TEH 151: Is NFT an opportunity or a scam? From Magic public keys to digital Beanie Babies.

In This Episode: Is NFT an opportunity or a scam? From Magic public keys to digital Beanie Babies.

This week the TEH Podcast is hosted by Leo Notenboom, the “Chief Question Answerer” at Ask Leo!, and Gary Rosenzweig, the host and producer of MacMost, and mobile game developer at Clever Media.

(You’ll find longer Bios on the Hosts page.)

Top Stories

  • NFTs (Non Fungible Tokins)
  • Disclaimer!
  • 4:51 LN – Let’s start with tech background of Public key cryptography
    • 5:41 Algorithmic cryptography (i.e. rot13)
    • 7:29 Symmetric cryptography (i.e. password)
    • 8:04 Asymmetric cryptography (aka public key)
    • 11:20 Block chain and “Ledger”
    • 12:19 How it’s both public and secure
    • 13:00 Decentralization makes it more secure
    • 14:42 Quick overview
    • 15:31 Why a “block chain”
    • 16:15 … And then NFTs – Define fungible for the umpteenth time (replaceable)
    • 18:30 What’s inside the NFT?
  • 20:30 GR – Doesn’t necessarily include ownership
    • 22:00 How it applies to ownership
      • Does owning an NFT give you the copyright on a piece of art? Probably not. Probably most buyers think it does.
      • No, NFTs aren’t copyrights
    • 24:00 How it relates to governments
    • 26:50 1% of the NFT crowd understands it, 99% pretend they do
    • 27:00 Mushy copyrights
    • 29:20 People don’t look at the details
    • 31:15 NFT art isn’t like a painting or a baseball card because those things have a real value association and you actually own the item, not a “certificate” associated with the item.
    • 32:50 NFTs have some real potential in being a decentralized system of who owns what. But if major governments collapse, then who cares?
    • 33:15 Scarcity creates value… but digital can be copied
    • 35:55 Compare to physical property
  • 38:50 The technology has potential
    • 40:50 GR – NFT scam alert. Particularly in games.
    • 47:00 Are NFTs scams? Definitely, no. But there are a lot of scams using NFTs or the NFT name.
    • 48:38 NFT tickets to events. What’s wrong with just tickets? This makes it more difficult.
    • 51:00 GR – Or, maybe this is actually a redistribution of wealth so let’s hush up.
    • 52:30 Acknowledge: By talking about it now, we may look like fools later on. That fact makes me not want to talk about it… But what if that is happening to everyone else too, so no one’s talking about it?
    • 55:28 We know just enough to be worried…
    • 57:00 Tim Ferris: “NFTs make Crypto(currencies) look like treasury bonds”
    • 1:00:00 Etherium Block chains and NFTs creating a revenue stream for creators
    •  1:02:10 DAOs:  Why can’t a DAO exist without a blockchain? Why voting?
    • 1:04:10 Early days… lots to be seen. Compare to Ponzi scheme

Ain’t it Cool

BSP: Blatant Self-Promotion

2 Comments on “TEH 151: Is NFT an opportunity or a scam? From Magic public keys to digital Beanie Babies.

  1. FYI (I am assuming that it was a minor brain misfire) there ARE brakes in space. Things use them all the time.
    Additional details on Lagrange points for those who haven’t looked up the term yet:
    They are neutral gravity points where all the surrounding items have equal gravity pulls. Typically, they are equidistant between the two items with the most gravity. L2 (the final home of Webb) has that status with the earth and sun.
    There are two types: One is a gravity hump where the area around it pulls away from it. The other is a gravity minimum where the area around it pulls back into it. L2 is a well. It will take much less energy to hold it in position and orientation.
    There are also Lagrange points with the earth and moon. Decades ago (70s) people were proposing to put space colonies in the couple that are wells.
    Obscure: There was a local First Tech Challenge robotics team that called themselves the Lagrange Points. They were in middle school, halfway between grade school and high school.

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