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Becksworth

Aging Hipster Dragon Dad
I will say about the only thing that I didn't know already going in was most of the details about DAOs, but I put that partly down on the fact that, as implied in the video, DAOs are only stable for short periods of time in laboratory conditions

DAOs are the hypothetical elements of the crypto periodic table of grifting.
 

ShakeWell

Slam Master
(he, etc.)
A co-worker linked on work Slack today to the NFTs her husband and 7 year-old daughter made, and it was really hard for me not to just drop a link to Dan's video or, like, go on a rant about how incredibly dumb and pointless NFTs are and that basically teaching her kid to blast a few cubic tons of CO2 into the atmosphere instead of just making a little voxel-art wizard for its own sake sucks assssssssssss.

Though when a different co-worked got today's Wordle in two and subsequently mentioned that indicated her luck today, NFT Mom told her to buy an NFT instead of a lottery ticket and I did reply "well, they are both gambling."
 

MetManMas

Me and My Bestie
(He, him)
A co-worker linked on work Slack today to the NFTs her husband and 7 year-old daughter made, and it was really hard for me not to just drop a link to Dan's video or, like, go on a rant about how incredibly dumb and pointless NFTs are and that basically teaching her kid to blast a few cubic tons of CO2 into the atmosphere instead of just making a little voxel-art wizard for its own sake sucks assssssssssss.

Though when a different co-worked got today's Wordle in two and subsequently mentioned that indicated her luck today, NFT Mom told her to buy an NFT instead of a lottery ticket and I did reply "well, they are both gambling."
Honestly, I wouldn't expect the average person to understand how NFTs could possibly be bad for the environment. Like, I get that a lot of the machinery running these systems managing coding or whatever isn't eco-friendly, but "NFTs are poisoning the environment!" sounds like some kinda insane conspiracy theory.

Granted, the people who would buy and/or make NFTs are often also the kind who would believe that docufiction CGI mermaids are real...
 

FelixSH

(He/Him)
Even aside from NFTs, I find it deeply weird, that the parents already made their 7-year old kid help them earning money. No matter if it is with the kid volunteering, or just using a kids drawing without the kid knowing, this seems really gross to me.

I mean, you don't have to make money out of EVERYTHING.
 

Mr Bean

Chief Detective
Even aside from NFTs, I find it deeply weird, that the parents already made their 7-year old kid help them earning money. No matter if it is with the kid volunteering, or just using a kids drawing without the kid knowing, this seems really gross to me.

I mean, you don't have to make money out of EVERYTHING.
That was one of the interesting takeaways from the Olson video for me. For NFT true belivers, the POINT is to make money off of everything. They want to commoditize every aspect of human existence.
 

ozacrot

Jogurt Joestar
(he/him)
I don't know what possessed me to watch a 2-hour video about a topic I already didn't respect, but Dan Olson has effectively double-radicalized me against NFTs and crypto more broadly. Going forward I won't be sharing videos or posts of brands & celebrities talking about their NFTs, but I will make sure to share every story I see about scams, fraud, and failures in the field with my normal friends & family.

I'm really thankful that my parents aren't tech-competent enough to be in the market for this scam.
 

Bulgakov

Yes, that Russian author.
(He/Him)
I'm really thankful that my parents aren't tech-competent enough to be in the market for this scam.

Well also, it seems like you need to be able to set up an account, buy crypto, and buy something that costs $300 or more plus 'gas' (what crypto people call transaction fees in an attempt to normalize the fact that they charge fees for people to buy money) for most NFTs even to get into the market. I would think that the basic financial barrier alone stops quite a few rubes even before they get into the registration gamut. If I have $300 spare I am a very happy person, because I can find a lot of ways to spend that money on things I actually need!

I am confident that part of the reason we see so many celebrities touting these things is because 1) to them $500 and making their personal assistant sign up for the thing is 0 effort. and 2) Many of them are probably being offered free NFTs to shill by people who want to market them. My hope is that the average person just doesn't bother because of the barrier to entry. Unfortunately that will leave a bunch of eager people who know too much about tech and the "true believers" getting hurt when this all crashes or (more likely) stagnates.
 

muteKi

Geno Cidecity
As the video points out, NFTs/smart contracts can easily be built to host malware so not only can you give a celebrity a free NFT, you can get any other NFTs they might happen to spend their money on
 

Sprite

(He/Him/His)
lol I was googling the process of how these things are even made and -

NFT Minting Fees and Costs: Is It Free?​

When creating an NFT, you will typically have to pay a gas fee. This is a payment that you must make every time you submit a transaction on the network to compensate for the computing energy required to process and validate transactions on the Ethereum blockchain. So technically speaking, the NFT creation is in fact free, you just need to have enough ETH to cover the transaction (gas) fee
Don't worry, creating an NFT is free, as long as you're able to pay some money
 

Bulgakov

Yes, that Russian author.
(He/Him)
Don't worry, creating an NFT is free, as long as you're able to pay some money

I find this the weirdest part of the scam. It speaks volumes that the culture of crypto needs to pretend that there are no costs to what they're doing while simultaneously acknowledging there are additional costs to what they're doing.

Casually naming it "gas" implies it's a minor cost of doing business that everyone should just be willing to pay for the good of the movement, and that it doesn't really matter. It's amusing to me that a purported currency-investment promotion wants to downplay the reality that there are costs to investment or, dare we say it, a "tax" on using this libertarian service that will purportedly free you from the confines of government. Everyone who's selling these NFTs is hoping to follow in Peter Thiel's footsteps and get rich off other people wanting to use money in a closed system.

But it's just gas.
 
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JBear

Internet's foremost Bertolli cosplayer
(He/Him)
Good thing there's no historical precedent for there being a massive negative global impact for overlooking the significance of regular casual gas usage!
 

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
Huh. Someone put a little actual effort into animating that.
(Of course, if you're paying thousands of dollars for a silly ape, I suppose it's easy to throw a few hundred at an animator on top.)
 
(Of course, if you're paying thousands of dollars for a silly ape, I suppose it's easy to throw a few hundred at an animator on top.)

Yeah it looks like this Moonpay Concierge thing that both Hilton and Paltrow talk about is in the business of fleecing rich celebrities who want to ride the trend, and one way they do that is apparently commissioning animations to personalize ugly pngs.

MoonPay Concierge is a new service for high net worth individuals who want a hassle free way to purchase crypto and high value NFT’s.

Buying an NFT should be seamless. But right now, it’s not. MoonPay Concierge solves that problem.

Are you a high net worth individual looking to enter the world of high value NFTs? Reach out to us a
 
We need to stop just giving rich people money. They clearly don't know how to handle it responsibly on their own.
 

Sprite

(He/Him/His)
Rich people spending money is good, but mainly if they spend it on lavish parties that employ a bunch of people. This… is the purest opposite of that.
 
NFPs: Non-Fungible Parties. You buy a link to a certificate that says you went to this party and can tell everyone how much fun you had there but you don't actually have to go.

Wait... that might actually not be a terrible idea.
 

Becksworth

Aging Hipster Dragon Dad
I don't have any NFT news, but I did learn "kitty" is discord slang for a teenage girl, which makes that Cryptoland video all the more cringey.
 
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