Visa Buys CryptoPunk #7610
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To the software devs on HN that might scroll past this, before you close this tab because of all the crypto stuff when you want to read about coding, hang on a sec!
There are some really really cool new user experiences being unlocked with so-called "web3" tech. Micro transactions, wallets embedded in your browser, these technologies offer so much potential for things far beyond a punk NFT or cryptokitty.
Any front-end dev I talk to in person I urge to get in contact with some of these communities and try out a consulting project or two, so I'll urge the same here. The pay rates right now are outrageous and you will get to try out some tech that might end up being useless or might end up being the next major comms layer, exciting times!
edit, adding some links here:
https://ethereum.org/en/developers/learning-tools/
https://ethereum.org/en/community/
https://ethereum.org/en/learn/
some of the above are ethereum specific, but there are always new communities popping up and out of ethereum. for example, Avalanche is ramping up their dev community funding right now with over $170m committed to the ecosystem.
I know one of the people doing https://dxdao.eth.link/ DXDao is a collective of devs that work to build decentralized applications ("Dapps"). The decentralized treasury (~$30million USD) funds proposals that anyone can make. They do weekly calls. You can just join their Keybase and start contributing and earning for your efforts. There is no CEO or hierarchy and you can work your own hours and your own pace.
is a good article for this crowd.
Besides Avalanche and ethereum, look at Cardano and Solana which are both having their moment (along with Avalanche) the last couple weeks.
If I were a shareholder, I would not be happy with this move.
IME (at least in Europe) you get either Visa or Mastercard depending on what your bank uses, and I don't think there are any differences.
> Curious about NFTs and how to integrate them in your brand strategy?
And then there's a link taking you to a page called:
> NTFs: Engaging Today’s Fans in Crypto and Commerce
>The bank, which says it wants to buy more "up-and-coming talents," bought several works at Frieze London.
Many art exhibitions seem to be sponsored by financial institutions, for example.
Despite the massive UX problems that still exist.
It's willful ignorance at this point. Like, I get it, I was a crypto skeptic for a good while, I still think Bitcoin on its own is massively over-valued and doesn't actually accomplish it's original stated goals. But we're way past Bitcoin at this point, the evolution has been neck-breaking in speed. At this point, it's pretty obvious what problems it solves if you actually take an hour to earnestly learn about what's in the space (especially outside of finance).
If your best take on it is "it's all a scam", I highly encourage you to crack open some blog articles and actually explore some projects before writing off what I'm 100% confident at this point is the future of the internet.
I am sure the HN community will be open to actual proof - not marketing material please
Note: The fact that this comment was downvoted says something
Finematics on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/c/finematics
Bankless Podcast - http://podcast.banklesshq.com/
Modern Finance (by Kevin Rose, also covers NFT's a lot) - https://modern.finance/
https://www.notboring.co/p/solana-summer
the fourth picture down (the TPS Chart) probably has every current relevant name on it, from a current size and momentum perspective. binance smart chain, cardano, solana, avalanche, polkadot are all locked in a battle to dethrone ethereum. Now its a question of what wins, the incumbent, the fastest mover, the most advanced tech, the shiniest, the most colorful, the coolest name, the loudest. If/when multiple survive in the long run, which niche do they each occupy.
Visa has the highest profit margin of any company among the largest 100 companies in the world — 49%, which is a significant leap over #2 (which might be MasterCard, at 41% — I forget if there’s anyone between them). When these guys give you a high five and want in on the game, you’re probably making the electronic payments landscape less efficient, not more.
They don't. It's the non crypto crowd who do that. The crypto crowd look at them as the dinosaurs that need replacing, as the gatekeepers who can decide who can and cannot have access to online payments.
For someone who has spent a lot of time looking at next gen payment options you seem to have missed the woods for the trees.
Andy Warhol's Marilyn artwork isn't anything interesting for me, but it's clearly represents a point in art history. I can't value NFT's as long as they're digital only, non-fungibility does not create value all by itself IMO, but I understand the historical aspects of a CryptoPunk. So Visa is the first to do it in corporate world and that's a thing, but anyone following won't get the historical mention, Visa gets that.
I don't say, as art, some NFTs are not pretty. I just say they don't represent the same value (for me) as some people think. A CryptoPunk does not have a physical representation, so the one you and I see on our screens are both the same, the original one. I can already see the original whenever I want by just visiting Visa's tweet.
A CryptoPunk, especially the one Visa bought, clearly is history. But that does not apply to other NFTs, others are ordinary JPEGs.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90170415/so-many-museums-are-fil...
I think it's more so that people don't know that they're looking at a fake. I would be surprised if you told someone that the painting they're looking at is fake and they're response is "oh I don't care". I'm sure they'd be at least a bit disappointed.
I am certain that if there was a perfect replica of the Mona Lisa, the original would retain most of its value. I don't really understand why this is the case, but I do understand that it is the case.
The value for me is in knowing that I am standing in front of the same canvas that Da Vinci stood in front of. It's similar to going to a historical site and standing where history you've heard about was made and seeing/hearing/smelling something of what the people who made it did. It builds a sense of human connection, a shared experience, and makes something you "know" to be real "feel" more real.
Da Vinci never stood in front of the "atom for atom copy" of the Mona Lisa, and generations have not come from around the world to see it. We're receiving the same visual stimulus, but the ability to participate in the human connection is reduced because we know it's a copy. (Worth noting that if we didn't know it was a copy, then this wouldn't be a problem.)
Interestingly, when paintings like the Mona Lisa are concealed in those plastic protective containers, that experience is significantly decreased for me. It's strange, but that layer between the canvas and my eyeball has a major effect on my perception.
The point is moot, as you can look at super ultra high def scans of many paintings from the comfort of your home.
And you can see more details this way and not pay any museum fees too
Even the best digital display technology can only display a fraction of the human perception, something that pigments are not limited to. Pigments are also physical materials, which can reflect light in drastically different ways, which can only be appreciated in person. Finally, paintings are actually 3 dimensional, with the different brush strokes creating a detailed texture on the canvas (look at a Van Gogh for an extreme example), which won't be accurately depicted in a scan.
That's a scan, a first-generation analog copy, and thus subject to generation-loss.
CryptoPunks, being 100% digital, can be copied exactly an infinite number of times. If I download the PNG from the URL in the NFT, I have in my possession the exact same thing as the so-called "owner."
The only thing that differentiates the NFT "owner" from anyone else is a bookkeeping entry totally divorced from the infinitely-copyable and publicly-available thing it represents.
I do.
The internet nowadays is a bit stale by comparison, crypto seems to be where the action and energy is.
At this point, it seems like pure promotion, marketing & propaganda fueled by social media, a negative externality of the internet itself.
Simple equation: trash in, trash out. But sure, "a man's trash can be another's treasure".
Note: Visa's strategy is a no brainer as a business move. 150k is nothing on their marketing budget to gain exposure & PR targeting generation Z and millennials (future customers). Even if it fails, this acquisition has value as a stance because their customers (young adopters and old investors) want to be "supported", at least ideologically. Ex: "Progressive", "We were on your side, remember?"
I suggest reading their marketing whitepaper: https://usa.visa.com/content/dam/VCOM/regional/na/us/Solutio...
Today cryto provides the only way to perform a money transaction outside of the censored markets. An example, onlyfans, poor hub decided to ditch a type of content to please visa/mastercard. Cryto would allow society to ignore forced morals on money transactions. If what onlyfans provide is legal visa should not be allowed to shut them down on moral terms.
It may not be useful to you. The internet wasn't useful to most in 1995. It might be more useful in a few years where the masses have joined and the network effect is in place.
I remember when computers were seen as not useful in the 80s.. a toy that could do very little. Things change quickly.
Criminals, the third world, a certain class of the first world all users use it.
Who knows what the future holds but the next few years might be more marketing vs technology improvements in cryto. The problem with adoption is a big one to tackle next and moves like this help.
To me most criticism of NFTs is reminiscent of criticisms of modern art. Very few understand the scope of what "non fungible token" means. There are PLENTY of use-cases for a publicly verifiable token issued by a 3rd party and owned by you, other than art, if you just use a little imagination.
Why might you want that? See https://www.eff.org/issues/icann
The possibilities are both horrifying and wonderful.
A generalized system for selling and validating ownership of digital things makes implementing ticketing easier than building an entire digital ticketing ecommerce site up from scratch.
Ethereum gives you digital wallets, ownership tracking, ownership verification, resale markets via 3rd parties or p2p, and digital wallets natively.
For example, Steam games can be traded user to user on the platform, but it's all at the whims of Valve. At any moment Valve could shut down, freeze your account, disable trading etc.
For NFTs specifically, you still have to trust whatever chain and transaction says you actually own it. And there's nothing that stops someone else from also claiming they own the original except for the centralized statement of the originating party; nevermind the fact that digital bytes have no "original" anyway.
For example crypto art can be uploaded that’s a direct copy of someone else’s artwork. Copyright doesn’t care about the NFT at that point you don’t own the image.
NFTs have a soft landing if/as crypto whales diversify into NFTs. Traditionally, collectibles are a much smaller market than commodities and currencies because their uniqueness reduces their liquidity. The "huge" art market ($50B) is dwarfed by precious metals ($10+T).
both are "artistic" to a certain degree, completely useless after the purchase and initial exchange.
I can’t hang an NFT in my house. And doing so with Hallmark cards has tangible benefits to my well being. (the joy of seeing a thoughtful card with personal meaning, conversation starter if company is over, etc)
Perhaps something will be invented to reproduce that experience for NFTs, but I haven’t seen it yet.
edit: Format and speeling
That might not seem as meaningful as hanging them in your house, but I've watched it become that meaningful for a ton of people (as "irrational" as I think both NFTs and Hallmark cards are).
I met the founder a few weeks ago. He told me that some of his clients spend a few thousands for a 3x3 meters mural representing a NFT.
"Legitimacy is a pattern of higher-order acceptance. An outcome in some social context is legitimate if the people in that social context broadly accept and play their part in enacting that outcome, and each individual person does so because they expect everyone else to do the same."
The token is conceptually tied to the artwork. This is especially true with digital & software-driven work embedded within the blockchain, such as Deafbeef's tokens[1].
These issues are not new to crypto. Plenty of art is only 'conceptually' tied to their distributed editions. For example: an artist or photographer may own a digital master or photographic negative, and from that they may decide to produce and distribute 50 printed and signed editions. The distributed work is valued not because of the material (a piece of paper) or its contents (a rendered image), because it was distributed and signed by the artist's hand. Anybody could photocopy that print to produce the same rendered contents, or even print their own copy if they have access to a high resolution file and inkjet printer, but the copy would be worth no value, because it did not come from the artist's hand.
But that would require a distribution of NFT in excess of 1.
People are not minting 50 or 500 NFTs which are all the same as in your example.
People are minting 1 NFT and selling it . At that point one person (the buyer) has the original and the rest of people on the internet just screenshots it to have a 1:1 identical piece of art, which are all just the same as the original.
Plus your example also forgets one important element: the scarcity of the time and the social relationships of the artist. The 50 printed and signed editions are considered worthy because the artist had to subtract time from whatever other activity they had planned in order to sign the copies.
Once you make the process of "signing NFTs" automatized (like for example making a transaction on the blockchain via smart contract) the whole magic and scarcity of it disappears.
Maybe you could secure the scarcity by making it expensive for the artist to mint the NFT, but then they'd be the ones protesting and not adopting the tech.
The buyer holds the token (cryptographically secured to their wallet). Any person can save the JPG that is conceptually tied to the token, but that does not give them ownership over the artistic token (i.e. they cannot transfer it to another wallet).
Part of the challenge here is that it gets to the question of "art ownership" in a digital domain. If you own a JPG, do you own the artwork? According to the artist who is distributing the work as a token, and also according the social consensus of others who are collecting art in this way, the answer is no.
It does take time and fees to deploy to the blockchain, in the same way that it takes time and fees to produce a series of print artworks. My own project (Subscapes[2]) required a significant investment, to upload 17kb of generative art code onto the blockchain.
[1] - https://artblocks.wiki/
[2] - https://mattdesl.substack.com/p/subscapes-part-1-preface
But according to the rest of the world the answer is 'Yes'
The rest of the world thinks that in order for something to be considered original that thing has to be hard to replicate
Replicating an NFT is as easy as doing a screenshot or Right clic > 'Save as' . And any random internet user stumbling upon that NFT can do it.
In order to replicate a painting such as the Mona Lisa you need millions of dollars of equipment and millions of dollars to pay experts who'd do so without ruining the sole original, and still won't be the same as the original.
Maybe subtle nuances not even discernible by the human eye, but still after millions of dollars of equipment, millions of man hours you don't have something which is 1:1 as the original Mona Lisa. With NFTs is again as easy as screenshots or Right clic > 'Save as'
It depends who you ask, and when you ask it. The understanding of 'digital ownership' may be shifting, as we can see in real-time with the OP thread, where Visa is making a claim that their ownership over the digital token is distinctly different than their ownership over the digital JPG file (and, apparently, distinct enough that they felt it worth paying a large sum to acquire).
Indeed, anybody can reproduce a JPG by right clicking and saving the image, and there are many valuable artworks in art history that can be reproduced with seemingly little effort — such as all white canvases (Malevich), splashes of paint (Pollock), and handwritten instructions on scrap paper (LeWitt).
And I do not think anybody previous to NFTs would make a claim that they "own" an artist's work because they captured it via "Right Click > Save As."
Another way to view this is: ownership of digital art is not a notion that had much social consensus around it before the advent of NFTs.
I don't mean to disrespect artists but when all is said and done the only question that matters is:
"Will a museum pay me, the owner of the piece of art to have it in their collection, so I can generate passive income from it?"
In the case of real pieces of art the answer is positive.
If this critical component is missing then you are left with a market where you can only sell for profit to an individual bigger fool.
2-D NFTs won't ever pass this test, 3-D NFTs are also in bad shape because museums are a social activity, something the regular person does to shield themselves from the summer heat while at the park with their SO.
Nobody dreams of logging into a 3-D museum , alone in their living while wearing an Oculus.
Art is a real world, social activity. The process of distributing art is a real world, social activity. Blockchain won't change this.
And to answer your question: museums and institutions have been collecting 2D and 3D digital art, VR, code based art, etc for years. The NFT space provides new technologies that can be used here, and an alternative distribution channel & market for this type of work.
Of course they are. Same as with prints: singular pieces, editions of X, editions of "only available for 48 hours, everyone who buys in that time gets one", ... all are options artists use.
What you are asking is similar to Found Art. A signed toilet is not "Art" until social consensus decides that it is. An blockchain-signed Eiffel Tower is also not art, unless society says it to be so. Perhaps that will happen at some point in the future (an artist's digital reinterpretation of Found Art) but at present the crypto artworks we are mostly regarding tend to have a more direct relationship with what the artist/creator is producing by hand (or via digital code/software).
It is not much different than a print series, where the artist says the prints signed in pencil are "the artwork", and social consensus decides that only those pieces of paper with the artist's own pencil signature are valuable, instead of a reproduction by a machine or by a forger, even though the reproduction may have the same or similar material qualities.
At a conceptual level, I think the connection is more to do with “this NFT was minted by the artist’s hand (wallet), the same hand that created the artwork it points to.”
Nobody who purchases a CryptoPunk today would expect to receive a JPG or media file of a pixelated avatar in return for their purchase. Rather, they would expect to receive ownership over the token (i.e. record in a distributed ledger). In the case of CryptoPunks, there is not even any "hyperlink" in the NFT – it is just an integer from 0 to 9999, stored within the state of the CryptoPunks contract.[1]
Do they hold ownership over the media file, or pixel artwork? No. Do they hold ownership over a digital token that (according to the project's creator, and according to social consensus) represents part of the CryptoPunks art project? Yes.
[1] - https://etherscan.io/token/0xb47e3cd837ddf8e4c57f05d70ab865d...
The social consensus says what? Obviously the NFT promoters want the public to believe that the NFT is part of an art collection, and this is why they use this ambiguous language that is intended to create the false impression that the NFT and the piece of art are the same thing or at least are closely connected with one another, and indeed the uneducated public will tend to believe that, but this a belief that is founded upon a lie. Anyone who actually knows what an NFT is is very unlikely to agree that these NFTs are part of an art project or have an artistic intent.
> Anyone who actually knows what an NFT is is very unlikely to agree that these NFTs are part of an art project or have an artistic intent.
This is pretty presumptuous, and also wrong. One such counter-example is ZKM, which began acquiring NFTs in 2018.[2]
[1] - https://superrare.com/artwork/right-click-and-save-as-guy-11...
Is there a reason why people couldn't be granted a license to do whatever they wanted with an NFT? Seems kind of arbitrary to do so, but I'm sure there's a reason why it's like that.
For that price, you're getting all the rights to it in perpetuity.
recent NFT projects like Nouns[1] and many others have taken this approach!
Crypto skepticism is still a fairly mainstream position, it’s not unique to HN.
HN does tend to be especially bitter towards Crypto, something that I think will fade with time as it blends into culture without seeming like some "charlatan intruder from elsewhere".
I tend to think the rise of NFT markets represents an inflection point that will only be obvious when we connect the dots looking backwards. Plenty of people reviled Duchamp.
P.s. Please let me know where I can purchase an Alpha-Centauri real-estate NFT
If some idiot wants to blow their money on this sort of thing (and IDK why brands are exempt from being run by idiots) that's their problem, and not something I'm going to waste mental energy on beyond a post like this.
This is marketing, and marketing can be one of the less legitimate corporate endeavours (being in most cases literal manipulative propaganda). Serious corporations don't really care what negative externalities they cause, just as long as they don't have to pay for them.
They've bought a little cred with whoever they wanted to impress (be that the crypto kids, or olds painfully trying to be hip).
Browse actual NFT sites and you'll notice there's zero bids on the typical NFT. Clearly, it's not really working as a new market model. Yet.
Further, not really securing copyrights to the art itself I consider a design flaw. Without it, your ownership is make-belief.
All of that said, I'd still advocate to zoom out a little and keep an open mind to the idea. The way I see it, these are some of the first experiments in applying digital scarcity to the creative space. This first version being admittedly terrible.
Fast forward a few years and it may very well have evolved into something more sustainable and normalized. The reason I would hope for that to happen is that it may slash some very powerful gatekeepers.
When you're a photographer, right now you may need to license your work to Getty images, for pennies, them fully dictating the terms. When you're a small musician, you need to get on Spotify, them fully dictating the terms.
In theory, and hopefully in practice, next-gen NFTs can provide an alternative, a more fair market-based approach not depending on middlemen. Or at least less so.
The other advantage comes from digital property being programmable. For example, when minting an NFT, you can indicate there to be 5 copies, and you want 10% of any future resale of the piece.
You can't do that in any practical way using old school copyrights. Digital property is superior in that sense.
And there's the potential of cross pollination. Say a popular game commits to supporting NFTs. And in this war game your tank has a unique skin, that nobody else has. Instead of the game maker deciding on all skins, anybody can make them and sell them.
That would be another gate keeper slashed, and power returned to the community. Just this silly idea alone could create an enormous new market. There would be many more such new markets if/when NFTs become interoperable, instead of isolated.
We really need to leave behind this thought that when it's digital, it's worthless. Our lives are digital now. In the future, you have a digital wallet on your phone containing lots of items. Your money. Digital creative works. Maybe tokens from your favorite football club. Who knows?
Last, I find it really ironic how on an article like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28274026
...consensus is that it's a very bad thing that 5 companies own all of the digital landscape. Uniform agreement. Whilst at the same time, rejecting anything "crypto".
Crypto is the only technology and movement that I can think of to have a chance at breaking down oversized gate keepers. Half of hackernews is complaining about big tech: tracking, lack of free speech, milking users, oversized power, creators that can't monetize, killing competition by acquiring small players, hording patents, the list goes on.
Can or will crypto fix all of this? No. Probably not even close. But it's the best chance we got.
I'd like my downvotes now, please, am going to mint it.