BEWARE of fake EEVblog NFT's

[schmitt trigger]

IMHO people need to wrap their head around the fact that you can own something that doesn't physically exist. Think about something simple like the money in your bank account. That is a number stored in a database in a slot with your name on it. Technically you don't even own that database but you rent a slot in it.

Question: Would stocks or bonds fall into the same category?

I remember back when derivatives caused the market to crash, a banker explained that stocks are "as reflections from a mirror" and derivatives were "aggregate reflections from that and several other mirrors, reflected in yet another mirror". Which only could be seen, of course, as long as there was light shining on the objects.

[nctnico]

IMHO people need to wrap their head around the fact that you can own something that doesn't physically exist. Think about something simple like the money in your bank account. That is a number stored in a database in a slot with your name on it. Technically you don't even own that database but you rent a slot in it.

Question: Would stocks or bonds fall into the same category?

Stocks and bonds are also administrated in a database where you rent a slot but in general owning a piece of a company is owning something that exists.

I remember back when derivatives caused the market to crash, a banker explained that stocks are "as reflections from a mirror" and derivatives were "aggregate reflections from that and several other mirrors, reflected in yet another mirror". Which only could be seen, of course, as long as there was light shining on the objects.

AFAIK a derivative (option) is mostly used as an insurance against price fluctuations of stock. The issuer usually gets a fee.

If the stock is a share in an actual company then I don't see how it can be described as a reflection. If the stock is part ownership of a whole bunch of (sub-prime) loans which have been repacked a couple of times then it becomes really hard to figure out what the stock actually represents. Assessing the risks of derivatives from such stock becomes nearly impossible (which became painfully clear during the 2008 credit crunch).

[nctnico]

OMG  Another moron that wants to go back to the gold standard.

OMG Another moron who does not understand that the way modern economics is taught in academia and described in media is not the actual way modern economies work.

I understand enough of it that using things like the gold standard simply doesn't work. All the world's economists that are involved in actually running countries and banks seem to agree on that. Not because of some global conspiracy (please don't go there...) but simply because fiat money works. The modern banking system actually goes back centuries with its roots in the early 17th century at a place called 'Amsterdam'.

The thing is that no economic theory is absolutely right. Like pure kapitalism and pure communism just don't work. It has to be a mix which is adjusted for the situation at hand.

And if you model the value of money as an amount of work, then a lot of pieces start to fall in place. In the end any kind of value is created by somebody doing work. What sits on top is just layers of bartering tools and controls to keep the bartering system balanced. Look at inflation for example. In general work done loses its value over time. What is a loaf of bread worth after a week? What is the software you wrote worth after 10 years? So why should the money you got for that work keep the same value forever?

[Nominal Animal]

OMG  Another moron that wants to go back to the gold standard.

OMG Another moron who does not understand that the way modern economics is taught in academia and described in media is not the actual way modern economies work.

I understand enough of it that using things like the gold standard simply doesn't work. All the world's economists that are involved in actually running countries and banks seem to agree on that. Not because of some global conspiracy (please don't go there...) but simply because fiat money works.

For the economists and those who pay their salaries; definitely yes.  (No, I do not believe in global conspiracies.  Or in conspiracies in general: that which can be explained by shortsighted greed and stupidity should not be attributed to a conspiracy.)

The underlying problem with fiat money is that it has no stabilizing mechanism at all.  It makes ownership more profitable than production, causing increasing gap between the majority and the most richest, and that monetary power leaks into politics.  This causes both internal problems, and international problems.  Even right now, in Eurasia, there is at least one war brewing because of energy and money politics.

The thing is that no economic theory is absolutely right. Like pure kapitalism and pure communism just don't work. It has to be a mix which is adjusted for the situation at hand.

Exactly.  The only thing we know for sure, is that it must include competition and rewards for efforts, otherwise humans (and many mammals) just stop functioning properly.  (Fairness in particular is something that must be included, as the concept has been proven to exist even in capuchin monkeys as a behaviour-driving factor.)

And if you model the value of money as an amount of work, then a lot of pieces start to fall in place. In the end any kind of value is created by somebody doing work.

If only our Western financial systems actually worked that way, I'd be very happy.

Because the central banks control the money supply –– do remember that governments increase the amount of money by going into debt for the central banks; it is free for the central banks but costs money for the governments! –– and can therefore control e.g. inflation and interest rates by controlling the supply, fiat money is completely separated from any actual measurable value.  Its value is what humans believe its value to be, and that's it.

This is also the reason why some want a monetary system backed by a physical, limited quantity, like gold.  For the opposite reason, keeping the fiat belief strong, it is also the reason why USA is so adamant about fiat USD being the world reserve currency.

What I've written here is actually quite noncontroversial; just about every experienced economist will agree on the above off the record.

The core question is, what would work better?  I don't know.  I'd personally settle for a different emphasis on taxation, especially on sales of derivatives; maybe a small (less than 1%) tax on stock transactions.  (For example, a quarter of the private wealth of UK is actually derivatives.  That is not sane, nor is it productive, because it is basically banks gambling with free money.  Taxing them would immediately kill things like high-frequency trading, which I believe would be a good thing.)

The annoying thing is that very few economists are suggesting any practical changes, really.  They are mostly either just prostrating over how good the current system is, or lamenting how bad the current system is, without any real suggestions.  The few exceptions, like Nobel laureate James Tobin, are few and far between.  And of the few exceptions, some like Klaus Schwab ("You will own nothing, and you will be happy"), are obviously utterly crazy, completely ignoring the biology and needs of the human animal, and assuming humans can be forced to change their fundamental nature to fit their utopistic (and horribly harsh) future vision.

In a world of fiat currencies, NFT's make perfect sense.

[NiHaoMike]

And you cannot "mine it" so it is not going to be an ecological disaster like ETH and BTC.

That makes it a lot less interesting for hobbyists, I like cryptocurrencies that are efficient to mine and favor small scale mining by hobbyists so as to maximize decentralization. Thus far, none of the "energy efficient" altcoins have remained that way in the long run. The most common way they try to achieve that is limiting mining by IP address, with known VPN/VPS ranges blacklisted. (It might actually work by whitelisting known residential IP ranges in the US.) Enforcing such a limit is the hard part, all those altcoins did that through a closed ecosystem which means it's not truly decentralized.

When Swagbucks was at its peak, mining it would yield more money earned per kWh used than driving a Prius 20 miles round trip to a $50/hour job, even under the very unrealistic assumption that the workplace uses no energy. ($50/hour * 8 hours/workday = $400/day, 20 miles/day / 50 MPG = 0.4 gallons/day, 0.4 gallons/day * 33.41 kWh/gallon = 13.364kWh/day, $400/day / 13.364kWh/day = $29.931/kWh) At that time, my Swagbucks mining setup used 6W (0.144kWh/day) and made over $5/day for $34.72/kWh, although that only lasted for a month or two before difficulty went up.

[madires]

An OpenSea bug let attackers snatch Apes from owners at six-figure discounts (https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/24/22899125/opensea-bug-bored-ape-nfts-smart-contract-listings-cancellation).

[nctnico]

OMG  Another moron that wants to go back to the gold standard.

OMG Another moron who does not understand that the way modern economics is taught in academia and described in media is not the actual way modern economies work.

I understand enough of it that using things like the gold standard simply doesn't work. All the world's economists that are involved in actually running countries and banks seem to agree on that. Not because of some global conspiracy (please don't go there...) but simply because fiat money works.

For the economists and those who pay their salaries; definitely yes.  (No, I do not believe in global conspiracies.  Or in conspiracies in general: that which can be explained by shortsighted greed and stupidity should not be attributed to a conspiracy.)

The underlying problem with fiat money is that it has no stabilizing mechanism at all.

It has a stabilisation mechanism. There are several controls. One is the interest rate for example. With a high interest rate people will pull their money from the economy and sit on it. With a low interest rate people will start to invest and thus make the money available to the economy.

[madires]

More Than 80% of NFTs Created for Free on OpenSea Are Fraud or Spam, Company Says (https://www.vice.com/en/article/wxdzb5/more-than-80-of-nfts-created-for-free-on-opensea-are-fraud-or-spam-company-says).

[tszaboo]

More Than 80% of NFTs Created for Free on OpenSea Are Fraud or Spam, Company Says (https://www.vice.com/en/article/wxdzb5/more-than-80-of-nfts-created-for-free-on-opensea-are-fraud-or-spam-company-says).

Not surprising. Most of the ETH mining is done  by frontrunner bots, ripping off regular traders. Most tradeable tokens are a scam, on some networks like the BSC over 99% of the tokens are scam, and some people analyzing it, the mean lifetime of the scam was 17 minutes.
It's a wild west out there, and the only way for people to avoid getting ripped off is by learning and educating themselves about it.