ON IT for $0.69. What now?

Whether or not "user created" items will ever be a thing is obviously up to the studios. The studios can obviously ensure only studio-created artifacts are ever allowed, regardless of if a public ledger is used. They can't prevent a studio from making a golden hat with just one bit flipped in a 100kb artifact, which looks exactly the same. This would be even more likely if there were user-created artifacts.

But there is just nothing that can be done about that. That problem exists whether or not you use a public ledger or a private one, and whether there are multiple studios or just one.

> the blockchain adds nothing.

It adds the word "Blockchain" and "NFT" to the equation. Remember that's the difference between pictures of monkeys being worth zero and being worth millions of dollars.

You seriously wrote all of that out and then admitted at the bottom that it’s only valuable because gullible people will buy it.

So you agree the whole thing is a grift. Next time just say that instead of proposing some pointlessly complex system of offloading a tiny DB onto the blockchain. “It’s valuable because you can trick gullible people into buying it.”

But yes, the reason the money is in the blockchain tech and no one pays millions for monkeys without blockchains? That’s all hype.

This tech solves a problem that could be solved by studios just making a private store they all agree on. I don’t think anyone will argue anything else, least of all me.

But here is the thing: things like currency and trade able tokens only have value because people think they do. There is a fine line between “gullible” and “currency” here.

Sorry, I missed something. What exactly can they not build without blockchains? Surely you’re not saying that the thing they can’t do without the blockchain is “use the blockchain”, because that’s vacuous.

(I’m actually not sure how they wound build this hypothetical system you described with a blockchain, though. Is there a mechanism that allows NFT transfers to accumulate “royalties” to the original seller? Or is this a hypothetical feature of a hypothetical custom blockchain that’s controlled 100% by the studio, eliminating even the distributed nature?)

> But here is the thing: things like currency and trade able tokens only have value because people think they do. There is a fine line between “gullible” and “currency” here.

I don’t entirely disagree with this, but

1) Most people investing in this stuff would have zero interest if it were actually a stable currency. They’re interested in speculation. This is in contrast with dollars (or euros or whatever) which people very commonly hoard in banks, even knowing they are actually declining in value.

2) NFTs are not intended to be currency. So even if you believe that Bitcoin or whatever cryptocurrency has long term real currency potential, NFTs are still stupid.

They can’t build tokens that people would speculate in to the point that they are worth millions unless they use a big ledger like eth where people might believe that the tokens have a lifespan longer than the games.

> Is there a mechanism that allows NFT transfers to accumulate “royalties” to the original seller?

That is my understanding yes, and this would be a premise for the whole thing.

So yes - the whole idea would be to set up a market for speculation and see a cut from each transaction.

And the chain isn’t necessary, technically, it’s a necessity to ensure the inflated speculation only.

And both studios and users have aligned interest: speculation, only. Not hats, not currency. They get shiny gear but it’s also a lottery.

It is interesting that NFT royalties are thing. I was not aware of that. Although I don’t see that this makes it valuable. Royalties are generally paid for reproduction. If you have to pay the creator to transfer the token, then it seems evident that you don’t even own the token, whatever that’s worth.

I don’t think it’s something that has or adds any value from a technical viewpoint. At least not to the point where it would warrant investment or overhead from blockchain tech. It’s hardly worth even $1 “securing” my ownership of a hat on a public ledger unless the chance of it becoming more expensive through artificial scarcity is counted as “value”.

But that actually solves the short term problem of “where is the infra?” and it’s not impossible that in a few spaces, this will actually survive.

Remember how everyone and their mother had to launch “cloud” services 10 years ago, and in 9 out of 10 instances it added no value. Some of those are still things despite never actually being necessary.

Disney's lawyers seem to be doing just fine.