"Digital Gold" Author Reviews NFTs: More Fun, Easier-to-Understand ICOs That Make People More Eager to Participate Compared to Stocks

Former New York Times journalist and author of "Digital Gold," Nathaniel Popper, shared his thoughts on the NFT space. He mentioned that one of the benefits of leaving the New York Times was being able to truly engage in cryptocurrency trading for the first time, and he never expected NFTs to be so interesting and captivating.

Original link: https://twitter.com/nathanielpopper/status/1494772144634404866

99% of NFTs Will Go to Zero

I remember reading a comment about NFTs from Fred Wilson, co-founder of the New York venture capital firm Union Square Ventures (USV), back in 2017.

At that time, NFTs seemed like a foolish, expensive online card game, at best resembling Keynes' beauty contest, a competition among brothers.

Note: The Keynesian beauty contest is a concept proposed by the famous economist John Maynard Keynes. He believed that the investment behavior in financial markets is similar to a beauty contest, where one must judge the preferences of the public rather than choosing the contestant they find most attractive.

However, as I started buying some, I suddenly understood why everyone loves NFTs. Yes, the NFT space is full of scams, and I believe that 95-99% will go to zero, as someone has already summarized common fraudulent practices.

The Symbolism of NFTs

At its simplest level, NFTs are the first thing that has given me a gut feeling about crypto startups:

The significance of digitally owning a unique digital artwork.

You can hold a digital item, an Item, across different ecosystems via NFTs, proving you own it cryptographically, enabling you to do fun things with it without any company denying me access to that NFT.

This is something I have never experienced with homogeneous tokens, where every cryptocurrency is the same, unlike NFTs that are so unique.

Currently, NFTs almost force you to use your wallet and hold them directly, rather than handing them over to the third-party custodians or exchanges commonly used in most cryptocurrency trades.

I see people like Signal founder and cryptographer Moxie Marlinspike raising concerns about centralization infrastructure in the NFT industry, but more innovative on-chain projects seem to be facing similar challenges.

NFTs Are More Engaging Than Stocks

Sometimes NFTs are indeed just JPEG files, but compared to stocks that you can easily buy back after selling, even though stocks are backed by physical companies, JPEGs engage people more and make them genuinely care about project affairs.

Some NFT communities are indeed very harmful, but other projects are building strange and interesting communities on Discord, giving people a sense of belonging by gathering those with similar interests.

I still see significant regulatory concerns to be addressed, such as the meaninglessness of digital ownership in the face of right-click saving, and more serious issues:

For smart young people, is now the right time to invest money and time?

What Else Can NFTs Offer Besides Getting Rich?

Quoting a friend who spends more time trading cryptocurrencies than me:

I'm pretty sure that spending time on NFTs and cryptocurrencies is harmful to my mind and body.

NFTs certainly focus your attention on chasing wealth to an addictive extent, pushing aside other interests and hobbies with potential value. Most surprisingly, spending a huge amount of money to buy NFTs with Ether, when not priced in dollars, makes it so easy, akin to a casino exchanging chips for cash.

Similarly, my friend who spends a lot of time on crypto said:

I spent $7,000 tonight on a photo of a person holding a sword, the most I've ever spent on something in my life.

However, many projects in the NFT space are not aimed at getting rich but are trying to innovate through concepts like digital identity, digital ownership, etc., to build digital games, brands, communities, and new forms of economy.

Are NFTs Better Than ICOs?

NFTs feel like a better, more interesting version of the 2017 ICO craze to me. Most ICO projects have disappeared, and the term "decentralized" seemed then to only encourage participation in new forms of fraudulent projects. However, some ICOs have turned into billion-dollar companies.

NFTs have all the similar elements as mentioned above, but NFTs are easier to understand immediately and can be practically used today, unlike ICO tokens in 2017. People can quickly grasp NFTs, assess the underlying technology, and discern which projects are garbage.

Along the way, I encountered many scams. After signing on a fake NFT minting website, my wallet was immediately wiped clean. However, projects like Doodles, AZUKI, etc., allowed me to gain decent early profits.

I've sold both of these NFTs, and these profits have enabled me to try more strange, innovative projects, such as NFT Worlds, a metaverse similar to Minecraft where all major NFT communities have built their mini territories.

The NFT Journey

Through EtherOrcs, I've learned many interesting things, seemingly one of the most serious and respected NFT projects among all NFT projects.

Quoting a tweet: https://twitter.com/wizardofsoho/status/1490764278265270274

Soon, EtherOrcs led me to Anonymice, Realms, and finally TreasureDAO. In the past few weeks, TreasureDAO has become the most fascinating project for me, thanks to the tweets of Bram Kanstein.eth.

Betting on TreasureDAO

TreasureDAO is trying to build an entirely new gaming ecosystem, starting with a quirky, highly profitable strategy game called "Bridgeworld" to test systems, resource allocation, and most importantly, its ecosystem token $MAGIC

Quoting a tweet: https://twitter.com/Treasure_DAO/status/1454613345756123143

The entire project is based on various crazy game theories, but it's a game theory you can participate in and make money from.

Introduction to the Bridgeworld game: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VA01N-2lEYn1EITXmk89CNfGJovwaTXR/view

Bridgeworld has massive early profits because many serious developers in the NFT space are eagerly waiting to list their games on TreasureDAO in the future.

Another good progress is that all teams developing games for TreasureDAO will initially provide NFTs for free, making it harder for development teams to cash out or exit.

Like TreasureDAO, I have to assume that these experiments may end in failure, and the market is currently experiencing a severe bubble phase. However, observing what happens at this stage is particularly interesting.

Throughout this journey, I've been looking for NFT experts who see hope while also trying to debunk lies. I've learned a lot from bender, NFT Alpha Beta, Nate Rivers, NFT Ethics, and if you have any suggestions on who to follow, please let me know.