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Comment by Kiro | Hacker News Reader

Yes, I made a comment explaining how to check this out yourself: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26459621

A Twitter thread explaining how absurd this is: https://twitter.com/jonty/status/1372163423446917122

There's already URL rot going on: https://twitter.com/CheckMyNFT/status/1372253288863825925

I still don't get why this is a scam, there is a SHA-256 hash of the whole image in that token, complete with timestamp and a buyer signature - the buyer can certainly prove he was first (or Nth) to buy this exact thing anytime he wants (if he doesn't lose his private key ofc). Who cares if some URLs included do rot?

It's almost the same idea [0] Galileo used 400 years ago to prove he was first to see Saturn rings by hashing the image description and distributing the hash.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rings_of_Saturn

Because that doesn't make the image in question scarcer? I just went to Christie's site and copied it by just viewing the page.

Well, physical art reproductions are high quality already (I have some Van Gogh canvas prints I bought for like 50$ a piece on my walls). So you can't really say traditional art images are scarce too.

The thing is whoever is owns the original in some sense, even if you eventually cannot discern it with a microscope.

But presumably you could create an identical image with a different hash by changing 1 pixel? I'm not sure what trust problem the NFT solves.

What would that achieve? If you're late to the blockchain (or really any other distribution channel, like https://truetimestamp.org/ or something like this) your timestamp is greater than original and you own nothing. I don't really know how selling 2nd place works with NFTs but I assume you only can get it from 1st place owner (he has to sign it with his private key), so the scheme is solid. You cannot change a pixel and claim something.

The only problem I see is how the 1st buyer knows the seller is the artist not some random dude who changed 1 pixel (or even didnt). You actually cannot reliably sell something that has been published before cause everyone and their mom can claim ownership before 1st token.

I guess I'm misunderstanding what value people see in the NFT. If they really are paying for the right to claim the first entry in some blockchain then I guess it works as intended.

Or indeed changing some irrelevant metadata that would have precisely no impact on what's rendered on the screen.

Its $70M to post "first!" Maybe scam isn't the right word but its certainly strange to me.

How can you compare this Beepis stuff to Galileo being the first human to lay eyes on a closeup of Saturn's rings....

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