The thing I really enjoy about non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and "smart contracts" more broadly is that there's no way to get them to point to information or objects outside the blockchain without introducing a trusted third party, the whole thing you set up a blockchain to avoid.
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Sure, but anyone can put a hash of a photo of Mona Lisa in a text file, burn a forest, and claim that it makes them the owner now. Bits on a blockchain won’t influence anything in the real world without someone to physically enforce them, and that’s where ‘authorities’ come in.
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Replying to @kornelski @Pinboard
Well, that's a different argument, which is valid, but also has its counterarguments (e.g. anyone can print a photo of a famous photographer, it won't cost as much as the original "signed" copy). I was responding to the "trusted third-party" argument though.
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The example he gave was about a soccer game score. Where do you get the score from? It's not a hash, not an IPFS node. The game hasn't happened on the blockchain. There's no algorithm to verify the score is true. The system has no choice but to trust some external input.
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Replying to @kornelski @Pinboard
Of course there is. As long as you have a public key of an "authority" (e.g. FIFA). You can verify that the score is correct (according to that authority) at all times. Without trusting a third party. See PGP, Dat etc.
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Replying to @flpvsk @kornelski
You're trusting the third party you got the public key from
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Replying to @flpvsk @kornelski
Yeah. Figuring out how to add PGP's problems to the blockchain is a real chocolate-and-peanut-butter achievement
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Replying to @Pinboard @kornelski
I agree with you in principle. Most of the NFT platforms just point to a web URL and don't bother. In practice you are right. But with static assets, if you have a trusted public key of the author + hash of the artwork, that's all you need to have on the chain for it to "work"
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I understand, but the "trusted public key" part is where the entire problem lies, if the rest of your project is all about a trustless distributed network. At that point you have given up (philosophically speaking) and might as well use existing trusted systems that work better.
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Replying to @Pinboard @kornelski
I agree it is a flaw. And together with other flaws it makes blockchains pretty useless! :) I don't agree that trusted public key is *the entire* problem. There's a lot of issues with trusted systems and some of them blockchains do address (by burning massive amounts of energy)
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