Are Nft the new Facebook or just a digital bubble
1. A Non-Fungible Token or NFT is a unit of data that is stored on a digital ledger (blockchain) and can be sold and traded.
2. NFT data units may be associated with digital files such as photos, videos, and audio.
3. Each NFT may represent a different underlying asset and can have a different value
4. NFT ledgers claim to provide a public certificate of authenticity or proof of ownership.
5. Digital art is currently the most common use of the NFT.
Think of it as buying a weapon in PUBG with actual money. The purchase won’t be of any use in the real world. But it has value in the digital world where it can be used.
But the market manipulation in this space which is unregulated is off the chart. The JPEG files are peddled by rich social media influencers who have lots of money, connection and influence. They have become the mode of money laundering, fraud and pump and dump schemes.
For example, EVOLVED APES creator EVIL APE disappears with $2.7M
Evolved Apes is a collection of 10,000 unique NFTs available for purchase on the NFT marketplace OpenSea. Each of them was also meant to be a character in an Evolved Apes fighting game, in which NFT owners would pit their apes against one another in battles for Ethereum cryptocurrency rewards (just as ancient hominoids did thousands of years ago, as I understand).
But it’s all gone disastrously off the rails: According to a Vice report, one week after Evolved Apes went live, the head of the project vanished, taking 798 Ether—worth roughly $2.7 million—with them.
The money was raised through the sale of NFTs and was expected to be used to support the development and marketing of the game.
“Evil Ape has washed his hands of the project taking away the wallet with all the ETH from minting that was to be used for everything, from paying the artist, paying out cash giveaways, paying for marketing, paying for rarity tools, developing the game and everything else in between,” the report says. “This wallet is also the wallet connected to receiving the 4% royalties from resales. Evil Ape is also holding a number of the 1/1 Evolved Ape NFT’S that were intended for giveaways.” NFT holder of evolved apes.
Money laundering can happen in this space too. For example ‘If you have $1 million in illegal money. You would spend $1 million on your own NFT. You can do this yourself or use a third-party account. Then you resell the trash and bank the profits. It is possibly even easier to move dirty funds around because it is tied to a decentralized currency and the fact that there is no physical artwork to be transported or stored’
It’s like painting a tape: Painting the tape is a form of market manipulation whereby market players attempt to influence the price of a security by buying and selling it among themselves to create the appearance of substantial trading activity. The goal of painting the tape is to create the illusion of an increased interest in a stock to trick investors into buying shares, which would drive the price higher.
One of the examples is social media guru Gary Vee. Gary Vaynerchuk and his friends, Mr Beast and Logan Paul are involved in the shilling of “crypto punks”. They were the first investors and were directed by Gary to do so. One NFT of crypto punks usually sell for $3,50,000 to $5,00,000. Some even fetch millions.
Indie game storefront itch.io has come out strongly against NFTs in a Twitter thread that begins, “A few have asked about our stance on NFTs: NFTs are a scam. If you think they are legitimately useful for anything other than the exploitation of creators, financial scams, and the destruction of the planet the[n] we ask that [you] please reevaluate your life choices.”https://twitter.com/itchio/status/1490141815294414856
This market space is just a tank full of sharks where everyone wants to bite the new fish. Investing and flipping JPEGS is the most overrated thing one can do. To be precise NFTS ARE UGLY CARTOONS AND MULTI-LEVEL MARKETING SCHEME FOR VIRGINS
