https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URo9IolYV7o

What is NBA Top Shot?

Using blockchain technology, fans can buy and sell NBA video highlights that are licensed by the league.

Can’t I just watch these highlights on YouTube and Twitter?

Yes, you can. But the way this works is that you own an officially licensed highlight like you would own a trading card. And some of those highlights might be limited to just a few “printings,” which drives the price up.

But how is there value in that?

That’s probably the question that I struggle to answer. There’s value in anything that other people value thanks to supply and demand, right? If there are a ton of collectors who see a dollar value in a super-rare, officially-licensed highlight of a big-name NBA player that others want, there’s a market for it.

Me and my boys had a debate one it last night. One got in early and has made 40k.
It’s a scam but so is everything else. There’s a market for it and it will grow once they actually promote. Can they create a way to make it sustainable and not bubble and crash? Make it more than just collectibles?


Who knows? But the structure and licensing behind the highlight clips along with the NBAs blessing you own highlights clips in this format but not the highlight itself was the highest hurdle.

Looks like it’ll move to other sports next: ufc, nfl, mlb

Then to movies and entertainment. Imagine owning a “Luke I a ma your father” moment.

>Then to movies and entertainment. Imagine owning a “Luke I a ma your father” moment.

...why would I want to do that?



www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

Like everything else under capitalism.


Might as well cash in while you can.

Or expense of production (super cars)
Resources required to use (helium based products)
Or perceived value on a global stage (Hermes)
This is not any of those.

Why would anyone pay for a glorified gif?

do I like the system? I dunno.

but do I get it?

Yes. Kind of.

When I think of this, I am reminded of limited edition prints and art photography. When I mention art photography, I'm talking about the work you'll find in a commercial gallery fetching 40 to 80k. Prints are much of the same - the prints in limited number 1 of 3, 1 of 40, etc.

But, then I also think that this is something that will only make sense in the future or far future. It's hard to see the value in it using the eyes and perspective from today.

all you got was a receipt saying you own the art

but no actual art

then it would be the same


it's possible that I'm just dumb

but it doesn't seem like you actually get anything of value from having the thing.

I can put art on my wall, or burn it, or take a shit on it if I want to.


what can I do with my NFT?

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

and, maybe this is also getting into a philosophical realm about ownership, the usefulness of things, when does a thing become an object or an idea, what is an object, etc.

it's kind of like asking, "what is a company?" is the company the building, the people, the things the company produces?

I think the top shot thing is ahead of itself, and a proof of concept unleashed on the general public when really there is no infrastructure to support the assets. what I mean is...in a way I see this as verified/certified digital art, but it's art with no display venue. There is no standard digital art and memorabilia display platform. no place where ONLY this thing can live to give it importance.

going back to the question of why buy this if you can see the clip for yourself on the internet makes me also think about the idea that you can buy a print of just about any famous art work but we don't question it.

"going back to the question of why buy this if you can see the clip for yourself on the internet makes me also think about the idea that you can buy a print of just about any famous art work but we don't question it."

99.9999999 percent of people never buy an authentic art piece of any note or value


lots of people buy prints.

in the .0000001% of people want to buy something, sure, but us regulars aren't going to get rich off of it

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

>do I like the system? I dunno.
>
>but do I get it?
>
>Yes. Kind of.
>
>When I think of this, I am reminded of limited edition prints
>and art photography. When I mention art photography, I'm
>talking about the work you'll find in a commercial gallery
>fetching 40 to 80k. Prints are much of the same - the prints
>in limited number 1 of 3, 1 of 40, etc.
>
>But, then I also think that this is something that will only
>make sense in the future or far future. It's hard to see the
>value in it using the eyes and perspective from today.


I don't know if the two are comparable. The photographer and/or artist that created those works you referenced still have to spend time and money to create said art. The end product may be over inflated in value, but there is still some physical, monetary and time investment on the part of the artist. Outside of creating the blockchain system to manage the transactions, what physical investment is there for the folks behind TopShot?

There are printers that can now replicate what Andy Warhol did on canvas, but it still wouldn't be a Warhol.

If you see a gallery selling prints it's the cosign from the artist that this artist will never create this work again.

That makes the scarcity of the print have value outside of the print.
The same goes with trading cards and gaming cards.

But these folks are trying to monetize moments. And moments belong to everyone.

Take the OJ chase. The White Bronco went on sale for 700k in 2017.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4752984/The-white-Bronco-infamous-OJ-Simpson-police-chase.html
Would a limited run gif have as much value as that truck, would it have ANY value when that moment belongs to everyone?

There have always been and will always be people that will buy shit, but you don't have to be a futurist to recognize a scam.

This is the same technology Top Shots is based on.


Top Shots is pretty much a bastardization of revolutionary tech, but it's bringing a lot of attention to the space so whatever.

it was called crypto kitties

it was selling a lot of items for a lot of money, and now it isn't.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

But the replies here got me thinking everything is a scam lol.

Especially the parallel to art photography and prints. I'm struggling to convince myself that there is a difference (other than the tangibility, but does that even really matter?)

Getting the color, paper, ink, size alignment ... all takes work.

I could print out this Art Of Chase print on my own
for whatever it costs me to do so
https://theartofchase.bigcartel.com/product/ceci-n-est-pas-un-joint

But it wouldn't be an Art of Chase print, it'd be something I printed at home.

Would it look nice? Sure. But it would only have value to me. I couldn't sell it to my neighbor, I couldn't leave it in a will.

What things are worth is a social construct. As a society we've made very clear that gifs have cultural value but not monetary.

"But it would only have value to me. I couldn't sell it to my neighbor, I couldn't leave it in a will."

what if you became famous or the print was hanging on the wall when something notable happens in your house? (I'm not saying you will be the victim in a grisly triple homicide that inspires a podcast series, I'm just allowing for the possibility of such an occurence)

it would immediately become particularly unique and valuable to certain people

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

I mean, hopefully, about the murder

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugoKjb2cbuY

who still buy and sell trading cards as adults?

I do know some, but it's like...less than five

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

More than anything else is my theory.

I think that was the story for a lot of people

maybe these things will eventually render stories and nostalgia for someone, I can't say. but....like your clip. we see it all the time

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

And being essentially Spotify's flagship podcast producer, I don't think Simmons was like "fuck it, put two randoms on a one hour weekly podcast about trading cards!"


~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

they just axed the game of thrones recap whatever (I don't follow the ringer content)

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

This world is off its axis for real


~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

The one you linked up isn't high dollar art, but still it's a limited edition of 50. Why would they limit production to 50 prints?
Because it adds scarcity value. That little number at the bottom signifies that it's the real deal. And there aren't many out there. Your print out isn't the real deal, no matter how good the quality is.

These vids are a similar idea. There can be many like it (on youtube, giphy, etc), but this one here...it's the real one. One of only 3.


It seems silly to me. But not much sillier than paying thousands of dollars for art that can be identically reproduced at a fraction of the price.

at least NBA TopShots will take up less space in your attic once everyone realizes this is dumb.

Watching my lil man play NBA 2K20 and open packs and collect players, I kind of get it the appeal - but even then he gets to use players from those packs to play online with. But the inflated nature of the market for TopShots feels insane. Who's paying $40K for a highlight for anything other than speculation and investment?

When I see stuff like this my brain always flashes back to the Tulip Mania lesson from economics class.

Too bad i sold or gave away all my good shit

https://www.reuters.com/article/retail-trading-nfts/insight-how-a-10-second-video-clip-sold-for-6-6-million-idUKL8N2KV6X9

How a 10-second video clip sold for $6.6 million

LONDON (Reuters) - In October 2020, Miami-based art collector Pablo Rodriguez-Fraile spent almost $67,000 on a 10-second video artwork that he could have watched for free online. Last week, he sold it for $6.6 million.

The video by digital artist Beeple, whose real name is Mike Winkelmann, was authenticated by blockchain, which serves as a digital signature to certify who owns it and that it is the original work.

It’s a new type of digital asset - known as a non-fungible token (NFT) - that has exploded in popularity during the pandemic as enthusiasts and investors scramble to spend enormous sums of money on items that only exist online.

Blockchain technology allows the items to be publicly authenticated as one-of-a-kind, unlike traditional online objects which can be endlessly reproduced.

“You can go in the Louvre and take a picture of the Mona Lisa and you can have it there, but it doesn’t have any value because it doesn’t have the provenance or the history of the work,” said Rodriguez-Fraile, who said he first bought Beeple’s piece because of his knowledge of the U.S.-based artist’s work.

“The reality here is that this is very, very valuable because of who is behind it.”

“Non-fungible” refers to items that cannot be exchanged on a like-for-like basis, as each one is unique - in contrast to “fungible” assets like dollars, stocks or bars of gold.

Examples of NFTs range from digital artworks and sports cards to pieces of land in virtual environments or exclusive use of a cryptocurrency wallet name, akin to the scramble for domain names in the early days of the internet.

The computer-generated video sold by Rodriguez-Fraile shows what appears to be a giant Donald Trump collapsed on the ground, his body covered in slogans, in an otherwise idyllic setting.

OpenSea, a marketplace for NFTs, said it has seen monthly sales volume grow to $86.3 million so far in February, as of Friday, from $8 million in January, citing blockchain data. Monthly sales were at $1.5 million a year ago.

“If you spend 10 hours a day on the computer, or eight hours a day in the digital realm, then art in the digital realm makes tonnes of sense - because it is the world,” said OpenSea’s co-founder Alex Atallah.

Investors caution, however, that while big money is flowing into NFTs, the market could represent a price bubble.

Like many new niche investment areas, there is the risk of major losses if the hype dies down, while there could be prime opportunities for fraudsters in a market where many participants operate under pseudonyms.

CHRISTIE’S ‘EMBRACES TERRIFYING’

Nonetheless, auction house Christie’s has just launched its first-ever sale of digital art – a collage of 5,000 pictures, also by Beeple – which exists solely as an NFT.
Slideshow ( 4 images )

Bids for the work have hit $3 million, with the sale due to close on March 11.

“We are in a very unknown territory. In the first 10 minutes of bidding we had more than a hundred bids from 21 bidders and we were at a million dollars,” said Noah Davis, specialist in post-war and contemporary art at Christie’s.

His division has never seen an online-only sale top $1 million before, he added.

In a decision that could help push cryptocurrencies further into the mainstream, the auction house that was founded in 1766 will accept payment in the digital coin Ether as well as traditional money.

“I think that this moment was inevitable and whenever institutions of any kind try to resist inevitability, it does not work out very well,” Davis said of accepting crypto payment. “And so the best thing you can do is embrace the terrifying.”
$208K FOR LEBRON JAMES SLAM DUNK

NFTs could be benefiting from the hype around cryptocurrencies and blockchain, as well as virtual reality’s potential to create online worlds. The growing interest also coincides with a surge in online retail trading during lockdowns.

The start of the rush for NFTs has been linked with the launch of the U.S. National Basketball Association’s Top Shot website, which allows users to buy and trade NFTs in the form of video highlights of games.

Five months after its launch, the platform says it has over 100,000 buyers and nearly $250 million in sales. The majority of sales take place in the site’s peer-to-peer marketplace, with the NBA getting a royalty on every sale.

The volume is rapidly rising: February has seen sales totalling $198 million as of Friday, heading for a fivefold increase from January’s $44 million, Top Shot said.

Each collectible has “a unique serial number with guaranteed scarcity and protected ownership guaranteed by blockchain”, the site says. “When you own #23/49 of a legendary LeBron James dunk, you’re the only person in the world who does.”

The biggest transaction to date was on Feb. 22, when a user paid $208,000 for a video of a LeBron James slam dunk.

One major NFT enthusiast, who goes by the pseudonym “Pranksy” told Reuters he had invested $600 in an early NFT project in 2017 and has now built that up to a portfolio “worth seven figures” in NFTs and cryptocurrencies. He asked to be anonymous to protect his family’s privacy.

Pranksy said he has now spent more than $1 million on Top Shot and made about $4.7 million by reselling purchases. Reuters was unable to independently verify the figures, although NBA Top Shot confirmed he is among the site’s biggest buyers.

“I see them as investments really, much like any other collectibles and NFTs that currently exist,” he said in an interview conducted via Twitter. “I’d never watched a game of basketball before Top Shot launched.”

‘EMERGENCE OF THE METAVERSE’

Nate Hart, a Nashville-based NFT investor who, like Pranksy, has been involved in the market since it first developed in 2017, has seen some popular digital art NFTs such as Autoglyphs and CryptoPunk surge in value.

Hart said he bought a LeBron James Cosmic NFT on NBA Top Shot for $40,000 in January, then sold it for $125,000 in February.

“We’re in awe, it just doesn’t feel real. We were in the right place, right time, got lucky, but we also took that risk,” he said.

“The space has been growing a lot. I do think that this is a little bit of a bubble. It is a bubble,” he said. “It’s hard to predict what the top will be.”

Andrew Steinwold, who launched a $6 million dollar NFT investment fund in January, warned that the majority of NFTs could become worthless in future.

But, like many backers, he is confident that some items will retain their value and that NFTs represent the future of digital ownership, paving the way for a world in which people live, socialise and make money in virtual environments.

“We’re spending a lot of our time digitally, always online, always plugged in. It makes sense to now add property rights to the mix and suddenly we have the emergence of the metaverse,” he said.

“I think it’s going to reach into the trillions of dollars one day.”

The art world works really well for that. This may just be a more efficient way to do it.

>The art world works really well for that. This may just be a
>more efficient way to do it.


Assuming you can remain completely anonymous, I think you might be one to something. With blockchain transactions, that's possible depending on how well versed one is with keeping their digital footprints concealed, correct? I imagine there some dollar amount and extra time spent to remain completely anonymous, but if one wanted to be devious and nefarious in their deeds, that could be the necessary motivation.

And the capital gains system is fucked up.

>And the capital gains system is fucked up.

Is that true even if the digital wallet isn't US based?

https://brighttax.com/blog/cryptocurrency-accounts-added-fbar-reporting/

all the rights?

like don't they literally say that out loud and/or put it on the screen in writing at the end of every broadcast?

Networks just get the rights to air it

"This copyrighted broadcast of the National Basketball Association may not be retransmitted, reproduced, rebroadcast, or otherwise distributed or used in any form without the express written consent of the NBA"

Like, could I take my clip of such and such and sell it to, say, The Today Show for less money than the NBA charges but more than I spent on it?


~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

>Networks just get the rights to air it
>
>"This copyrighted broadcast of the National Basketball
>Association may not be retransmitted, reproduced, rebroadcast,
>or otherwise distributed or used in any form without the
>express written consent of the NBA"


so I'm having trouble wrapping my head around how topshots is even viable or legal

if he were able to withdraw it which he can't.

https://defector.com/nba-top-shot-story/

(can use incognito mode to read it)

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

My big theory during the pirated music era was the best way to get people to stop "stealing" and "sharing" music would be give everyone the opportunity to "sell" music. That is, track digital files and give me the opportunity to make money off a file if I can other people to buy it from me.

This is a different application but seems to me based on a similar principle.

**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

and yes, certificates of authenticity matter.

the question i have is, would you purchase something using digital currency?

https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/nft-sales-elon-musk-b2071204.html?utm_content=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Main&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1651671640

Buy the dip!

but yeah the risker shit is getting hit the hardest

Can you imagine if the temperature of your food increased or decreased 92%

Imagine cooking a steak to a nice 145 degrees and when it hits your plate it comes in at a piping 278 degrees F or on the flip 11.6 degrees.

92% just down, lol

Old boring stuff.

prolly one of the most predictable bubbles in recent history.

but i dont think anyone saw it going almost completely valueless that fast.

most mlm opps are built on people making money off telling other people they can make make money off telling other people they can make money.

nobody really cares about the demand side value of the actual product or service that is supposedly being sold (knives, perfumes, internet, etc).

basically people only got into nfts to sell and make money or to buy and resell at a higher price in the future to make money.

nobody really saw any personal value in possessing the actual nft. especially since you didnt even really possess anything.

your reply made me think of this scene from the Office
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lC5lsemxaJo

Good shit