Does Second Life plan to get into NFTs ?

[Coffee Pancake]

STALKER 2 (game) just jumped face first into hyping in game NFTs .. and the reaction is a bloodbath, their social media are trying to backpeddle with promises that none of the crypto content will affect game play and is entirely optional (yet it does, and it isn't .. it never is .. )

The point of note here is that the industry press jumped on the NFT hype bandwaggon with the publisher and the backlash from gamers has been a surprise.

If SL does NFT anything, it will be because an out of touch higher up got over excited by the prospect of magic money.

My concern is this isn't being recognized as a visceral "do not want" from consumers, but rather as a marketing problem to be "solved".

[Ardy Lay]

Everyone is afraid they will miss out on the next big billionaire making thing.  Seems all that's left is invent something to bait people to rush in then rug-pull them.

Edited December 15, 2021 by Ardy Lay

[QwiQ]

15 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

STALKER 2 (game) just jumped face first into hyping in game NFTs .. and the reaction is a bloodbath, their social media are trying to backpeddle with promises that none of the crypto content will affect game play and is entirely optional (yet it does, and it isn't .. it never is .. )

The point of note here is that the industry press jumped on the NFT hype bandwaggon with the publisher and the backlash from gamers has been a surprise.

If SL does NFT anything, it will be because an out of touch higher up got over excited by the prospect of magic money.

My concern is this isn't being recognized as a visceral "do not want" from consumers, but rather as a marketing problem to be "solved".

I'm in no way what Tama might call a "NFT worshipper", rather I'm just a RL software product owner watching blockchain technology to see if it's something we might leverage ourselves.

My concern for SL however is that the visceral "do not want" reaction from some on these forums is being driven by vested interests and protectionism, rather than openness to potential opportunities which might secure the future of the business and this platform we all love.

Needless to say it's somewhat ironic that for years many of the same people wrote off any critic of SL as "just not getting it" 🙂

As I've mentioned a couple of times now, it's true that the current technology stack is in its relative infancy, but it's developing at such a rate that anyone worth their salt isn't happy to dismiss a whole possible paradigm shift in technology on the basis of what the initial iterations look like.

As for all the "examples" provided by numerous NFT critics on these threads (who seem to actually applaud each other for their lack of knowledge and self confessed ignorance!) the facts remain that rightly or wrongly the gaming and consumer goods industries are ploughing head long into this.

We'll see what happens, and I by no means have a crystal ball, but something is happening out there. The current (admittedly quite volatile) market cap for crypto sits at over $2T even after a bit of bear run; NFTs are being rolled out across the board, with brands like Nike now joining in.

Is our plan here really just to raise the ante on our already perceived legacy brand by sitting on the side-lines with our fingers crossed in the hope that everyone else crashes and burns and we can gloat "I told you so"?  Yeah, because people love those guys 🙂

Are we really content to be "the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better"....and be with  "those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." ?

At the moment it feels like most on these threads are quite happy to fiddle (literally with themselves) while SL burns.

Edited December 16, 2021 by QwiQ

[Hunny Bunny]

Gacha 2: NFT Boogaloo

[Coffee Pancake]

7 hours ago, QwiQ said:

I'm in no way what Tama might call a "NFT worshipper", rather I'm just a RL software product owner watching blockchain technology to see if it's something we might leverage ourselves.

Blockchain has uses, but not as a proof of ______ based currency.

Viable uses can't happen while the investor bubble is being pumped.

7 hours ago, QwiQ said:

My concern for SL however is that the visceral "do not want" reaction from some on these forums is being driven by vested interests and protectionism, rather than openness to potential opportunities which might secure the future of the business and this platform we all love.

My vested interest. I live here too.

It's a pure hype bubble economy offering a "get rich quick" way out of late stage capitalism with a techy "hack the system" veneer. Crypto and NFTs are an environmental disaster both in terms of energy and physical resource requirements.

The tip of this iceberg is the supply shortages we see with chip manufacture, huge swathes of our silicon manufacturing capacity (GPUs, ASICs, etc) are being diverted into this dead end and can only increase over time (by design).

There can't be any valid use cases while everyone is playing money rocket ships to the moon.

7 hours ago, QwiQ said:

As for all the "examples" provided by numerous NFT critics on these threads (who seem to actually applaud each other for their lack of knowledge and self confessed ignorance!) the facts remain that rightly or wrongly the gaming and consumer goods industries are ploughing head long into this.

Because money. NFTs an a sheen of legitimacy to the practice of selling half a game and milking the players for the rest by selling it as "optional" DLC.

7 hours ago, QwiQ said:

We'll see what happens, and I by no means have a crystal ball, but something is happening out there. The current (admittedly quite volatile) market cap for crypto sits at over $2T even after a bit of bear run; NFTs are being rolled out across the board, with brands like Nike now joining in.

These companies exist for the singular purpose of extracting and focusing wealth, everything else they do (make shoes, games, food) is incidental and simple a means to that end. They can't ignore a bubble that intersects with their operating space.

7 hours ago, QwiQ said:

Is our plan here really just to raise the ante on our already perceived legacy brand by sitting on the side-lines with our fingers crossed in the hope that everyone else crashes and burns and we can gloat "I told you so"?  Yeah, because people love those guys 🙂

The NFT Crypto bubble will be burst by factors beyond the control of those who use / invest in them.

Crypto does not scale to the needs of a currency. The math is really quite simple.

How many transactions would crypto need to replace currency? How much bigger does the infrastructure required by crypto need to be to facilitate that? Do we have the planet wide manufacturing and energy generation to make that happen?

NO.

We could devote every silicon plant and every power station to crypto as a currency, and not only is it not even close, the escalating requirements mean we can never reach that goal.

Quote

The Digiconomist's Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index estimated that one Bitcoin transaction takes 1,544 kWh to complete, or the equivalent of approximately 53 days of power for the average US household. 

https://www.cnet.com/personal-finance/crypto/heres-how-much-electricity-it-takes-to-mine-bitcoin-and-why-people-are-worried/#:~:text=To put that into money,than %24200 in energy bills.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2021/03/09/bill-gates-bitcoin-crypto-climate-change/?sh=343c05056822

https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/bitcoins-energy-usage-explained/

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-56215787

https://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-uses-as-much-energy-as-sweden-and-is-on-course-to-use-even-more-2021-3

 

I could post links about this ALL DAY LONG, and those just focus on the energy needs of ONE system as deployed. Factor in the manufacturing requirements and it's laughably untenable.

Even if we turned over ALL the activity and energy of every person on the planet.

This is not going to work. This can not work. We can't make this work even if we wanted to.

 

7 hours ago, QwiQ said:

At the moment it feels like most on these threads are quite happy to fiddle (literally with themselves) while SL burns.

SL's problems are systemic, addressing those platform problems is the solution. Crypto and NFTs do nothing to address any of those problems.

Much in the same way VR didn't actually solve any of the problems it was widely cites as being a solution for.

[MichaelCorleone Losangeles]

@Tama Suki I'm aware of those other markets that's one of the reason I think this lego style builds on the blockchain are ultimately a dead end. The Utopia that many dream about is Second Life on the blockchain controlled by DAO not big corporations. As great as Second Life is it has some scaling issues like the number of people who can interact on a sim at the same time. If Blockchain is to be WEB 3.0 it has a long ways to go. Metaverse based companies like Decentraland and Sandbox are making millions based on the story they are selling that a Second Life experience on the Blockchain controlled by the masses where everyone can make money. As we all know in Second Life that's a fallacy. There will always be the 80/20 rule where 80% of business is generated by 20%. That's not going away. I want to find a way to create a bridge between Second Life and Blockchain metaverses that will enable Second Life creators to enhance the monetarization of their efforts beyond Second Life while still growing in Second Life.

[MichaelCorleone Losangeles]

@QwiQ I agree with much of what yours saying and would like to continue the conversation on Discord. I've setup up a server specifically to tackle this issue. I want to understand why the Lego Yacht sold for $650K when we have far superior products here in Second Life. I know its because its associated with The Sand Box, but once again Second Life is far superior to the Sand Box. I truly want to understand this because my gut tells me this is all a big bubble and Second Life is a underutilized platform. You reach me on Discord at godfathaog#7839

FYI I built this marina 10 years ago to market my yachts. In addition to selling yachts we also rented apartments and retail space and ran a virtual yacht charter experience. I built all my yachts in Second Life. Now I'm looking to hire someone to help me convert them to mesh and tokenize them. 

 

[Ardy Lay]

What's it called when one's left hand sells something to one's right hand?  They both have the same wallet, bank and possessions but generally their signatures look different.

[animats]

2 hours ago, MichaelCorleone Losangeles said:

@QwiQ I agree with much of what yours saying and would like to continue the conversation on Discord. I've setup up a server specifically to tackle this issue. I want to understand why the Lego Yacht sold for $650K when we have far superior products here in Second Life. I know its because its associated with The Sand Box, but once again Second Life is far superior to the Sand Box. I truly want to understand this because my gut tells me this is all a big bubble and Second Life is a underutilized platform. You reach me on Discord at godfathaog#7839

FYI I built this marina 10 years ago to market my yachts. In addition to selling yachts we also rented apartments and retail space and ran a virtual yacht charter experience. I built all my yachts in Second Life. Now I'm looking to hire someone to help me convert them to mesh and tokenize them. 

 

Oh, definitely. Take the yacht's file in Blender and export it as GLTF format. OpenSea accepts GLTF. That will have all the meshes and textures, but not the scripts. Provide lots of nice pictures. Pay the minting and listing fees there to list it. Set up a web site with this video. Add some clip art with images of money, and lots of NFT boilerplatee. Tell buyers that if they buy it, they get a no-copy version usable in Second Life, too. Make up a version for the NFT with a different color scheme than you usually sell in SL. In fact, you can sell different colored and patterned versions as "uniques", so if it sells, make more.

Let us know how it works out, please.

[animats]

1 hour ago, Ardy Lay said:

What's it called when one's left hand sells something to one's right hand?  They both have the same wallet, bank and possessions but generally their signatures look different.

A "wash sale". A criminal offense for securities, common for collectables.

[Coffee Pancake]

3 hours ago, MichaelCorleone Losangeles said:

I want to understand why the Lego Yacht sold for $650K when we have far superior products here in Second Life. I know its because its associated with The Sand Box, but once again Second Life is far superior to the Sand Box. I truly want to understand this because my gut tells me this is all a big bubble and Second Life is a underutilized platform. You reach me on Discord at godfathaog#7839

FYI I built this marina 10 years ago to market my yachts. In addition to selling yachts we also rented apartments and retail space and ran a virtual yacht charter experience. I built all my yachts in Second Life. Now I'm looking to hire someone to help me convert them to mesh and tokenize them. 

If you can't identify the business model, how do you expect to reproduce it ?

I can assure you it's more complicated than YACHT + NFT = RICH

[MichaelCorleone Losangeles]

@Coffee Pancake I'm quite aware there's more to it than that..........

What do you think drove the value of that yacht?

I'm not planning on retiring on that yacht I'm looking to build a sustainable business around it and the other yachts I have in inventory. 10 years ago I was selling mine for $175 us. The advances they've made with mesh gives new life to my yacht. I'm a publisher in real life and my experience in Second Life led me to that field. www.yachtinglifestyle365.com I do have a business model I'm developing, looking for smart people to bounce ideas off of. 

Edited December 17, 2021 by MichaelCorleone Losangeles

[Ardy Lay]

2 hours ago, MichaelCorleone Losangeles said:

What do you think drove the value of that yacht?

Ignorance and/or arrogance 

[Coffee Pancake]

3 minutes ago, MichaelCorleone Losangeles said:

@Coffee Pancake I'm quite aware there's more to it than that..........

What do you think drove the value of that yacht?

Fraud.

The blockchain is great for preserving the amount items sold for and it's trivial to generate those sales. Real money is involved, but that real money could easily be going between wallets owned by the same person. It's all anon remember.

If I have to guess, a few people clubbed together, pooled their resources, maybe got a few loans out, shuffled the money around in a circle some and then recovered their investment. Then find an idiot willing to buy the yacht using the blockchain as evidence of appreciating value.

Expect to see NFT adjacent businesses crop up offering to do the leg work and appraise NFTs value 

[Tama Suki]

6 hours ago, MichaelCorleone Losangeles said:

@Tama Suki I'm aware of those other markets that's one of the reason I think this lego style builds on the blockchain are ultimately a dead end. The Utopia that many dream about is Second Life on the blockchain controlled by DAO not big corporations. As great as Second Life is it has some scaling issues like the number of people who can interact on a sim at the same time. If Blockchain is to be WEB 3.0 it has a long ways to go. Metaverse based companies like Decentraland and Sandbox are making millions based on the story they are selling that a Second Life experience on the Blockchain controlled by the masses where everyone can make money. As we all know in Second Life that's a fallacy. There will always be the 80/20 rule where 80% of business is generated by 20%. That's not going away. I want to find a way to create a bridge between Second Life and Blockchain metaverses that will enable Second Life creators to enhance the monetarization of their efforts beyond Second Life while still growing in Second Life.

Huh?

I don't know what you're talking about and i am not interested. I sell my creations here as well as in Turbosquid or redbubble or Merch by Amazon. 

I don't need to get rich and when i turn on the tv if i see a barker selling bad quality pans describing them as the best thing man has ever invented to fry an egg i change the channel.

[MichaelCorleone Losangeles]

@Tama Suki I’m glad your doing well with you business. Continue success in the future. 

[Tama Suki]

[QwiQ]

18 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Blockchain has uses, but not as a proof of ______ based currency.

Viable uses can't happen while the investor bubble is being pumped.

My vested interest. I live here too.

It's a pure hype bubble economy offering a "get rich quick" way out of late stage capitalism with a techy "hack the system" veneer. Crypto and NFTs are an environmental disaster both in terms of energy and physical resource requirements.

The tip of this iceberg is the supply shortages we see with chip manufacture, huge swathes of our silicon manufacturing capacity (GPUs, ASICs, etc) are being diverted into this dead end and can only increase over time (by design).

There can't be any valid use cases while everyone is playing money rocket ships to the moon.

Because money. NFTs an a sheen of legitimacy to the practice of selling half a game and milking the players for the rest by selling it as "optional" DLC.

These companies exist for the singular purpose of extracting and focusing wealth, everything else they do (make shoes, games, food) is incidental and simple a means to that end. They can't ignore a bubble that intersects with their operating space.

The NFT Crypto bubble will be burst by factors beyond the control of those who use / invest in them.

Crypto does not scale to the needs of a currency. The math is really quite simple.

How many transactions would crypto need to replace currency? How much bigger does the infrastructure required by crypto need to be to facilitate that? Do we have the planet wide manufacturing and energy generation to make that happen?

NO.

We could devote every silicon plant and every power station to crypto as a currency, and not only is it not even close, the escalating requirements mean we can never reach that goal.

https://www.cnet.com/personal-finance/crypto/heres-how-much-electricity-it-takes-to-mine-bitcoin-and-why-people-are-worried/#:~:text=To put that into money,than %24200 in energy bills.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2021/03/09/bill-gates-bitcoin-crypto-climate-change/?sh=343c05056822

https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/bitcoins-energy-usage-explained/

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-56215787

https://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-uses-as-much-energy-as-sweden-and-is-on-course-to-use-even-more-2021-3

 

I could post links about this ALL DAY LONG, and those just focus on the energy needs of ONE system as deployed. Factor in the manufacturing requirements and it's laughably untenable.

Even if we turned over ALL the activity and energy of every person on the planet.

This is not going to work. This can not work. We can't make this work even if we wanted to.

 

SL's problems are systemic, addressing those platform problems is the solution. Crypto and NFTs do nothing to address any of those problems.

Much in the same way VR didn't actually solve any of the problems it was widely cites as being a solution for.

Hi Coffee,

Thank you (genuinely) for sharing your views so honestly, it's been really informative and interesting (sorry, it sounds like I'm being facetious but I'm not).

Only time will tell what happens and where we all end up in 10 years.

My only parting shot will be to reiterate my belief that our reality will be very much different, we won't have the luxury of looking back at the dawn of 2032 and saying "well that decade was nice and uneventful!".

Will SL still be around?

My gut sadly says no, not in its current form anyway.

I think too many opportunities have been missed with no real drive to do anything more than marginally improve what exists already.

Which in my view won't be enough; if for no other reason than “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

You never know though, maybe new investors will come along and we might see a new blockchain driven MetaLife rise from the ashes (I can see your eyes roll in disgust from here 🙂)

I'll bow out from this thread now, thanks again.

Edited December 17, 2021 by QwiQ

[Coffee Pancake]

STALKER 2 does a 180 and is removing NFTs following backlash

https://kotaku.com/s-t-a-l-k-e-r-2-developers-remove-nfts-after-fan-uproa-1848230588

 

[Mollymews]

On 12/3/2021 at 3:21 AM, Qie Niangao said:

Until there emerge distributed ledgers orders of magnitude more efficient than the current blockchain-based systems, these applications will be limited to artisan scale—the polar opposite of microtransactions.

pretty much yes

 

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

For those who like to follow where ideas might have originated from, have another rad of "The Diamond Age", in particular Carl Hollywood's explanation to Miranda of why she couldn't trace Nell through the payments made for her racting, and then a sizable chunk in the last third of the book where Nell learns about the use of large numbers to encode and decode transaction and messages.

[Popblender]

On 8/29/2021 at 10:45 PM, Coffee Pancake said:

This is your grand idea?

SELL IT TO US !

 

Pretty please ? Just a single practical use case, just one...

Nfts are simply decentralized smart contracts. Proof of ownership assigns and protects the value of the asset within the contract. Every item listed in the marketplace should be minted on something like polygon (gas free). This devalues the rip offs and knock offs. It's like having a real Gucci not the knock off.  Then like anything else there's value if people want it.  The art aspect confuses people. It's a decentralized way to transfer ownership and payment.

[Istelathis]

From my understanding, NFTs usually do not actually contain any of the data of the actual item being sold other than a hashtag that leads to an item or link to an item which is hosted off of the blockchain.  If my understanding is correct, all you really are purchasing is essentially a pointer, which anyone could have access to if you share it.  Where it is stored, I imagine is not owned by the person that purchased the NFT, and whoever is hosting the artwork would not be required to maintain it.

 

Moxie Marlinspike, goes into more detail here:

https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html

 

Edited February 2, 2022 by Istelathis

[Lucia Nightfire]

1 hour ago, Popblender said:

Nfts are simply decentralized smart contracts. Proof of ownership assigns and protects the value of the asset within the contract. Every item listed in the marketplace should be minted on something like polygon (gas free). This devalues the rip offs and knock offs. It's like having a real Gucci not the knock off.  Then like anything else there's value if people want it.  The art aspect confuses people. It's a decentralized way to transfer ownership and payment.

New blank accounts resurrecting threads to talk about NFT's. Totally not alts. Totally not sus. 😆

[Ardy Lay]

1 hour ago, Popblender said:

Nfts are simply decentralized smart contracts. Proof of ownership assigns and protects the value of the asset within the contract. Every item listed in the marketplace should be minted on something like polygon (gas free). This devalues the rip offs and knock offs. It's like having a real Gucci not the knock off.  Then like anything else there's value if people want it.  The art aspect confuses people. It's a decentralized way to transfer ownership and payment.

That contract isn't worth the paper it is printed on.