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{{a| | {{a|crypto|{{image|Morons|jpg|I mean, it couldn’t really ''be'' any more meta, could it?}}}}{{quote|''New York, 8 March 2021. “[[Morons]],” a “tokenized” artwork by Banksy, has sold for over $394,000 on the Open Sea NFT marketplace. The piece — burned by an unnamed group of cryptocurrency enthusiasts last week — was sold at an auction for 228.69 ethers (CRYPTO: ETH), which at press time traded at $1724.'' | ||
:—''JC NEWSWIRE''}} | :—''JC NEWSWIRE''}} | ||
{{d|Non-fungible token|/nɒn-fʌnʤəbl/ /ˈtəʊkən/|n|}}<br> | {{d|Non-fungible token|/nɒn-fʌnʤəbl/ /ˈtəʊkən/|n|}}<br> | ||
A unique reference to an external thing | A unique reference to an external thing that has been cryptographically encoded on a [[blockchain]]. Rather like a derivative (!) an [[NFT]] does ''not'' confer ownership on its referent, or even contain a copy of it, but — unlike any other copy of the referent it is a ''unique'' token of one’s, er, ''non''-ownership of the referent. There is no other token of non-ownership quite like it, you see, and given how the [[blockchain]] works, it is quite impossible to create one. That is why it is “[[non-fungible]]”. | ||
Somehow this crypto-token magically bootstraps itself to some kind of intrinsic value. This, we sense is not so much because blockchain is clever, but that people who buy | Now this would not stop someone else from creating a ''different'' unique token representing the same referent on the [[blockchain]]; the two tokens would just be different representations of it. Not identical: each unique. With me? No? Don’t worry: that’s not your fault. | ||
Somehow this crypto-token magically bootstraps itself to some kind of intrinsic value. This, we sense is not so much because blockchain is ''clever'', but that people who buy non-fungible tokens are ''stupid'', or at any rate (as we shall see) lacking any sense of irony. For all the NFT demonstrates is that blockchain has solved the problem — if it even ''was'' a problem — of “how to make a non-copyable ''thing'' in cyberspace.” | |||
This is not quite the same as — it’s not, er, ''[[fungible]]'' with — “making a non-copyable ''artwork'' on the internet”. | This is not quite the same as — it’s not, er, ''[[fungible]]'' with — “making a non-copyable ''artwork'' on the internet”. | ||
===Enter the Banksy print=== | ===Enter the Banksy print=== | ||
Now | Now non-fungible token ''buyers'' might be lacking in their faculty for irony; [[NFT]] ''sellers'' have more than enough to go around. Some bright spark hatched the idea of taking an already subversively self-referential artwork — one that plays with the idea of its own lack of intrinsic value, being a ''print'', of a ''graffito'', which is called “[[Morons]]”, which in its subject directly addresses the gullibility of art buyers, actually having the words “I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU MORONS ACTUALLY BUY THIS SHIT” written in capital letters on it and, without the artist’s involvement,<ref>Banksy was not involved, though the (anonymous) seller claims he was “aware” of the event. Maybe they hit him up on [[Twitter]] or something.</ref> putting a (er, non-representational) representation of it on a [[blockchain]] and selling ''that''. | ||
Still, the seller perceived a rather bricks-and-mortar-ish, old-economy sort of perceptual problem: ''what if buyers worry that the physical work might seem somehow ''more intrinsically valuable'' than its crypto-token?'' I mean, just imagine. | Still, the seller perceived a rather bricks-and-mortar-ish, old-economy sort of perceptual problem: ''what if buyers worry that the physical work might seem somehow ''more intrinsically valuable'' than its crypto-token?'' I mean, just imagine. | ||
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There are two words I want to pick out from the above: “smart”, and “morons”. One of them is apposite to the someone — also anonymous — who bought it, and you don’t even know for sure that ''that'' dude<ref>if it isn’t a sock-puppet for the original seller, of cour — WAAAAAAITAMINNUTE.</ref> isn’t the gimp in all of this because — who can say? — some even ''stupider'' person might buy it for ''more''.<ref>At the time of writing said buyer ''does'' seem to be the gimp: it bought for 228.69, and the offers that have flooded in to date have been in the range of 0.001 - 2 ether coins (that is $500 more than it is worth, but it puts it in some perspective.</ref> That is someone-call-Alanis-Morrissette-grade ''staggering''. | There are two words I want to pick out from the above: “smart”, and “morons”. One of them is apposite to the someone — also anonymous — who bought it, and you don’t even know for sure that ''that'' dude<ref>if it isn’t a sock-puppet for the original seller, of cour — WAAAAAAITAMINNUTE.</ref> isn’t the gimp in all of this because — who can say? — some even ''stupider'' person might buy it for ''more''.<ref>At the time of writing said buyer ''does'' seem to be the gimp: it bought for 228.69, and the offers that have flooded in to date have been in the range of 0.001 - 2 ether coins (that is $500 more than it is worth, but it puts it in some perspective.</ref> That is someone-call-Alanis-Morrissette-grade ''staggering''. | ||
===Creative destruction?=== | |||
[[File:Madonna and Token.png|350px|thumb|right|''Madonna and Token'' ([[Büchstein]], 2021)]]Let’s just work that logic through by analogy. To the right we have two images. One is ''La Gioconda''. The other is a picture I just drew of it. I accidentally put my coffee mug down on it but I think that makes it look a bit more authentic. Now, ''both'' of these are unique representations: one is hanging in the Louvre, as we all know, the other is on the 20 April page from my desk diary from last year. Wikipedia estimates the 2019 value<ref>Extrapolated from a 1962 valuation of USD100m: ''a suspiciously round number'' if you ask me, but still.</ref> of the ''Mona Lisa'' as USD 850 million. If we take that valuation as fair, I don’t think it is stretching things to say that the ''combined'' value of the ''real'' Leonardo original and my “unique token” of it — to be clear, that is the ''real'' thing, in my last year’s desk diary, not the feeble photographic facsimile you see below — is more or less ''exactly USD 850 million''. | |||
With me so far? Now for the krazy alchemical step: let’s say we ''burn'' the Mona Lisa. Obliterate it. We may need Robert Langdon to help with that, I grant you, but let’s just say. What is the value of my token now? EIGHT HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILLION BUCKAROONIES AM I RIGHT??? | |||
===Is everything as it seems?=== | |||
This might seem a preposterous question. But perhaps the buyer and seller are in fact the same single person, perniciously trying to create an artificial market. If so, ''so what'' if the only bid is 500 bucks? ''It’s still 500 bucks.'' That’s a month’s work in some places. If this ''is a'' scam — and I have no idea — it is so ironic it is almost an artwork in itself. | |||
In any case, bitcoin in general and [[NFT]]s in particular throw into sharp relief some fairly [[metaphysical]] questions about [[value]], [[identity]] and [[authentic|authenticity]] that the [[information revolution]] has been lobbing around for a while now and which, in most of us, haven’t generated much more that a nagging feeling that our conventional models of the world might be due an upgrade. | |||
Is it [[This time is different|different this time]]? Or are we just looking at Wylie Coyote, treading on air, momentarily defying gravity before — | |||
Time will tell. | |||
{{sa}} | {{sa}} | ||