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Remember when NFTs sold for millions of dollars? 95% of the digital collectibles are now probably worthless. (markets.businessinsider.com)

submitted 1 year ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Remember when NFTs sold for millions of dollars? 95% of the digital collectibles are now probably worthless.::NFTs had a huge bull run two years ago, with billions of dollars per month in trading volume, but now most have crashed to zero, a study found.

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[-] Adderbox76@lemmy.ca 210 points 1 year ago

correction... always were worthless.

It's always been a con game.

Their so-called "value" was always determined by the ability of the person shilling it to make up bullshit. Literally the definition of a "confidence" game. Same problem as crypto in general. It's only has value if you have confidence in the person shilling it. The moment that person loses the confidence of their marks, the entire thing crumbles to nothing because it isn't backed by any real tangible assets.

[-] Jagermo@feddit.de 34 points 1 year ago

Also money laundering and tax rebate schemes.

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[-] stormtrooper@sopuli.xyz 127 points 1 year ago

Well I am shocked!

No not actually.

[-] Veraticus@lib.lgbt 112 points 1 year ago

Out of the top collections, the most common price for an NFT is now $5-$10.

Still overpriced!

[-] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 50 points 1 year ago

I'm honestly amazed they're worth anything at all.

[-] jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de 26 points 1 year ago

We have been attributing a huge value to a metal that's mostly remarkable for being yellow and shinny for millennia, one of the biggest investment bubbles in history was over a flower, and people thought that using a loophole to profit from the arbitrage of international reply coupons was going to last forever. Hell, people paid for fake property titles for land on the Moon and Mars. It's not that surprising that some people think that buying a random number in a distributed database is an investment.

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[-] OldQWERTYbastard@lemmy.world 72 points 1 year ago

You mean to tell me that purchasing what is essentially a URL hosted on someone else's server is a poor investment?

Shocked Pikachu Face

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[-] mightyfoolish@lemmy.world 68 points 1 year ago

Small correction: Even though some NFTs sold for millions, the NFTs have always been worthless.

[-] Wogi@lemmy.world 46 points 1 year ago

They literally provide no value. I don't see how people didn't get that.

It's a link, you bought a link. If the power goes out at the server hosting it, you can't even access it anymore.

If I told you I had a magic box, and for a million dollars you could look inside whenever you wanted, you'd tell me to go fuck myself. But do it on the Internet and it's beanie babies all over again. But at least THOSE were tangible.

[-] III@lemmy.world 33 points 1 year ago

Never work in tech, friend. It is an endless parade of buzzwords. Idiots will think it is a revolution, people who put even the smallest amount of effort into understanding it will know it isn't. Sadly, the idiots tend to be the ones making the decisions. So you get to spin your wheels on a fool's errand until their surprisingly lengthy attention span moves to the next buzzword. As the parade continues you just lose more and more faith in humanity.

I wish I had an answer for you other than some people are really fucking stupid.

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[-] Shadywack@lemmy.world 62 points 1 year ago

So it was like we thought all along, cool.

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[-] pavnilschanda@lemmy.world 53 points 1 year ago

Does anyone else think that NFTs are an allegory/miniature version of how art is easily commodified by capitalism? IIRC, NFTs were there to help finance artists who work on a purely digital medium, but then grifters coopted the NFT space and try to sell sets of same-looking artwork. Complete with "fandoms" and drama, as well.

[-] fubo@lemmy.world 50 points 1 year ago

NFTs are simply a straightforward con, without the financial hullabaloo of cryptocurrency. The con is simple: convince someone that something is valuable when it's not. Selling a brass ring as gold to a mark too naïve to check, has been around as long as there have been gold rings.

[-] aleph@lemm.ee 27 points 1 year ago

Nah, NFTs were always about the grift first and the art second.

After all, all an NFT token is is a digital receipt which links to an image hosted somewhere off-chain, not the image itself. All the "art" does is help to persuade people that the tokens are actually worth something and hype up the price even further.

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[-] who8mydamnoreos@lemmy.world 48 points 1 year ago

The whole point was to get dollars into crypto so the holders could cash out. The value was never meant to stay.

[-] Fish@midwest.social 42 points 1 year ago

95% seems a little low. I assume that it's closer to 99.9%.

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[-] atzanteol@sh.itjust.works 41 points 1 year ago

Not my Donald Trump trading cards! Nooo!

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[-] RawrGuthlaf@lemmy.sdf.org 39 points 1 year ago

I'm sure they were a great way to launder money at the time.

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[-] soulfirethewolf 38 points 1 year ago

Maybe now I'll finally be able to buy the ones I want

(There aren't any)

[-] rifugee@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago

It sounds like you could have always bought the ones that you want!

[-] peopleproblems@lemmy.world 36 points 1 year ago

I find it fascinating that NFTs were supposed to be a proof-of-ownership technology, but because people are stupid & greedy made pictures to sell with it

[-] SlopppyEngineer@discuss.tchncs.de 37 points 1 year ago

It always reminds me of those certificates for owning a piece of the moon.

[-] Syndic@feddit.de 26 points 1 year ago

Because it's pretty much the same.

At the very core ownership that isn't recognised by the state is meaningless. So that ape picture? No one really cares about some guy claiming to own it because they have control over the token. As long as it's on the internet everyone can just copy it and there's no authority caring about it one bit since NFT isn't recognised as for example copyright is.

Even when it comes to stuff like items in games, these also are only worth anything as long as the publisher of the game recognises your claim to it! And even if they did recognise it, there's absolutely nothing preventing them from changing their minds later. Simply because they create the game however they like and have 100% control over it's development.

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[-] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 35 points 1 year ago

It is all worthless?

Always has been

[-] Varyk@sh.itjust.works 35 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Started laughing when nfts were introduced, still chuckle today.

It's great. Love it.

Grab the tulips! Grab them!

[-] SnowdenHeroOfOurTime@unilem.org 32 points 1 year ago

Shocking

[-] 0Xero0@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago

well that surprised no one

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[-] CAVOK@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago

Whomever named them NFTs instead of grift cards missed an opportunity.

[-] nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org 25 points 1 year ago

Oh man. I remember getting downvoted to hell for stating that they were a scam and provided no actual value or true, to technical "non-fungibility".

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[-] Moobythegoldensock@lemm.ee 24 points 1 year ago

Wowie gee whiz, no one in the universe could have seen that one coming. /s

[-] answersplease77@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago

All those rappers and celebrities with cartoon donkey and monkey profile pics showed how much for sale they are. They will promote poison to you for money

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[-] DeathsEmbrace@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago

Ponzi schemes have an oversaturation problem like every other one.

[-] MargotRobbie@lemm.ee 19 points 1 year ago

Don't put your reputation on the line to sell links to ugly JPEGs, please.

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[-] Polar@lemmy.ca 19 points 1 year ago

My favourite part of NFT/Crypto is all of the creators that outed themselves by pushing for it, taking sponsorships, etc.

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[-] thomasloven@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago

Oh no.

Anyway.

[-] edgemaster72@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago

Now? Always were.

[-] Saltblue@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago

The biggest operation of money laundering in the history of the world.

[-] fne8w2ah@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago

Not dissimilar to money laundering or MLMs.

[-] Wahots@pawb.social 15 points 1 year ago

Lol, classic. Where's Ubisoft's NFT collection they were selling so hard last year?

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[-] dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 1 year ago

"Bull run"

More like Bullshit run. Literally nobody fell for the grift. Celebrities bought into it because it was a pump and dump scheme and they can afford it. There is literally no use case for NFTs and even basic normies saw that.

[-] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 17 points 1 year ago

literally nobody fell for the grift

Someone somewhere has an NFT instead of a bunch of money. Even if everyone participating knew this was a very expensive game of hot potato someone had to be holding the potato when the buzzer went off.

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this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2023

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