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Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

The NFT thing seems to be settling out. It's for collectables, like Magic, the Gathering cards.

I've been following this because I'm interested in virtual worlds. There are at least four virtual worlds that use some kind of NFT thing to register land ownership. Nobody does much in those worlds, and the graphics aren't all that good. It's all about trading land and speculating in some minor cryptocurrency.

The newest entrant - Zero Space.[1] The actual 3D world is promised for 2024. They already have five cryptocurrencies of their own, plus an NFT system. Their "3D world" is a simple un-shared Unreal Engine demo. They claim they will have a high-resolution metaverse, but show no indication that they have any idea how to build one.

[1] https://www.zero.space/

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I see NFTs as more like a gimmick which reminds me of the million dollar homepage, but pretending to be more than what they are by associating themselves with "ownership".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Million_Dollar_Homepage

Even for collectables it doesn't really make any sense. It's not like you have to own a Black Lotus to sell a NFT of it. Nor is there any benefit to collectors in buying the NFT except for the possibility of finding a bigger sucker somewhere down the line to buy it off of them.

> They already have five cryptocurrencies of their own

The first four didn't create the speculative frenzy they were hoping for, huh?

Just kidding(?)

This is why I've minted the "White House" NFT on the Skepticoin blockchain:

https://github.com/skepticoin/explorer/blob/master/00038cce6...

'To own the SKEPTI from this transaction or any derived transaction is to "own" 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500. (AKA the White House). #metaverse'

> They already have five cryptocurrencies of their own, plus an NFT system.

Pretty clear what their priority is. It's not building a good game, it's making money off of suckers.

Pretty clear what their priority is. It's not building a good game, it's making money off of suckers.

Yes, I get that feeling. They have a long, detailed story, but it gets vague around how things actually work.

There are useful metaverse design problems cryptosystems might address. You'd like to be able to move your avatar/furniture/vehicles/house from Roblox to Minecraft to Second Life to Facebook Horizon to Dual Universe or whatever comes next. Since much of that stuff is bought, the creators don't want you to be able to duplicate and resell it. Some kind of cryptosystem might be able to make virtual asset portability work.

You'd like to have a virtual world system that has multiple servers run by different organizations, yet can talk to each other. Like the Web. The walled gardens need portals to other walled gardens. Many of the problems doing that require permission and asset storage with no central authority.

Asset storage separate from virtual world operators could work. Arweave could potentially help with that. Arweave is a scheme where you pay about $10/GB to have a file supposedly stored forever. It's paid for by a speculation in declining storage prices. But the terms and conditions are highly inconsistent with the hype. And there seems to be a central point of failure in the way files are looked up.

Nothing I've seen from the NFT crowd seems to be addressing those hard problems. It's all Make Money Fast.

I think there are other ways to solve some of these problems of virtual ownership in walled gardens, federation, etc. but they're all forms of PR/diplomacy (relations and protocols between virtual worlds, between creators and platforms, and platforms and customers)

Pretending like a technical solution requiring no central authority is the way forward will never fly because no walled-garden owner will adopt such a scheme that cedes so much control; that doesn't let them enforce tariffs, community restrictions, bans, etc. on its own customer base.

It's the digital world and tools it comes with, and a creative player base, that draws people to the walled garden. Not technical capabilities or experiments in federation or an ICO. That's all promises with no substance. People get attracted and want to experience ... stuff. Stuff they can play with and tweak and build. But it can't be all up to them, there has to be something already there to experience and as a point of reference.

I.e. ... Little Big Planet. It's why it was successful. Powerful creative tool and community technology, but it's also an engaging all-ages experience made in said tools.

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