Cringe: Salesforce latest megacorp to jump on non-fungible tokens bandwagon

SaaS CRM provider Salesforce has proposed to launch a platform for trading non-fungible tokens (NFTs). For those who prefer living under rocks to the hellish infotainment torrent of the 21st century, NFTs are non-interchangeable digital units stored on an immutable blockchain ledger. Why do we care? Money. Reportedly, digital …

[Throatwarbler Mangrove]

NFTs explained

This comic explains them quite well.

[John Riddoch]

Re: NFTs explained

I came here to say this... There's a lot of people making a lot of money out of this craze and a whole bunch of people who are likely to lose a lot on it.

[Omnipresent]

Re: NFTs explained

keep telling yourself that. It was greed. Greed that was their undoing. Do no evil was their motto with a CROCODILE SMILE.

[Omnipresent]

NFT's for free

"NFTs are non-interchangeable digital units stored on an immutable blockchain ledger."

unless you screen grab them or ... goodness no... record them to physical medium.

The more digital something is, the easier it is to reproduce. Meaning any 10 yr old with microsoft paint is now an artiste, which is exactly what they need... more kids buying in. Bernie bros are now crypto bros. We learned NOTHING.

[AdamWill]

cargo culting

You know what, I think I figured out what's going on with NFTs.

It's a form of cargo culting.

Some people noticed that a bunch of Highly Active twitter types who had got lucky and made money on crypto also owned stupid monkey NFTs. So, the thinking goes, the way to be a rich crypto bro is to own a bunch of stupid monkey NFTs.

And...that's about it. You set up a collection of NFTs because owning some themed NFT is the signifier of a cool rich crypto person. You buy them because...see above.

I don't think any of them even *really* expect their weird pixel art NFT to be worth any money in the long term. It's just that owning a weird pixel art NFT is the thing you do to be a part of this thing you want to be a part of...

[Omnipresent]

Re: cargo culting

in case you didn't hear, the monkeys were a couple of white florida boys selling monkey apes to crypto bros. No lie.

[Anonymous Coward]

NFT

A device to part a fool from their money.

[Kane]

Re: NFT

"A device to part a fool from their money."

No Fools Tolerated.

[Jonathan Richards 1]

Pfft. Gazillion.

The order of magnitude for the kettle boiling illustration is about right, if they're not very full and you start with warmish water. But a gazillion trees! That's nothing. I heard that in the Amazon basin there are at least a million brazillion trees.

[Howard Sway]

Winners will move past NFTs as simply collectable to find greater utility through the token

Wooo! Look at all the useful things I can do with my big meaningless list of numbers! I can, erm, print it out! And some other stuff too!

When this bubble pops, I think I might laugh so hard I need hospital treatment.

[Anonymous Coward]

Art Patronage

The big prices such as $69e6 for Beeple's NFT did not involve actual USD. He was paid in Crypto. The same for all the big prices. It is just one Crypto Bro passing Crypto to another Crypto Bro.

[JacobZ]

Translation, please

"Winners will move past NFTs as simply collectable to find greater utility through the token"

Translation: "We don't actually know why anybody would pay money for one of these yet, but we're sure we'll figure out sometime soon".

[Anonymous Coward]

In other NFT News today...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60369879

"The UK tax authority has seized three Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) as part of a probe into a suspected a VAT fraud involving 250 alleged fake companies.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) said three people had been arrested on suspicion of attempting to defraud it of £1.4m.

The authority said it was the first UK law enforcement to seize an NFT.

NFTs are assets in the digital world that can be bought and sold, but which have no tangible form of their own.

[...]

"

How do you *seize* something that doesn't exist :)