Comment by dale_glass | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dale_glass | Hacker News Reader

NFTs aren't a good fit for this, because they critically depend on external infrastructure.

Here's a monkey: https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0xbc4ca0eda7647a8ab7c2061...

But what's actually on the blockchain? A pointer to an IPFS URL:

https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmeSjSinHpPnmXmspMjwiXyN6zS4E9zccariGR3...

Which in turn points to a picture again on IPFS.

For this to work:

First OpenSea has to do this work to format it in a human-readable way. If the authorities contact OpenSea, this may be disabled.

Next, the ipfs.io domain has to keep resolving. This can be stopped by the authorities and ICANN.

Next, ipfs.io has to keep returning data at those URLs. That can be stopped by the authorities and whover runs ipfs.io.

And if we work around the need for an IPFS proxy and talk to IPFS directly, then this still only works so long people keep on hosting that image. I don't know how many people is that world-wide, but probably not that many.

Even assuming this survives a hostile government and keeps working, the real-life owner is usually easily found and targeted.

Plus, who is going to want a shitty picture of a monkey when the chips are down? If that's your concern at least hoard Bitcoin or something.

But it has a smoking jacket!!! Only 2% have that trait! /s

The only way NFTs make any sense to me is: You are spending money so you can brag that you spent money.

Why you would do that is another question.

Doesn't that ipfs.io URL contain an IPFS content address? And the JSON blob at that address also contains another IPFS content address of the actual image file? It's obviously true that the ipfs.io web server and/or domain could be taken down by the authorities, but it would be more difficult to take down all the peers hosting that IPFS content (assuming there was enough interest in these NFTs to have a decent number of independent parties hosting the content on IPFS).

So I'm not sure if the "depends on external infrastructure" criticism really holds. It does require some participation in the IPFS peer-to-peer network, at least for you to download the content the first time, but that's also trivially true of the blockchain itself.

> Doesn't that ipfs.io URL contain an IPFS content address?

Some NFTs contain an HTTP URL to a specific IPFS proxy. This one in particular indeed doesn't, which is better.

> but it would be more difficult to take down all the peers hosting that IPFS content

True, but IPFS isn't private. If the authorities want it badly enough they can create a fair amount of trouble.

> So I'm not sure if the "depends on external infrastructure" criticism really holds. It does require some participation in the IPFS peer-to-peer network, at least for you to download the content the first time, but that's also trivially true of the blockchain itself.

IPFS is far more vulnerable than the blockchain. Arguably you're not participating in anything specific when you run a blockchain node. On IPFS you voluntarily mirror content. That means that to provide an extra source of data not only you must run IPFS, but you must voluntarily take the step to mirror this particular file.

So while on say Ethereum there's as many copies of everything as there are nodes, on IPFS it's very possible there's just a single server in the entire world that's hosting that particular data.

I would worry that if the infrastructure to access these things would be taken down, either by law, war or some kind of great depression, people would value other things than a picture of a monkey and how to keep IPFS running.

This sort of reminds me how land (not property) tends to be under taxed.

Land requires administration and military protection which is an ongoing fee but there are a lot of people who think it should be free. This then requires cross subsidization by income tax which in turn means the GDP must never go down as that would cut into income taxes that pay for land related services which are provided for free.

Here the NFT is kind of like land in that it requires both administration (OpenSea) and protection (Proof of stake). In principle the owner of an NFT would have to pay an insignificant "rental" fee to keep his NFT alive/hosted.

He could host the image himself. He could even just show you the image and transaction proving that he's the owner (of course you'll have to consult the blockchain to check if he hasn't sold it afterwards).

That said, (a) NFT infrastructure is notoriously bad and doesn't work as it is now and (b) why on Earth would you do all that just to prove you own a picture of monkey.

Why does anyone listen to ICANN when the government issues a seizure order? Why do cryptocurrencies have value if they’re not a good database for this? How can a domain be less secure on a blockchain than money?

NFTs extend past pictures that services agree to honor in their metaverses with contractually enforced royalties.

It also isn't guaranteed that NFTs will forever be on the blockchain.

https://twitter.com/kcimc/status/1628275447049109504

NFTs don't _have_ to be that way. Ordinals store all data on the blockchain for example.

I'm not saying NFTs are the answer to anything, just that there is more than one way to implement.

Besides, the "depends on external infrastructure" argument is just as true of the underlying blockchain itself. You need a peer to share the blockchain data with you too.

No, ipfs.io does not have to keep resolving.

there are plenty of SVG NFTs where everything is stored in the contract.

I personally think its useful to qualify your statement to be about improper common uses of NFTs, since few other people knows there is a difference too.

wonderful response. people forget this is why nothing online is untrackable or free from tracking, its obfuscated, but trackable.

Ultimately the govt has shown that private does not actually mean private. you can build a network, business, or even a country and if someone doesnt like it. buh bye. no questions just consequences.

we need a wireless, encrypted, and secure network, we do not have one yet.

until then this is all make believe fun until someone in government finds out they can make money controlling it. and then it gets real, fast.

decode to hex, problem solved. this is the correct way of doing it

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