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Comment by bastawhiz | Hacker News Reader

If the actual collector's item is freely available and all you get is your name listed as having paid for it, you're not really "collecting" so much as showing that you paid money for each item.

If I collect stamps, it's fun to show off your stamp collection because you have those stamps. It's different if everyone can also have all of those stamps, and the hobby is reduced down to "I have these stamps and also my name is on the blockchain next to each of them". There's no physical scarcity for the stamps, there's scarcity for your name being listed as a buyer in a ledger. Call me old fashioned, but that seems to suck the fun out of it.

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> If the actual collector's item is freely available and all you get is your name listed as having paid for it

I think this really hits the nail on the head. Even if you 'own' an NFT, you have no control over who gets to see it, who doesn't get to see it, who can casually claim to own it and show it on their phone (since it is after all identical to the real deal and no one's going to sit there in the bar and verify it - at least not without the existence of some kind of designated authority). This means that you did quite literally pay to have your name listed as the owner in some obscure place people may or may not care to check unless you're doing a buy/sell transaction.

You do have it like you have any other digital clout (likes on an Instagram post for example). Perhaps with younger generations spending more and more time on digital devices, proving you have something in a digital wallet is just as good as owning the physical thing. Maybe it's even better.

I struggle to see the value (some CryptoPunks are going for outrageous prices). That being said, I think we are early days. I find these types of innovations to be interesting and want to see where it goes.

You're missing the social component.

Even if you don't have a tangible good, you can still signal that you are apart of a group by buying an NFT.

NFTs are basically about buying status in a community.

Is this solving a new problem? You could buy things for status before NFTs, and simply having them was proof of ownership. An entry on the blockchain associated with a hash is hardly as "cool" (if we want to talk about social constructs) as showing a picture with the thing you own. Hell, you can pay money without NFTs to put almost anything you could want in the blockchain.

With NFTs, the "thing" the NFT shows ownership isn't the piece that's supposed to be valuable, since that's readily duplicated, it's the NFT (and what it represents) itself.

"The social component" requires people to ask agree that NFTs are the right system of value, and that requires maintaining the illusion that the token itself is a valuable thing to own. So yes, if this formalized way of showing that you've spent money is widely accepted by a community as a status symbol, sure, go for it. But there's a lot of people even here in the comments who think that's awfully silly, especially when you can buy actual physical things that show your status to people who don't care about what entries exist on the blockchain somewhere.

> An entry on the blockchain associated with a hash is hardly as "cool" (if we want to talk about social constructs) as showing a picture with the thing you own

You don't get to decide that for everyone else though.

You and many other people can think it's silly, but it's highly likely (If not proven) that there is a subset of people who _do_ think it's cool.

I don't really have an interest in NFTs, but I absolutely see why someone _would_ be interested in them.

You are still talking about physical items.

Let's say you collect some rare item like "the sword of sauron" in some MMO game. This time, it's really yours because it lives on the blockchain. Sure, it's a digital item and the data (3D mesh + prpoerties) could be copied, but only the real thing can be used in game.

This thing is a real digital collectors item.

I could see this work with digital Pokemon and things like that.

Considering your examples: if I have the sword of Sauron in the game, then it’s mine. I collected a lot of digital items during my life and never had a need for a blockchain. I would also never care if a « true owner » is registered somewhere as long as I have mine. Same for Pokémon’s, if I have them in my game then they are mine.

Sure, but when you want to trade them, you are stuck on the platform.

I used to play Crossout, and there is no way to trade or sell your things to other players for real money.

I'm not talking about blockchains representing those items, I'm talking about those items being in the blockchain. This way, the item is really yours, you can sell it to anyone you want, on any platform you want. Basically just like a real item.

Right now, game items are stuck on the platform. When it's in the blockchain, it's really yours, and you can use it on the platform. Big difference.

I'm not claiming that this is going to be the future, but I think it has a high chance of succeeding.

Imagine all those digital items you currently own, you just throw it on some market and you can sell all of those for real money.

The physical world collectibles will have NFTs associated, allowing the best of both worlds.

Why would they? It seems to defeat the purpose. You can sell the item in the real world without the NFT. The uniqueness of the item is implicit in its physical form. If you did sell the item again with an NFT, there's nothing really mandating that you actually turn the item over to the new owner. The NFT has no material connection to the item, so it doesn't even provide verifiable provenance.

You could also sell a certificate of authenticity without an artwork, but why would you?

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