I could make an NFT for Mickey Mouse, and it _should_ be worthless, but if Disney created one then maybe it could be worth something?
That same token might grant you access to use that skin as a statue in Decentraland and everyone will be able to see who issued it (based on digital signature). Other people can make their own LeBron statues, but just like having a knock off of a statue in real life, having the real thing is more impressive.
These NFTs can also encode more information such as how many of this same item exist, which other items are in the set, etc... and these virtual worlds can understand that info and you can prove that you own the entire LeBron set and only 10 sets exist.
With NFTs being so new, people haven’t seen the eventual way they’re supposed to be used across ecosystems and their only experience with them so far is that they are useless.
And then I guess - outside of "in game" what incentive would companies ever have to work with/create compatibility with any NFT stuff as opposed to just creating something similar themselves and owning it whole? Like if I was Apple, would I make it compatible with Facebook and Google, or just wall in another marketplace?
This is an alternative, for consumers that maybe weren't interested in buying a gun that they can only use in GTA:O, but maybe would be interested in buying a gun from [Game A] knowing that [Game B] and [Game C] (which they already play) allows them to use that same gun in their game. And that nobody else can have that particular gun in those games.
The technology (NFTs) is not really the end-all-be-all, it is lubricant which is intended to make the above use case more likely by enticing buy-in that would otherwise be less appealing.
But for smaller game studios, you may not be able to do it, due to lack of resources, or lack of a moat, or you're not #1 in the space. Then you'd rather go into a collective marketplace. NFTs allow you to have marketplaces with items that are usable in any game that recognizes it.
This has already happened once. For example, in Gods Unchained (a CCG), you can import a Cryptokitty that you own, to decorate your playing board.
https://www.cryptokitties.co/gods-unchained https://blog.godsunchained.com/2019/02/11/cryptokitties-x-go...
It's kinda like cross promotion between games, in the same way mobile games did cross-promotional ads.
You also see this kind of behavior with Openstreetmaps. Google is #1, so they don't care. All the #2 and #3 players are working together on openstreetmaps to collect their market power to beat #1.
What lots of people on HN don't see is that NFTs are public interfaces for interchangable immutable items with a history that any application can choose to honor for interoperabililty. I think you can use it for more than just art.
This is the thing though. How do you authenticate the creator of the NFT to ensure that the "legit" token is actually legit.
To give you a concrete example, right now an organisation calling themselves "GlobalArtMuseum" is selling NFT's of artworks held in museums. This is not being done in collaboration with any museum, the artwork is counterfeit.
How do you set the "authentic" NFT in the first place without rigorous compliance controls?
Why do you suppose it is that the first use case that has gained near-mainstream appeal is a use-case that portrays them as "useless"?
How do you verify that Apple has released a new phone? You don't, you hear from Apple that they released a new phone. Why would it be different with NFTs?
It feels strange reading all these on the news now. Either future is coming fast at us, or people are crazy. I wish I had bought bitcoin though