this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2024
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One of the things blockchain could do is become a digital proof of ownership, augmenting or replacing things like property deeds and car titles. We already agree that a written record of ownership of such things is legally binding (even if the writing is stored digitally), but transfer of that ownership to another person is still a very manual process. Imagine an NFT that represents ownership of your house, and when you want to sell your house, you transfer that NFT to someone else's custody - adding their ownership information to it. It would record the entire chain of ownership, and specific details about the piece of property involved.
And who would the largest nodes on that blockchain be? The banks? Who could say and do whatever they conspired since they command >50% of the computing power and/or value?
The average person isn’t going to build a fucking blockchain node just to keep the deed to their house.
“Grandma, please you need to fill your basement with these ASICs or else script kiddies will steal your house”
That's not how that works.
NFT is issued determining ownership to a property. Property sells, another NFT is issued, tied to the original one to maintain a chain of ownership. Issuance of a second NFT for a sale to a new owner would depend on authorization by the previous NFT holder. Lienholder information could also be stored, and linked to a mortgage NFT with payment history.
The "NF" part of that stands for "non-fungible." As in, once created, cannot be changed.
They're not making a technical argument but a practical one.
Who ever owns the chain is the ACTUAL owner of the NFTs. Who ever owns the physical hardware is the ACTUAL controller of the chain.
The problem with NFTs is ... they only solve theoretical problems, not problems in the real world, where it ALWAYS takes agreement and cooperation for anything to ACTUALLY function and serve a purpose.
Blockchains have already proven to be no more secure than a properly designed normal database, and are ALWAYS going to take more electricity, so...they continue to be nothing but a toy and a canary for the gullible tech bro.
Not to mention, at scale, big things like cars and houses are sold a ton every single day...
Having to use all that electricity to mint an NFT every single time, not to mention cases mentioned above like "Oops got it wrong", yikes.....
Would that cost more electricity than hypothetically shifting all vehicles to electric? Now I'm curious haha.
I mean, you can use other systems besides cryptographic proof-of-work to determine legitimacy of stakeholders of a blockchain. It doesn’t necessarily have to waste power.
That being said, none of the other alternatives are really viable either. Proof-of-stake? So the “richest” people on the chain control all the money? Sounds like we just reinvented the late-stage-capitalism we already have.
Nah, movement is a ton of energy be it gas or electric. Electric vehicles are still the future for the simple fact that they replace something even less economical or long term.
NFTs replace nothing. Not with an improved version, anyways.
What happens if a mistake was made and an NFT is erroneously issued (for example to the wrong person)?
What happens if the owner dies? How is the NFT transferred then?
Who checks that the original NFT was issued correctly?
What about properties that are split? What happens if the split isn't represented in the NFT correctly (e.g. due to an error)?
The whole non-fungible part can be a problem, not a solution. It very, very rarely happens that ownership of a property is contested. It happens quite often that a mistake is made during a property transfer/sale that needs to be corrected. How do NFTs deal with this, and are they a solution to a non-issue?
That person has it now. They mjght volountarily be willing to send it back with another transactions or the courts could force them to do so (as in give fines, request keys, send to prison, or just have the government own and ooerate all the wallet keys and simulate transactions eith blockchain just as the technology used in a very janky way)
Similarily, either the government does all the transactions with 'your' keys for you, or you write down the keys in your will and have someone of trust (e.g. a lawyer) do the partitioning/transactions part in your stead.
The seller and buyer beforehand, mostly
Rebalance by having everone affected send their portions for redistribution to a trusted entity
As you've said yourself, NFTs seem wholly unsuited for keeping track of general ownership on a large scale. All the problems do have solutions, but they're either complicated for the owners or it's someone else controlling people's keys, defeating the entire point.
See that's the thing. Not being able to correct transaction errors is a feature of blockchain. I'd go as far as saying it's the #1 feature of the majority of crypto that brings in all the scammers.
Personally I prefer my money being insured and controlled by the government.