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Comment by Always_Anon | Hacker News Reader

After I learned that NFTs were essentially just signed git commits, I wrote them off as a hilarious grift. I feel bad for the people that were injured, so here's my advice: run away from NFTs and crypto. RUN AWAY!

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A signed git commit is actually immutable. An NFT is generally the signed text of a URL, which kind of isn't.

Wait what, I thought it was at least the hash of the image or something.

No, NFTs technically have nothing to do with images, or files at all. The way it works is that you write a random string and save it on a blockchain, which becomes the NFT. From there, you can use a lookup table to map the NFT to a URL that links to an image that's stored on the owner's server. NFTs are truly the worst of all grifts.

> you write a random string and save it on a blockchain, which becomes the NFT. From there, you can use a lookup table to map the NFT to a URL that links to an image that's stored on the owner's server

The way which they are mapped to images vary from NFT to NFT.

But let's look at Bored Ape Yacht Club specifically.

Collection https://opensea.io/collection/boredapeyachtclub

Pick a random bored ape. For example #1337.

https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0xbc4ca0eda7647a8ab7c2061...

From there we can see the bored ape Ethereum "smart contract"

https://etherscan.io/address/0xbc4ca0eda7647a8ab7c2061c2e118...

This contract is responsible for minting all of the original Bored Ape NFTs

Click on "contract". And then click "read contract".

Scroll down. There is a method named "tokenURI". It takes an integer as parameter. Let's query it with value "1337" (the id of the bored ape we are interested in knowing about).

Result:

ipfs://QmeSjSinHpPnmXmspMjwiXyN6zS4E9zccariGR3jxcaWtq/1337

Let's visit that URL via an IPFS gateway.

https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/QmeSjSinHpPnmXmspMjwiXyN6zS...

It contains JSON data.

    {"image":"ipfs://QmWjXFUVNjavM4hDzXeQYGXGCXjV86mP7kPEaTeP5bohae","attributes":[{"trait_type":"Background","value":"Yellow"},{"trait_type":"Fur","value":"Dark Brown"},{"trait_type":"Clothes","value":"Bone Necklace"},{"trait_type":"Mouth","value":"Bored Unshaven"},{"trait_type":"Hat","value":"Horns"},{"trait_type":"Eyes","value":"Bloodshot"}]}

We make note of the IPFS URL for the image from here.

ipfs://QmWjXFUVNjavM4hDzXeQYGXGCXjV86mP7kPEaTeP5bohae

And visit that one via our chosen IPFS gateway.

https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/QmWjXFUVNjavM4hDzXeQYGXGCXj...

So there you have it. Via the Bored Ape smart contract we retrieved the JSON data and image file for Bored Ape #1337 from IPFS.

{"trait_type":"Eyes","value":"Bloodshot"} is a particularly well-chosen example here.

Retrieving that image relies on someone continuing to pin the file indefinitely, though, right?

The neat thing about IPFS is that the IPFS URL is based on a hash of the file.

So having saved that file offline on my harddrive, I can later re-add it to IPFS.

    ipfs add Downloads/1337.png

    added QmWjXFUVNjavM4hDzXeQYGXGCXjV86mP7kPEaTeP5bohae 1337.png
     140.68 KiB / 140.68 KiB [=============================================] 100.00%

Notice that because I added the same file to my local ipfs, it got the same id as it had when I retrieved it.

QmWjXFUVNjavM4hDzXeQYGXGCXjV86mP7kPEaTeP5bohae

So, IPFS doesn't even require that the file is indefinitely pinned.

And if I have a public node, others can now once again retrieve the file using the same known id.

The person that re-adds it doesn't have to (nor can) specify the id of the file; that's calculated from the hash of it.

(Although, IPFS does also have a way to serve mutable data, so in those cases the id is not calculated directly from just a hash. But in the case of the image we looked at here we see that it was.)

The difference between needing to pin forever and merely needing to have a copy of the same file somewhere outside of IPFS which is then re-added to IPFS and gets the same ID is a fine distinction perhaps, but still an important one IMO.

And I think that even if all of the IPFS nodes that currently have a copy of the Bored Apes would go offline, there is probably someone out there who would notice that and for whatever reason be motivated to make all of the apes available again on IPFS with their same original id's that they had by re-adding the original files.

Right, it's like a torrent in that way. I have dozens of torrents where I am waiting for that one guy to -- bless his soul -- open up his torrent client and seed the last 14 bytes.

I guess the best thing to do if you own an Ape is to store the image on your HDD and put a copy in a safe-deposit box, and then pin it yourself whenever you can.

Thanks for the explanation, it makes a bit more sense that it is an ipfs URL.

As mentioned though, it varies between different NFT projects. Some NFT projects lazily use Google Drive links etc instead. And then the files in the Google Drive could later be modified or deleted.

See for example https://web3isgoinggreat.com/?tech=nft&id=goblintown-nft-ima...

> Goblintown NFT images all changed to an illustrated middle finger in protest about royalties

AFAIK it is often perfectly possible to actually encode image data on-chain, it is just much more expensive (and much less common as a result)

Perhaps but the standard NFT is a URL encoded in the chain. Yes this is as absurd as it sounds.

It seems to me that cryptocoin adjacent things somehow attract well meaning people who just don't understand what parts of the technology are critical to its functionality. Maybe they understand one use case for a signature but don't really understand what signature is and more importantly what it isn't.

And sadly enough - several cryptocoins themselves are also this way.

I used to think cryptocoins were truly revolutionary. But the tech space is so rife with abuse, theft, scams that it doesn't feel worth it.

People get upset when you do this because storing data on-chain is, possibly, infinitely expensive, since you can never get rid of it.

>since you can never get rid of it

if you're an actual believer in NFTs, isn't that kind of the point?

Since finding this out a couple years back it's always my delight to see this realization happen for others.

We knew NFTs were stupid... we just couldn't comprehend how incredibly stupid they actually are.

What baffling is how did they get this popular ? Plenty of stupid things to go around, why this specific one? Who was the marketing genius that convinced a critical mass to buy something worse than sand in the middle of the desert.

At a first level, similar phenomenon to why trading cards or any other collectible fads have their periods of excitement. Is digital beanie babies at all surprising?

Then there were also folks who wanted to use them as an open standard for, like, "metaverse assets" and whatnot. And while there are many different ways to solve that technically, you also have the blockchain proponents looking for any problem that blockchain can solve... So there is the added energy from that synergy as well.

Then I believe there are fairly serious businesses looking at NFTs for things like digital albums sales (or other ways to cultivate and monetize parasocial relationships) while disintermediating the traditional platforms.

My opinion, I am not an expert by any means, I have only read the bitcoin whitepaper and written some very trivial blockchains to further my own understanding:

Blockchain and cryptocurrencies are impressive novel technology, they suit how they are used and work as a fungible token/currency. The underlying tech is impressive, like cryptography, and cannot (backdoors excepted) be broken for its intended purpose. Smart people who understand it recognized the potential and validity of the technology, and so it grew organically and became the phenomenon it is today. There is no technical gotcha, scams are another topic.

The general public's exposure was much more surface level and occurred after the tech had grown organically among technical folks. Now you pay with your CC on a familiar looking website, to buy something everyone says has value. It seems normal, and although you don't understand the underlying tech, you trust it is valuable. Lots of people get rich, lots of people lose money, but BTC remains valuable and the market remains. My elderly mother who is not technically literate is asking me how to invest.

After that, the general public has been conditioned to expect blockchain adjacent tech to be legitimate, they are feeling like they missed the gold rush but there is a new gold rush! NFTs! This time we skip the organic growth of a novel technology, adopted by smart people who understand the underlying tech. Now it is inorganic growth exploiting the crypto hype and pushed by hustlers. There is a legitimate use case for artists but that isn't what is driving the new mania.

This time there are massive technical gotchas (you have a link to a .jpg hosted on a server or servers, you don't own the copyright to anything). People find this out after the hype and massive adoption, if BTC never worked for its purpose it wouldn't have grown organically. NFTs have skipped that. There are torrents with every NFT pulled from these servers to highlight the lack of ownership, of technical control, I can't torrent your Bitcoins but I can download your stoned apes.

This is a long opinion, but it's why I think you see people find out after the fact just how flaky NFTs are.

> There is a legitimate use case for artists but that isn't what is driving the new mania.

> This time there are massive technical gotchas (you have a link to a .jpg hosted on a server or servers, you don't own the copyright to anything).

It sounds like you've reconciled this, I'm curious how?

The use-case may be valid but the implementation doesn't necessarily facilitate it.

I'm stating in the first quote that there is an idea of artists selling their work, but that isn't what is driving the accelerated adoption.

In the second quote I point out some of the technical deficiencies, it is supposed to contrast the first. It doesn't reconcile.

The comment chain is on the topic of why these technical deficiencies are news to so many people, my opinion is that we skipped the scrutiny that BTC experienced and we experienced a gold rush.

It could be. I don't know about the ERC for NFTs and I can't be bothered to read it, but in theory just store the IPFS address for the image.

In reality though it is an implementation detail. An NFT is just a coloured coin, and derives it's value from someone else thinking they can buy it and sell it on to someone else / OR some kind of bragging rights value, i.e. I can afford $100k on X useless thing (e.g. watch, gold plated iPhone etc.) so therefore I am rich.

> I can afford $100k on X useless thing

Pretty sure the X useless thing was $44 billion.

No. You just own a number in a smart contract.

It’s typically an IPFS hash of an image that is stored on the blockchain, rather than a mutable URL. Some generative artworks will even store all of their code on-chain.

Ultimately, the chain is meant to be a ledger of transactions (like a decentralized Christie’s auction house maintaining provenance), not a storage layer.

Yep, git is essentially a blockchain. NFTs but also all cryptocurrency transactions are essentially git commits containing a digital signature from the owner (to prove ownership), what the owner is transacting, and the public key of the receiver. Sometimes it is a bit more complicated, there may be some instructions others than "I am A, send the X to B", but that's the idea.

The big difference between git and a blockchain like Bitcoin and Ethereum is how you do "pull requests". On git, usually, there is a designated central repository that is controlled by project maintainers, and when you submit a pull request, they check it, merge it to central, and others get it back from here.

With blockchains, there is no designated central repository, to merge a pull request, you have to win a sort of lottery, commonly by reversing a crypto hash (mining). The more invested you are into the system, the higher the odds. If you win, you show it to the the world, do the merge, and everyone pulls from you. By randomly selecting who does the pull among the most invested limits the chance of one bad actor ruining the system for everyone. In case of a conflict, the branch with the most commits wins, because that's the one with the most "lottery winners" and therefore the most likely to be the right one. To encourage others to merge that pull request, there is usually a reward for those who do (transaction fees).

Technically, it is very sound, just like git is, in a sense. The "proof-of-work" lottery is wasteful in electricity though, and of course, what you do with it is another matter. Just like git can be used for good (ex: linux) or for bad (ex: developing malware).

Hey! i mean you own that commit hash! and you can show it to others through an ipfs link!

So basically ipfs won?! or lost?!

the worst were one that didn't even host on IPFS, they used their own domain names

essentially. a whole industry cropped up around hosting them, which mostly defeats the point

there are a lot of NFTs that are better implementations, the primary improvement being that there is no external hosting and they build the visual data into the smart contract function for a renderer to interpret

Ive done a lot with SVGs that way. others upload dependendies like three.js on the blockchain in other smart contracts, so when called they can return into yours and you have more sophisticated renders

I think artblocks does something like that, not sure

Most of the financial sector NFTs have an onchain svg too, like all the Uniswap liquidity pools

first movers are often poorer implementations of the technology, its up to the consumers to discern and if they dont then there is no incentive to act differently

This whole smart contract stuff looks very interesting.

Do you have resources for someone that only know the basics of cryptocurrencies and blockchains ?

build some EVM (ethereum virtual machine) scaffolding in a local environment at

https://scaffoldeth.io/

Not even a signed git commit.

But rather, a signed receipt that says you paid for the nft.

It’s actually a mapping between an unsigned integer and public key, stored on all nodes. It only requires a signature to persist the state change.

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