Comic books and art associated with a Non-fungible Token - The Future of Modern Collectible Comics?? 0

[Concorde]

I *think* this post is appropriate for this forum, but moderators please move as needed.

After a piece of digital art by the artist Beeple with associated NFT sold at Christies for $69M a few weeks back...it got me thinking.  Why would this not be the direction comics are headed??  There would be unlimited books available of course...no collectible value and purchasable at all times online.  But then there would be limited books (aka variants) with associated NFTs that would be collectible and essentially act as a currency.  You could read the book and see it on a tablet or computer, but only you would have access to the aspects that define the variant....and you would have the freedom to sell or trade that work and its associated token.  This is where baseball cards and the like are headed (check out all the news about Topps last week) so why not comics?

I know some will absolutely detest this idea.  See attached poll to provide your opinion.  But like it or not...this may be the future of collectible comics.  

Thoughts??

[awakeintheashes]

I believe Matt Kindt already did this with Mind MGMT. it’ll probably happen on creator-owned stuff if it happens at all. 

Quidd and Topps are already selling NFTish Marvel, Valiant and Star Wars digital collectibles. 

[Juno Beach]

On 4/10/2021 at 1:08 PM, Concorde said:

I *think* this post is appropriate for this forum, but moderators please move as needed.

After a piece of digital art by the artist Beeple with associated NFT sold at Christies for $69M a few weeks back...it got me thinking.  Why would this not be the direction comics are headed??  There would be unlimited books available of course...no collectible value and purchasable at all times online.  But then there would be limited books (aka variants) with associated NFTs that would be collectible and essentially act as a currency.  You could read the book and see it on a tablet or computer, but only you would have access to the aspects that define the variant....and you would have the freedom to sell or trade that work and its associated token.  This is where baseball cards and the like are headed (check out all the news about Topps last week) so why not comics?

I know some will absolutely detest this idea.  See attached poll to provide your opinion.  But like it or not...this may be the future of collectible comics.  

Thoughts??

Can you link to where this is explained? This is not my understanding of NFT. 

[Qalyar]

Call me a Luddite, but I really do not understand the appeal of this NFT craze. You ... do not own anything by buying an NFT, except a digital signature that represents you are, in some philosophical sense, the unique "owner" of a digital object that need not itself be (and, indeed, probably very much isn't) unique. I can't help but feel that it's like buying a sham deed to the Brooklyn Bridge. Sure, you're the owner... of that deed, but it has no impact on the physical world, nor any actual connection to the object it purports to represent.

I'm probably missing something, but I can't imagine this craze lasting very long...

[Concorde]

7 hours ago, Juno Beach said:

Can you link to where this is explained? This is not my understanding of NFT. 

This is a reasonable explanation...if you watch the NBC clip though, none of the announcers get it, at all.  https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/nft-boom-digital-collectibles-rcna430

And here:  https://www.investopedia.com/non-fungible-tokens-nft-5115211

[Concorde]

6 hours ago, Qalyar said:

Call me a Luddite, but I really do not understand the appeal of this NFT craze. You ... do not own anything by buying an NFT, except a digital signature that represents you are, in some philosophical sense, the unique "owner" of a digital object that need not itself be (and, indeed, probably very much isn't) unique. I can't help but feel that it's like buying a sham deed to the Brooklyn Bridge. Sure, you're the owner... of that deed, but it has no impact on the physical world, nor any actual connection to the object it purports to represent.

I'm probably missing something, but I can't imagine this craze lasting very long...

I understand, and you may be right.  And by no means a Luddite!

But I was thinking about how I can buy a very nice reproduction of, say, the Starry Night by Van Gogh and put it on my wall at home in a reproduction period frame.  It is a copy.  It is not the "real thing"....but despite its very close resemblance to the unique and "real" Starry Night, it is not the real thing and I know it is not the real thing 

Same thing applies here.  If I have, for example, a 1/1 piece of digital art and an associated NFT that identifies it as the one true original, and that NFT allows me to sell that piece as the original, that should make that piece more valuable than a digital copy.  It might seem insane....but is it really any different than an authentic Star Wars #1 in CGC 9.8 vs. the Whitman reprint in 9.8?  The books are for all practical purposes identical, but one sells for substantially more than the other.  ($6300 for the first print vs. $450 for the Whitman reprint based on recent sales).  

Bottom line...comic books are just paper objects with no inherent value.  All the value is assigned by a community of people who have all agreed that they carry value.  If a group of people all decide that the NFT has value...it's no different, IMHO.  Heck, I live in California.  The Native Americans that used to live in my area traded clam shells for food and other goods.  The shells were hard to come by (just like a copy of FF1 in high grade)...and everyone in that community assigned value to them as the basis for trade.  

Anyway...my opinion...but I don't see how this cannot end up being a part of the hobby.  Just my opinion.  

[Qalyar]

Here's the difference. If I own Star Wars #1, I have a thing. There are a finite number of those things. If the number of people who want to own Star Wars #1 is even one greater than the number of copies, someone is not going to have a copy. There can be reprints, but those are distinguishable from my thing, and so may or may not be worth as much to various collectors.

If I own a digital file with an NFT assigning ownership to me, that's very different. It doesn't matter if the digital file is ostensibly 1/1. An arbitrarily large number of copies can exist at any time. If more people want copies of the digital object than there are copies extant... more copies can be produced. Also, a copy made six months from now, or 2 years, or 20 years, is the same in every respect as my copy. The only distinction is the NFT that identifies me as the owner.

So, at least two problems here. First and foremost, so what? The NFT as certificate of ownership only has any meaning if everyone ascribes meaning to it, because it doesn't actually provide any of the physical benefits we typically associated with ownership of an object. Second, the NFT itself has scarcity only so long as everyone agrees that it does. There's no concrete mechanism to prevent more NFTs from being issued.

NFTs aren't really certificates of authenticity. And they aren't really ownership in the normal sense. You get a token that says you are the owner of a thing that, from a certain philosophical standpoint, doesn't have ownership defined for it. Look, I get why they're appealing. People want digital goods to have "uniqueness", to be finite, like physical goods are. I just don't see this as filling that gap.

[Concorde]

1 minute ago, Qalyar said:

Here's the difference. If I own Star Wars #1, I have a thing. There are a finite number of those things. If the number of people who want to own Star Wars #1 is even one greater than the number of copies, someone is not going to have a copy. There can be reprints, but those are distinguishable from my thing, and so may or may not be worth as much to various collectors.

If I own a digital file with an NFT assigning ownership to me, that's very different. It doesn't matter if the digital file is ostensibly 1/1. An arbitrarily large number of copies can exist at any time. If more people want copies of the digital object than there are copies extant... more copies can be produced. Also, a copy made six months from now, or 2 years, or 20 years, is the same in every respect as my copy. The only distinction is the NFT that identifies me as the owner.

So, at least two problems here. First and foremost, so what? The NFT as certificate of ownership only has any meaning if everyone ascribes meaning to it, because it doesn't actually provide any of the physical benefits we typically associated with ownership of an object. Second, the NFT itself has scarcity only so long as everyone agrees that it does. There's no concrete mechanism to prevent more NFTs from being issued.

NFTs aren't really certificates of authenticity. And they aren't really ownership in the normal sense. You get a token that says you are the owner of a thing that, from a certain philosophical standpoint, doesn't have ownership defined for it. Look, I get why they're appealing. People want digital goods to have "uniqueness", to be finite, like physical goods are. I just don't see this as filling that gap.

All good points. 

As for more NFTs being issued though...by definition, there can only be one for any given digital object.  The "concrete mechanism" is the association with the blockchain.  

Anyway...it is a pretty philosophical topic.  One that really demands to be discussed over adult beverages.  (Eagle Rare?  Glenlivet 18?)  

We shall see what happens!  Maybe it takes...maybe the whole thing collapses.  

[Qalyar]

9 minutes ago, Concorde said:

All good points. 

As for more NFTs being issued though...by definition, there can only be one for any given digital object.  The "concrete mechanism" is the association with the blockchain.  

Anyway...it is a pretty philosophical topic.  One that really demands to be discussed over adult beverages.  (Eagle Rare?  Glenlivet 18?)  

We shall see what happens!  Maybe it takes...maybe the whole thing collapses.  

The idea that a digital object can only have one unique NFT is technically correct, but operationally facile because it assumes the system is operating in good faith. Let's say I have a digital object representing an image, and I assign to it an NFT. Then, I create a digital object that is identical to the first except in some trivial aspect (perhaps one pixel has a single color element altered by 1... or perhaps the difference is a trivial alteration of a non-disclosure field in the format's file header), and I assign THAT object an NFT.

One of these digital objects is the original. The other is not. There is no prima facie method to determine which came "first". If you own one of the NFTs, you have a statement of ownership, but it is a weird form of ownership that offers no control over the object "owned" and that maintains its uniqueness only.so long as the system operates is relative.good faith.

EDIT: But if there's Glenlivet in it for me, then, hey, long live NFTs.

Edited April 12, 2021 by Qalyar

[Juno Beach]

14 hours ago, Concorde said:

This is a reasonable explanation...if you watch the NBC clip though, none of the announcers get it, at all.  https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/nft-boom-digital-collectibles-rcna430

And here:  https://www.investopedia.com/non-fungible-tokens-nft-5115211

I meant the bolded section. I haven't heard of "variants" only accessible to the owner. I don't think that is possible.

[GeeksAreMyPeeps]

On 4/11/2021 at 5:40 PM, Qalyar said:

Call me a Luddite, but I really do not understand the appeal of this NFT craze. You ... do not own anything by buying an NFT, except a digital signature that represents you are, in some philosophical sense, the unique "owner" of a digital object that need not itself be (and, indeed, probably very much isn't) unique. I can't help but feel that it's like buying a sham deed to the Brooklyn Bridge. Sure, you're the owner... of that deed, but it has no impact on the physical world, nor any actual connection to the object it purports to represent.

I'm probably missing something, but I can't imagine this craze lasting very long...

So you're saying that NFT artwork is the "Name a Star After Someone! It'll be recorded in book form in the Library of Congress Copyright Office" of the 2020s?

[Qalyar]

41 minutes ago, GeeksAreMyPeeps said:

So you're saying that NFT artwork is the "Name a Star After Someone! It'll be recorded in book form in the Library of Congress Copyright Office" of the 2020s?

Obviously, other people do not share that opinion about NFTs, or they wouldn't be tossing around millions of dollars. But that's pretty much my take on the whole thing. NFTs allow you to own a cryptographically secure statement of ownership, which can be bought and sold, but which don't otherwise resemble traditional object ownership in many (if any) other ways.

[WolverineX]

With proof of work,  nfts take up too much energy.   Global warming is accelerating.   Unless the energy consumption is decreased,  these won't be sustainable. 

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/nfts-selling-millions-warming-planet-120611898.html