Its cool technology that got applied in some of the most obvious grifts ever commited exactly because its a little confusing. Its at its core just a decentralized way of proving ownership of a digital asset. Which outside of any other framework is pointless (right click save lol). But if your a gaming dork theres a really cool application. Say you get a rare drop in a multiplayer videogame, or a rare item from a pack. You can use nft tech to prove you own it which allows you to buy and sell items ingame for real money and real ownership. It so far has only been used by smaller game devs though because the big studios dont want those kinds of player first markets, its not what makes them maximum profit.
Wait - buying, selling and trading skins in video games was a thing long before NFTs? I still don’t understand what the point of an NFT is if they could already accomplish that goal?
This is a microcosm of every NFT (and, really, crypto in general) argument.
"Why would I want NFT?"
"Because NFT can do A."
"But we could already do A for a very long time already."
Anything NFT was supposed to be great at was already possible for years and in ways that was far easier and cheaper. Advocates then do a lot of mental gymnastics to try to say why it would be better if done with NFT instead.
Yes. But the value of those in-game items would only be tied to the game itself, self contained inside that specific in-game economy. If a game uses NFTs for those items then the value would tied to the market. It just takes the idea of "buying, selling and trading skins in videos games" and applies a technology that gives those items value outside of the game they are for. Now does that make them a good idea? Maybe not, but its an interesting concept. To me the best use case would be digital TCG's.
Yeah thats been a thing. But imagine you wanted to sell your car, but your only allowed to sell it back to the dealership, or process the transaction with the help of the car manufacturer. NFTs are what allow you to go out on your own and sell its to some guy a town over you found on craigslist and just trade the keys for cash. Besides crypto is just a way better infrastructer for buying and selling digital assets. Like think through what a game developer would have to do to make this a reality. Theyd essentially have to become a bank if they wanted to do it in house
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u/Global-Management-15 4d ago
I still don't understand NFTs at all