Buyers of Bored Ape NFTs sue after digital apes turn out to be bad investment | Hacker News Reader

Buyers of Bored Ape NFTs sue after digital apes turn out to be bad investment

arstechnica.com

8 pointsPaulHoule13 comments

Apes/NFTs always felt like the crypto attempt to do tax arbitrage via "art" like ultra rich people do with normal art.

As soon as I saw an NFT art gallery in Zug,CH I knew something weird was going. Shame for NFT owners that most of them never got rich enough to actually try doing it.

I feel like the term investment needs to be used ONLY with products that have a reasonable expectation of a return. A stock is an investment because the company will likely exist and one day pay a dividend. A beanie baby is not an investment because it cannot in and of itself produce value to sell to pay back cost of purchase.

I find it wearying that people talk about "investing" in things when they really just mean "spending" on them. Spending is fine. Go spend. But let's not pretend this is an "investment".

There are times and places where people have looked at things like classic cars, bottles of wine, or paintings as an investment and it has worked as such.

The thing is that a Picasso or a '64 Chevy Impala are worth something, an ugly ape isn't.

The interesting thing is that the Picasso is closer to the ugly ape in the sense that the Impala has some real world use. Though technically you could probably burn a Picasso to stay warm for a bit :)

The painting is an actual painting - with oil paints, three-dimensional paint and canvas texture and light scattering, and Picasso's own brushwork (and underpainting if you x-ray it) - and you can hang it on your wall. Reproducing a copy of comparable quality would probably cost thousands (though not millions) of dollars and require a skilled artist.

Creating a bit-for-bit replica of the jpeg costs basically nothing and can be done by anyone. And you still have to print it yourself or buy a monitor if you want to hang it on your wall.

The value of something is not normally associated with how easy it is to copy.

A state secret or a trade secret could be very easy to copy and yet immensely valuable.

A print-out of 100G of random noise would be quite hard to copy and yet isn't very valuable.

It's obvious that the Picasso has more intrinsic value than a jpeg, but not that much more. Art reproductions are typically sold at a fraction of the price of the original ($20 for a very nice print, $130 for a handmade reproduction (low wage country): https://www.etsy.com/market/picasso_reproduction)

To reproduce that car would cost a fortune, much more than the car itself is worth.

Is that an investment or just getting lucky though?

If you randomly picked 1000 cars, 10 years later they would almost all be worth less. The same for paintings. For stocks you'd have made a profit on most of them.

It's different when you get to really old or special chars.

Speculation might be a more accurate term, though perhaps it is less speculative if you are restoring the car and intending to drive it or exhibit it at car shows.

I'd agree with that!

Digital apes a bad investment? Who'd have thought ...

It's certainly a shocking turn of events that nobody could have predicted.

At least tulip bulbs are useful for growing flowers, beanie babies are serviceable plush toys, and Pokémon cards can be used to play a game.

Buyer’s remorse is not a great legal strategy is it.

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