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Comment by 1023bytes

4 years ago

Well that's very cheap considering people spend millions of dollars on hashes of pictures of randomly generated monkeys

In a number of high-value cases, no one spent any money at all, just transaction fees; they traded to themselves to give the appearance of a higher price.

I thought a lot about this comment. I deeply would want that Apple-1 in a way, massive piece of Apple history. But then I think about owning it - what a pain. It needs to be in an air conditioned room, bugs nibble at it, dust gathers, where do I put it in my house anyway? It's so cool in my mind but the glory of having it seems less so.

However, with an NFT, there's no maintenance cost, it's always the same, it's pristine. I can do whatever I want with it, shrink it for socks, grow it to put on a blimp, make cakes, whatever.

For the first time I can see why people spend millions of dollars on hashes of pictures of randomly generated monkeys.

Wow. So something that’s essentially a piece of junk today has a valid absurdly high price just because there are absurdly high priced random digital thingies?

Well an NFT has way more utility than this thing. It makes you part of an online community. Naturally it has a different value.

  • "...part of a community". Man, I didn't know Amway[0] had pivoted to NFTs. Speaking of business, did you know that as an Amway representative, you can become part of a community of small business owners! I mean, NFT owners!

    [0]https://www.amway.com

  • You're correct that buying a BAYC nft does make you a member of a very active community. It's very much a club membership.

    But owning a prime piece of vintage computing history gets you into a community too. And owning one is as much as status play as BAYC is.

  • This has more utility because, assuming it works, it's a general purpose computer. You might even be able to mine crypto with it.

  • You can join online communities for free, but then again there's not much value in joining online communities.

    • I think you just hit on something there, though.

      There isn't an easy way to flex your status online, unless you're a celebrity, or put in the work to become an influencer.

      For people with money, there isn't a simple way to come to places like HN and just be important because you have money. There isn't a way to show people how wealthy and powerful you are without contributing.

      But NFT's allow you to show people how much disposable income you have, and therefore how much better you are than the unwashed masses, without needing to really do anything of substance.

      Or maybe that's just my own personal bias and confusion about NFT's in general showing?

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