So it is crazy to me how polarized people seem to be over NFT’s these days, and crypto in general… As someone who has been dabbling and following crypto stuff since the early days, it has been sad seeing how it has been loaded up with tons of scams, and how so many people are opting in to it for the fad. So I just wanted to write up a little thing about my thoughts on all this mess…
Utility NFT’s
So… first and foremost… there are tons of NTF’s out there that are just used for “art” which could be argued that there could be some benefit for, but that isn’t a use case I see viable when most the time the “art” isn’t even hosted on the blockchain… I instead focus on the utility based NFT’s and my first two NFT’s were DNS NFT’s.
I bought my first NFT from Unstoppable Domains, which I think is a unique concept with some flaws but a good attempt. Which allows me to mint a DNS entry to ETH or Polygon chain, but isn’t fully recognized like the ENS service(which I will get into shortly). But lets you link to a page with all your wallet addresses, create or link to a site hosted on IPFS, all of which are pretty nice additions, and you pay for it just once and it never expires and all this data is saved to your NFT and updated on your NFT when you make changes to it, keeping it all on the chain ledger.
I however… wanted to get the fancy ETH domain… which is specific to the Ethereum block chain and it is treated a bit more like your typical DNS where you have a yearly fee. However, the network seems to treat this one as a true CNAME like record for your ETH Wallet Address. So you can find my wallet is hack13.eth and you can see my current holdings. Similar to Unstoppable Domains it stores all updates and record changes to the ledger but specifically just the Ethereum block chain. When I sign into many exchanges and such with my wallet instead of my long string address I see my ENS entry hack13.eth and just yeah a nice little thing I enjoy, and many wallets support just giving them my address to send ETH and Tokens to my wallet.
NFT & Tokens For Funding
This one is a bit controversial lately with the US Government start to look at the Tokens as “securities” and to be fair I don’t totally disagree with that viewpoint… even if it is a bit of a hot take. However, I feel that it is a good way for small projects to give a way to “Fund” or “Sponsor” a project.
I know not everyone likes the concept or ideal of doing it this way when we have other options like Patreon or other donation services. However, I get why some people want to move to something like this as it is a bit “safer” for NSFW or controversial content creators. As platforms like Patreon have been known to kick off some people who make content that doesn’t fit with the mainstream and same with the scare OnlyFans which people thought was safe as well… So I get using this as a way of collecting in a sense “cash” like transactions.
I recently purchased 2 NFT’s to help fund a content creator I follow on YouTube and they have been very transparent throughout the whole process. I got two Vaxxed Doggos, and they have been putting out spreadsheet and updating with with how they been using their funds they have received on their content. {{< rawhtml >}}
Vaxxed Doggo 136 & Vaxxed Doggo 470, currently owned by me
The Environmental Impact
There is a lot of research here that is inconclusive and many projects are working hard to migrate to Proof of Stake models. However, even then many of the operations that are using mining outside of places like China are either using excess power that goes to waste otherwise to mine to at least recoup some costs of operations, which you can read about here. Then many other operations here in the west are using solar or other renewable forms of power, as to make profit vs needing to pay a larger power bill.
That said, I know there is a lot more than just the costs of power and how the power is generated there is the heat and other parts… and I don’t claim to be an expert or anything on this… but I am pretty sure in comparison to many other things causing environmental impact there is so much more that is mountains worse than crypto…
What About The Scams?
Yeah… what about them… Sadly people fall and trust things too easily and I for one think that while yes people should do more of their own research and not jump into “I am going to get rich” click bait crap that people keep proposing with all these NFTs and Tokens… I for one agree we need regulation around some of this stuff, as too many people right now are getting to get away with scamming people…
Also I fully believe, you should NEVER EVER put more money into any sort of investment than you are willing to loose. That goes for NFTs, Stocks, Physical Assets, etc… Buy only what you are willing, and be careful with how you manage it…
Closing Thoughts
I know I am a small voice, and I know I am going to get some grief for my views and opinions… but I feel like why can’t people enjoy crypto… I pay my taxes on it, I report my earnings and transactions to the IRS and my local state governments. I do my research before investing… and yeah, I don’t agree with gaming companies and such just jumping into “we’re adding NFT’s” just to be trendy… just keep your stuff in your private markets with your silly fake currencies, no need to add our silly crypto fake currencies to the process… Not like we will ever be able to take our fancy skins from a game made by one major company to another major company competitor…
I just feel like, instead of being so immediate like “crypto bad” at least consider there are some real use cases… and yeah… just like with real fiat currency… people will scam… just do your due diligence and don’t ever invest more than you are willing to loose. But this is just my two cents on this topic and well if you don’t wanna participate… then don’t… I am not tweeting or screaming “buy this new coin” I am just here saying some of us… just enjoy putting some money in of this and making a bit of money, supporting creators who cannot or choose not to use mainstream platforms for funding for concern, etc..
Thank you for at least listening to my two cents if you made it this far…