[Closed] Am I getting old? NFT’s and new money??

It's not for the likes of you, old fella. Not when you can get a princely 0.1% interest on a savings account.

Things are worth what people will pay for them. Some people have more money than they know what to do with. QED.

🤣🤣🤣 I’d probably have more chance of understanding it if I wasn’t so busy with DIY doing up the house!
I’m only 38 🤣

Don’t talk to me about savings accounts. Money’s better off in crypto than the minuscule interest of bank accounts!!

It's basically a new way of trying to create a wider ranging crypto currency, the difference is that bitcoin, etc are fungible, i.e. they all have equal value in the same currency, NFTs are, as the name suggests, non-fungible, so are not all at the same level, so an NFT could be £0.01 or £10 million.

It is getting a lot of press just now, but you get the feeling the market and internet are driving this for quick and easy profits, reality for me is that for profits to be made, losses have to be incurred elsewhere, i just can't see past these things being another pyramid style deal, yes profit is there, but somewhere down the line when the music stops!

I do get a bit depressed with the way the world is going in terms of finance, we had a huge global crash because money was being made out of thin air, is this type of digital currencies any different, instead of debt being graded, we're grading crypto and doing the same.

Just think of NFTs as a pyramid scheme, and you won't be far wrong.

Are you sure a pyramid is really the right shape to dismiss it with?

Thank you I appreciate it, it’s what I was getting the idea of. A bit like the whole Doge movement, buy, let it boom and sell. Then wait for the next thing…

Or just give it a go and learn about a new technology that not that many people understand yet. Figure out how much money you're willing to lose and start buying small lots of crypto on a centralized exchange such as Coinbase to get started. With only a small bag to play with it's better to avoid Etherium based tokens as these have massive fees that can make a small amount essentially worthless. Next step move your crpyo out of centralized exchange to a non custodial wallet and start staking with validators of your choice and earn. Don't stake on the centralized exchanges because they take 100% commission and give you a smaller cut than you'd get with an independent validator. Centralized exchanges also defeat the purpose of decentralized finance. Now is a good time to start as there's a bit of a dip in a lot of coins right now.

He's referring to NFTs rather than crypto as a whole though sirromj.

I've dabbled in crypto over the years, most of the alt coins are effectively a pyramid scheme - see Greater Fool theory - but if you hit one with broader and lasting appeal, you could be holding something worth having in the future.

I'm not sure NFTs are understandable without understanding crypto.

Now is a might not be a good time to start as there’s a bit of a dip plummet in a lot of coins right now.

FTFMS. It's got a few people scared!

I listened in on a live chat on NFT’s which was joined by Idris Elba of all people, and I’m still none the wiser how it all works?

You can own NFT art but creating it is not for average Joe to do?

I have some bitcoins invested at the less known end of the market but I’m doing that through Revolut so no idea about digital wallets etc.

Perhaps I’m doing this all wrong.

Good explanation here and a practical use of NFT to provide provenace for luxury items.
Also makes a good case for holding stablecoins.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-u_OAayO5Io

The idea has validity but the current situation is a bubble. Ride the wave if your brave or whatch it pop and see what arrises from the ashes which will be more interesting.

NFTs 😂😂😂. A worse scam than crypto. You’d be better holding on to your fiat currency and watch its value steadily decline with inflation. Or just put it in a pension pot and watch the effects of tax relief and compound interest at work.

Folks’ reports of what they’ve gained remind me of gamblers’ reports of winnings. Lots of good news. Surprisingly little bad news.

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/behind-the-bastards/id1373812661?i=1000544197870

The Future is not only Useless, it's Expensive

I have a suspicion that these things are all the result of central banks printing free money since 2008 and crazy low interest rates. If that ever changes they will rapidly become worthless. But I could be wrong.

I struggle to get my head around all this but my 13 year old son has amassed a tidy sum from Crypto and now NFT’s. I just wish now I’d allowed him to do this 2 years ago when he first showed an interest!

Are you sure a pyramid is really the right shape to dismiss it with?

Absolutely. There's an imperative  for a commodity that is endlessly renewable, but the commodity itself is useless, and doesn't matter.  It won't collapse like a trad ponzi scheme in the way that say Madoff's did, but it is absolutely a grift to take money from people.

An NFT is just a unique electronic item, as I understand it. So in the same way that an original Van Gough is worth a lot more than a print, now the original picture of some meme is worth a lot more than copies of it. This wasn't possible before as all copies were identical.

Bitcoin is different, it's a currency with a finite number of units, and it's harder and harder to get more. If this isn't a blatant pyramid scheme I don't know what is. Early adopters were bound to get rich, driving demand for smaller and smaller amounts to be worth having. And while the value goes up it becomes economically viable to throw more and more physical resources at extracting it (electricity in this case) which means it will just keep consuming physical resources for later adopters to stay still whilst the early ones get even richer.

It is already a major generator of emissions, and it produces nothing.

Can’t beat a bit of greed to separate punters from their money.

There’s a whole infrastructure business also trading on the back of this stuff as well as well ,it’s the same old game but reimagined for a new generation.

Just gambling with a useless commodity.(you could get lucky or not)

The wolf of wall st must be gutted that this stuff wasn’t around earlier, he’d have made a bigger killing 🙂

I suppose with an nft you could treat it as private plate for your online digital avatar , so when banksy puts a few out could get very interesting.

I actually like Andy Warhol stuff as it was a clever idea screeen printing pictures as you could sell loads at a reasonably lower entry than a one off.

When the music stops, a lot of people will be left with worthless NFTs that they paid a lot of money for.

Loads of people will have made a tidy profit playing the tune though.

As @molgrips said, NFTs are just transfer of ownership of original digital material to a new owner. the original material is essentially copywritten by the creator at inception and affords them the chance to sell it later. In this way it's no different to artists with paintings/songs. The new NFT owner doesn't own the copywrite (unless specified in the sale of the NFT) just the item and thus has no immediate rights of display or reproduction.

It's no different to art, it's just virtual/digital. The skill is in knowing what will become valuable in the future, just like art.

Emperor's new clothes.
There probably are some legitimate and justifiable uses for NFTs but most of it is hype around an idea that people don't really understand and are hoping to make a quick buck on or are scared of missing out - meanwhile there are masses of energy spent on keeping blockchains running. You might as well be investing in coal.

Forget NFTs, new money will soon be piling into tulips. Get in there early is what I say.

So in the same way that an original Van Gough is worth a lot more than a print, now the original picture of some meme is worth a lot more than copies of it.

I think if you only believe NFTs are useful for trading memes, you'll probably not see the value.

Imagine a world where everything that you own as a digital product can now, potentially, be resold. Digital things become finite - you can't simply copy them. In that respect, ownership in the digital realm becomes just as real as owning a physical book. You can sell on those digitally-downloaded games / books / films / documents. It can be structured in such a way that the original creator continues to get a share when this happens, too. This is hugely beneficial for content creators, of course, but also for consumers whose digital items now have value.

There's also a whole rabbit hole of how other industries could move wholesale to blockchain/NFT tech. The stock market, with NFT shares for example, could be democratised with blockchain transactions being visible to everyone. Obviously there are a lot of people with interests on both sides of that fence.

Should you 'invest' in meme NFTs? Probably not, unless you understand the meme culture / value proposition extremely well. Should you be aware that this industry may reshape our world over the next decade? Definitely. I'd love to invest in NFT infrastructure stuff, I think it's got potential to be huge. I don't really know enough about the industry to get started, though.

Daffy
Full Member
As @molgrips said, NFTs are just transfer of ownership of original digital material to a new owner. the original material is essentially copywritten by the creator at inception and affords them the chance to sell it later. In this way it’s no different to artists with paintings/songs. The new NFT owner doesn’t own the copywrite (unless specified in the sale of the NFT) just the item and thus has no immediate rights of display or reproduction.

It’s no different to art, it’s just virtual/digital. The skill is in knowing what will become valuable in the future, just like art.

Except a lot of it doesn't have copyright, or any rights to reproduction, so effectively you own the 'original', which has a value in relation to NFTs, as long as the market and structure stay the same, your NFT can gain or lose value, but most of them won't be earning you anything in the mean time, like a real painting that is reproduced or used for other means.

I think if you only believe NFTs are useful for trading memes, you’ll probably not see the value.

Indeed and everything you say follows on from the fundamental concept. I just gave an example based on a traditional example.

But also as said copyright is different. The original hand written paper version of a Beatles song would be like an NFT in the modern world, but whoever buys that paper version doesn't own the copyright, the record company does. And in the case of say, the disaster girl meme, I don't think anyone owns the copyright. But someone now owns the original NFT. Although I dunno how anyone can claim a particular file is the original of that.

NFT is just a technology, if people want to pay through the nose for something unique like a meme photo, a painting or a Beanie Boo that's up to them.

Forget NFTs, new money will soon be piling into tulips. Get in there early is what I say.

Oh, very good 🙂

Can’t beat a bit of greed to separate punters from their money.

Very much this. I see lots of people saying they only chuck £x amount a month in bitcoin which is the equivalent of beer money so can afford to lose it all. Thing is there are literally millions of people doing this around the world so the whole thing becomes a rolling ball of s***

Ivanka Trump will sell you an NFT and you get a free hat and an actual painted picture.

https://melaniatrump.com/head-of-state

CAUTION: She's from a family of grifters.

The original hand written paper version of a Beatles song would be like an NFT in the modern world, but whoever buys that paper version doesn’t own the copyright, the record company does.

True, but there's no reason that the copyright to a recording and the paper copy can't be sold together / as a unit.

E.g. That Wu-Tang Clan album that was sold for private use only. Now there's an NFT that is part of it. So absolutely an NFT owner could own the copyright (or at least the distribution rights, if that's different).

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/wu-tang-nft-album-once-upon-time-shaolin-1244859/

NFTs are like the beanie baby market in the 90s. Except you don't get the actual beanie baby, you just get the receipt proving you paid for it. All whilst consuming the power of a medium size country - neat!

The Blockchain is like a regular database, with much lauded benefits that never seem to materialise.

Crypto is a massive rug pull, sure lots of people made money, lots of people lost money, and when it crashes it's going to be a disaster. It does nothing better than fiat. I'm looking forward to the day that tether gets audited and to no one's surprise they don't have the cash they claim to.

All this stuff is just Herbalife for tech bros - the reason they love talking about it is they need more people on board to keep propping it up.

So absolutely an NFT owner could own the copyright (or at least the distribution rights, if that’s different).

The whole point of that album is there aren't going to be distribution rights - it's a conceptual art piece that specifically prohibits being used in the way a traditional album would be used, if that changes it ceases to be what it is. So how does that work?

Crypto is a massive rug pull

There's nothing essentially wrong with crypto as a self-regulating decentralised FIAT currency as it was originally conceived. In fact it has a number of useful functions, but the need to trade in their "value" instead of cypto having any usefulness in of itself is a million miles from how it was envisioned, That all the people profiteering from their value have to be regulated by most countries financial regulator, and that the implied payment for mining is clearly not happening in some cases  kinda makes the whole thing at the very least scam adjacent, if not an actual grift, which it clearly is in some cases.

I’m looking forward to the day that tether gets audited and to no one’s surprise they don’t have the cash they claim to.

Although not audited I thought it had been proved that tether was not actually tethered? They were using some sort of creative accounting?

I could write a thousand words on the subject, but it doesn't need that many.

In my opinion, it's just the latest digital alchemy, Crypto 'created' $2.6tn worth of 'money' from nothing over the last 15 years or so, NFTs have created $16bn in about 12 months.

Could the NFT market collapse? Certainly, I think it probably will at some point, someone mentioned Tulip bulbs? Yep, it's a goldrush.

Could the collapse in the NFT market cause the Crypto market to collapse? Yep. Nothing lasts forever and $2.6tn worth Crypto could start looking like a warehouse full of rotting tulip bulbs pretty quickly.

I think the main thing though is that there's always going to be the next bubble and the next crash, the next recession. You can risk it and get involved, if you're lucky (it's more luck than judgement) you'll make some money and get out before it bursts, or you can ignore it. Either way, your financial future will be affected by it and your decision as an induvial to buy/sell NFTs or not will make no difference to the market, we're all just too small.

NFTs are like the beanie baby market in the 90s. Except you don’t get the actual beanie baby, you just get the receipt proving you paid for it. All whilst consuming the power of a medium size country – neat!

I don't think NFTs consume power, do they? Bitcoin mining does.

There’s nothing essentially wrong with crypto as a self-regulating decentralised FIAT currency as it was originally conceived.

No? I can't see how the limited supply allows for growing economy without massively increasing the value of the early versions of it. It'd be like having gold as your currency when gold mining output decreases at a steady rate and no new deposits will ever be discovered. As supply of bitcoin goes down all that happens is that the value goes up, which means that the people who got in early get richer and richer, as long as there's something to convert their bitcoin into. But there is a real cost of mining more, this is getting harder and is consuming real resources (energy, hardware, manufacturing) and that is going to increase. It's already problematic, and it's going to get worse. People will be working in factories to produce hardware and wind turbines to power it just to make investors rich INSTEAD of doing actual productive work.

I can't see how this is better than normal currencies. We can make more £ by simply decreeing it, but those who have the power to do that have a vested interest in not doing it, so it self regulates (ideally). There's nothing regulating bitcoin. Free market principles will maintain the profitability of putting more and more effort and resources into mining.

I'd really appreciate one bit of help understanding how NFTs are created. How is scarcity ensured? If someone made an NFT of a meme picture, what is stopping me from changing one pixel of that picture and using it to create my own NFT (which I could try to sell).

I get how bitcoins could have a stable value since supply is limited, but surely there is no upper limit on the number of NFTs that could exist?

(I'm sure I have fundamentally missed a key point somewhere but have never found an explanation!)

If someone made an NFT of a meme picture, what is stopping me from changing one pixel of that picture and using it to create my own NFT

AIUI you could, but the owner of the original NFT could say 'hey that's not the real one, mine is' and they could prove theirs was real rendering yours worthless. Which is what happens with traditional art only it's harder to spot a fake.

there will be some useful reason for nft's at some point, but it does feel a shame that their selling point is digital scarcity. Its the biggest benefit of being digital is the ability to make "infinite" copies. Does feel like a step back not forward.

I’d really appreciate one bit of help understanding how NFTs are created. How is scarcity ensured? If someone made an NFT of a meme picture, what is stopping me from changing one pixel of that picture and using it to create my own NFT (which I could try to sell).

In practical terms they're created by 'minting' them. You take your unique 'art' there are a few services that will allow you to do so and you pay them a few hundred dollars (in crypto of course) to 'mint' it (make it a unique code) and then put it up for sale.

There's not much stopping you taking an existing image and changing it slightly (although I suppose the original artist could claim ownership of your NFT later, but really, that's not the point. Your NFT's value isn't based on it's artistic merit, not really anyway (despite what some may claim) it's not worth anything because you're not well known enough to make it special or unique (Social Media and economic alchemy crashing together there).

Lots of people with a 'presence' are trying to sell NFTs at the moment, Jake and Logan Paul (one of which thinks he can beat Mike Tyson Boxing) and the likes of Paris Hilton etc, but values have crashed.

It really is as shady and stupid as it sounds.

You can own NFT art but creating it is not for average Joe to do?

Anyone can. AIUI you buy a bit of a coin (generally etherium), create your masterpiece, link one to the other on the blockchain and voilla you have your NFT. You can now sell your NFT for $0.000001 because you're not a famous artist and no one cares for your NFT.

I don’t think NFTs consume power, do they? Bitcoin mining does.

Yep, it's just like any other transaction using this "technology".

Buying a packet of chewing gum in El Salvador now uses 1900kWh of electricity.

Or the same as 1,500,000 visa transactions.

Or a 2 bedroom flat for a a year.

Just think about that, every time someone says they made a profit selling bitcoin, they used the same energy as a a household uses domestically in a year.......

it’s not worth anything because you’re not well known enough to make it special or unique

So no different to art then.

No? I can’t see how the limited supply allows for growing economy without massively increasing the value of the early versions of it.

Yes Molly, sorry you're correct. What I should have said is there no reason why you shouldn't have a decentralised self regulating FAIT currency

Buying a packet of chewing gum in El Salvador now uses 1900kWh of electricity.

@thisisnotaspoon : Citation required. That seems astronomical / unfeasible. It also presumably relies on that bitcoin never being re-used. A bit like saying that 1p coins cost more than 1p to make*, which is RIDICULOUS. Until you consider that they each get re-used hundreds of times.

*Citation unavailable - the Royal Mint don't publish costs. BUT it apparently costs the US govt 1.66 cents to make a 1c coin.

I think there’s usefulness in being able to assign uniqueness or provenance to a digital creation and from that perspective NFTs have some validity. Subsequently and dependent on the creator, the creation, and its ownership, ‘the one’ likely has an increased value and that’s where it just becomes part of the creative market.

@superficial

1780kWh per transaction (not minting, transaction)

148kwh per 100,000 Visa transactions (which makes it more like 1.2 million, the one I was using was per transaction so probably had a rounding error)

https://www.statista.com/statistics/881541/bitcoin-energy-consumption-transaction-comparison-visa/

Source for the electricity usage for a 2 bed flat.

https://www.switch-plan.co.uk/energy/consumption/average-electricity/

Thinking of NFTs purely in terms of digital art is VERY limiting - you need to think of them as events. The point of creation coupled to the item specifically is a large part of what makes NFTs valuable. That's the scarcity.

@thisisnotaspoon

You are presenting numbers as if that is the marginal cost of each transaction, when it really isn't. If I make an extra bitcoin transaction, it doesn't result in any material increase in electricity usage whatsoever.

Thinking of NFTs purely in terms of digital art is VERY limiting – you need to think of them as events. The point of creation coupled to the item specifically is a large part of what makes NFTs valuable. That’s the scarcity.

The uniqueness of the events surroundinig the creation of an item of physical art is what makes it possible to identify an "orginal" (or an n/20 etc.). Which is central to the value of original artworks. I am not sure I see the difference, unless you are saying that the thing created doesn't have to be "art" at all. But let's not get involved in a discussion of what art is.

Thinking of NFTs purely in terms of digital art is VERY limiting

I'm just giving it as an example, but yes it can apply to loads of things.

What I should have said is there no reason why you shouldn’t have a decentralised self regulating FAIT currency

Correct but again AIUI if it's not backed by anything it is going to be intrinsically highly volatile and likely to be not much use for anything other than playing the market.

If I make an extra bitcoin transaction, it doesn’t result in any material increase in electricity usage whatsoever.

Not necessarily, chances are your transaction is going to contribute to the value of bitcoin, and the higher the value the more viable it is to throw resources at mining more. And each new coin requires MORE resources than the last one.

If I make an extra bitcoin transaction, it doesn’t result in any material increase in electricity usage whatsoever.

No, it really does. When you make a bitcoin transaction, it gets written into the blockchain, and the process that verifies each block of transactions *is* the mining process. The bitcoins that you get from mining are a reward to incentivise people to waste the stupendous amounts of power needed to verify each block.

@fueled

AIUI each coin mined incorporates the record of the transactions since the last one.

So while not an incremental cost, it is a simple* x divide by y calculation to give the monumentally wasteful cost of the network per transaction. One doesn't work in isolation from the other.

*it probably isn't if you tried to forecast it because the difficulty of mining the coin in the first place is derived from a whole load of factors. But in retrospect, the calculation is valid to say the transaction cost that.

Why are you arguing about Bitcoin energy demands again? Bin dun in the How Decide Crypto thread. Plenty of blockchains using the Proof of Stake algorithm which doesn't have the same high energy demands. So mostly irrelevant to NFTs.

So mostly irrelevant to NFTs.

Bollocks, utter bollocks (and you probably know that).

Most NFT's are on etherium. 97% in fact (source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/blockchains-vie-for-nft-market-but-ethereum-still-dominates-report)

Which, while not Bitcoin. Is still 210 kWh per transaction. Or the equivalent of 6 weeks electricity for the aforementioned flat, or driving a Model 3 720miles (same source as last time, and 0.29miles per kW from the Muskmobile).

Plenty of blockchains using the Proof of Stake algorithm which doesn’t have the same high energy demands.

I'm still having flashbacks to last year and trying to buy hard drives for work whilst Chia was the next big thing. The only thing harder to get a hold of was decent plywood, but I can't blame the plywood on crypto.

I don’t think NFTs consume power, do they? Bitcoin mining does.

The vast majority of NFTs are on the Etherium blockchain, which is another Proof Of Work coin. It's the reason no-one has been able to get graphics cards for years. It uses a huge amount of electricity, but it's not as bad as BTC.

https://kylemcdonald.github.io/ethereum-emissions/

The process of creating ('minting') an NFT takes a surprising amount of energy, and then each transaction does too. But once minted, the general 'existence' of an NFT doesn't require energy, no.

(There has been talk of ETH moving to Proof Of Stake for several years. It's always been about 18 months away, and AFAIK it is still, currently, about 18 months away. PoS is much less environmentally damaging, but seems to be a kind of feudalism where the richest few get to charge the serfs for using the blockchain, so arguably still bad.)

Plenty of blockchains using the Proof of Stake algorithm which doesn’t have the same high energy demands

AFAIK this still "In theory" and while Ethereum have been "exploring" the use of POS, they haven't converted, and they said that at least 2 years ago now. So the two most popular cryptocurrencies still use as much power as Thailand does every year.

Why are you arguing about Bitcoin energy demands again?

Because it's an utter, monumental, gargantuan, epic, colloquial-word-for-reproduction-ing disaster.

And everyone involved in it, supporting it, or making money from it deserves to be informed of that, mocked for their shear tone-deafness towards climate change, or just plain told they're wrong. At ever colloquial-word-for-reproduction-ing oportunity.

@thisisnotaspoon

Thought experiment: for each extra transaction, where does the extra processing power (=electricity consumption) come from? If I do a million transactions in a minute, where would all the extra processing power come from?

AIUI, what happens is that each transaction means more competition for the (finite) number of transactions allowed in a ten minute block, and so the processing fee 'paid' to miners increases. At the moment, the revenue from new bitcoins awarded to miners dwarfs the revenue for miners from transaction fees, hence there is no *material* increase in incentive for more processing power to be put into mining. Admittedly that might change in coming decades as the number of new bitcoins awarded to miners decreases, and transaction fees become a larger part of the revenue.

All a big scam IMHO even if the blockchain tech may have some utility.

NFTs and crypto is full of wash trading pumping up the price. It's all unregulated which never ends well. This is further reflected in the stabelcoins which are almost certainly backed by inadequate liquidity.

Doublethink is rife in crypto also. For example, crypto is said to be the future because it's decentralised, but exchanges are great because they centralise the 'secure' storage of keys and generally validate ownership like a bank. A solution for a solution!

Who NFT things strikes me as completely barking mad, its taking the huge speculative bubble which is crypto and then adding nothing of value to it, whilst hyping it to another level because a few artists are now involved.

There’s not much stopping you taking an existing image and changing it slightly (although I suppose the original artist could claim ownership of your NFT later, but really, that’s not the point. Your NFT’s value isn’t based on it’s artistic merit, not really anyway (despite what some may claim) it’s not worth anything because you’re not well known enough to make it special or unique (Social Media and economic alchemy crashing together there).

You don't even need to change it slightly - you can just use exactly the same picture! In fact, here's a site that automates the process for you. Easy.

Remember, owning an NFT isn't the same as owning the art or owning the copyright. All you own is a 'certificate' confirming that you paid £xx for something. You can sell the certificate later, but it doesn't necessarily mean you're selling the copyright.

And so you also end up with crap like this - people selling Cryptopunks that face left instead of right. Or, even better, two sets of people selling Ape pictures facing left instead of right, and then arguing about who is the REAL ape ripoff.

And of course, one look at any Cryptopunk or Bored Ape will immediately confirm that the price of an NFT is not even remotely linked to any conventional idea of 'artistic merit'.

The thought experiment is taken to a logical conclusion - in those decades to come it's still monumentally inefficient compared to the relatively simple networks that deal with conventional currency. And probably consuming even more electricity. BTC and ETH have finally moved to proof of stake and the entire network is now beholden to a handful of whales in some laises-faire / unregulated shithole (delete as appropriate for your political leanings).

So one of my colleagues at work was telling me he had an Adidas NFT and from selling and rebuying from £600 he’s currently made £8000!

Thing is he doesn’t really understand it, but has still made that money!
Is this actually possible?

Totally possible. I've been trading in old 26" MTB parts, selling and rebuying the same frames and wheelsets online. The price goes up each transaction, they were worth about £38 the first time, but the last sale was for £777.77. I just hope the other two regular bidders don't drop out before I cash out.

 is not even remotely linked to any conventional idea of ‘artistic merit’.

NFT art combines the nuanced social awareness of computer programmers with the soulful whimsy of hedge fund managers. It reflects the stunted inner lives of the finance and technology professionals who produced it.

And of course, one look at any Cryptopunk or Bored Ape will immediately confirm that the price of an NFT is not even remotely linked to any conventional idea of ‘artistic merit’.

Art. Turning convention upside down since cavemen.

Artist's Shit

SUMMARY
In May 1961, while he was living in Milan, Piero Manzoni produced ninety cans of Artist's Shit. Each was numbered on the lid 001 to 090. Tate's work is number 004. A label on each can, printed in Italian, English, French and German, identified the contents as '"Artist's Shit", contents 30gr net freshly preserved, produced and tinned in May 1961.' In December 1961 Manzoni wrote in a letter to the artist Ben Vautier: 'I should like all artists to sell their fingerprints, or else stage competitions to see who can draw the longest line or sell their shit in tins. The fingerprint is the only sign of the personality that can be accepted: if collectors want something intimate, really personal to the artist, there's the artist's own shit, that is really his.' (Letter reprinted in Battino and Palazzoli p.144.)

It is not known exactly how many cans of Artist's Shit were sold within Manzoni's lifetime, but a receipt dated 23 August 1962 certifies that Manzoni sold one to Alberto Lùcia for 30 grams of 18-carat gold (reproduced in Battino and Palazzoli p.154). Manzoni's decision to value his excrement on a par with the price of gold made clear reference to the tradition of the artist as alchemist already forged by Marcel Duchamp and Yves Klein among others. As the artist and critic Jon Thompson has written:

Manzoni's critical and metaphorical reification of the artist's body, its processes and products, pointed the way towards an understanding of the persona of the artist and the product of the artist's body as a consumable object. The Merda d'artista, the artist's shit, dried naturally and canned 'with no added preservatives', was the perfect metaphor for the bodied and disembodied nature of artistic labour: the work of art as fully incorporated raw material, and its violent expulsion as commodity. Manzoni understood the creative act as part of the cycle of consumption: as a constant reprocessing, packaging, marketing, consuming, reprocessing, packaging, ad infinitum. (Piero Manzoni, 1998, p.45)

Artist's Shit was made at a time when Manzoni was producing a variety of works involving the fetishisation and commodification of his own body substances. These included marking eggs with his thumbprints before eating them, and selling balloons filled with his own breath (see Tate T07589). Of these works, the cans of Artist's Shit have become the most notorious, in part because of a lingering uncertainty about whether they do indeed contain Manzoni's faeces. At times when Manzoni's reputation has seen the market value of these works increase, such uncertainties have imbued them with an additional level of irony.

Further Reading:

Germano Celant, Piero Manzoni, New York 1972
Freddy Battino and Luca Palazzoli, Piero Manzoni: Catalogue raisonné, Milan 1991, pp.123-8, 472-5, catalogue no. 1053/4, reproduced p.472
Piero Manzoni, exhibition catalogue, Serpentine Gallery, London 1998, reproduced pp.201-6 in colour

Sophie Howarth
November 2000

@Toomba
How was your son managed to onboard his pounds into crypto? My son wants to do the same with his pocket money but I assume he can't get a Coinbase account due to age.

Art. Turning convention upside down since cavemen.

Bored Ape "art" is about as conventional as it's possible to get. It's the knickerless tennis player made digital.

Bored Ape “art” is about as conventional as it’s possible to get. It’s the knickerless tennis player made digital.

I fail to see how the two are comparable. One is an easily understood mass produced poster of a single photograph of a woman revealing her bottom and readily affordable to (and appreciable by one half of) the general population, the other is an algorithmically produced digital artwork unaffordable to (and probably unappreciated by most of) the general population.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending Bored Apes, I don't think they're worth what is paid for them at all. They look more like something that should be collectable amongst school children. More that a lot of the aesthetic judgements against NFT artworks are not specific to NFTs at all. Being an NFT doesn't necessitate these values, it could be that the medium hasn't matured enough yet.

Piss Christ was another famous example of bodily waste (fluid?) art but put into service of iconoclasm.

Here's some NFT art with very different aesthetics to what's been discussed so far:

https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2021/natively-digital-a-curated-nft-sale-2/secret-artwork-content

148kwh per 100,000 Visa transactions

Are we talking about the power required to make a simple Api request across the Internet, or does this include the power consumed by thousands of staff employed by Visa across the world, all with their own machines, spread across however many offices?

The former wouldn't be a fair comparison, because the blockchain requires none of the latter, which is one of the main appeals.

It's a valid enough discussion, but it's easy to attack crypto because the energy numbers are so easily quantifiable, whereas in a more traditional insustry they're not.

but it’s easy to attack crypto because the energy numbers are so easily quantifiable, whereas in a more traditional insustry they’re not.

Well I'm not concerned with the cost of servicing transactions, more about mining new coins. That's the bit that's always going to increase. When a central bank controls money supply, Visa's energy consumption is not affected.

whereas in a more traditional insustry they’re not.

Are you really trying to defend crypto by suggesting that folks are unaware of how much energy other industries use, seriously? You really think that every company in the world doesn't know, or isn't aware of it's quarterly utility bill?

Are we talking about the power required to make a simple Api request across the Internet, or does this include the power consumed by thousands of staff employed by Visa across the world, all with their own machines, spread across however many offices?

Seriously?

You think 20,500 employees at Visa have a significant carbon footprint compared to a cryptocurrency?

I mean TBH the hardest thing about fact-checking anything I post is the fact that it's escalating so incredibly quickly that googling the carbon footprint/energy consumption of bitcoin anything more than a month or two old is out of date.

Last time I checked it was on a par with a country of 70 million people.

So only 341,400% more than the Visa employees, even if you include them, their offices, their cars, homes, holidays, heating bills, infrastructure, and all, not just the energy to keep the lights on in the office and datacenters.

Sources, because someone will ask, and it's too late to edit:
https://www.google.com/search?q=visa+employees+how+many
https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption/

Incidentally, it appears it's gone up since the other figure I found earlier, It's 2282kWh per transaction, over a ton of CO2 and 285g of e-waste (source above).