does anybody still remember NFTs?

[elilla@transmom.love]

@mynameistillian so lesson #1 in con artistry is that you don't tell your mark you can sell a plot in Mars, you tell your mark that you know some suckers that *they* can sell a plot in Mars to. you make them feel like they're part of the scheme. you pyramid.

this way, not only your mark will absorb the damage for you, not only they will do the hard work for you, but they can't even complain about it. what are they going to do? tell the cops they were trying to scam someone and their accomplice ran away with their share?

the actual scam in NFTs wasn't "get a sucker to pay money to own a digital drawing." the actual scam was "you and me, my friend, we're going to get *so* much money getting suckers to pay money to own a digital drawing. lol look at these stupid cryptocats my team made up, dumb kids are going to go crazy over these with their parent's credit cards, it's going to be the next cellphone addiction. get some now for cheap and resell them before the scheme's up lmao".

everyone buying NFTs thought they were going to resell them to a mark at some point before the bubble popped. of course they were the actual marks.

cryptocurrency markets work the same way, every mark thinks they're an evil mastermind about to cash out before the bubble pops, but the house always wins. the Metaverse was the same, they were never selling to end-users, they were scamming bosses and capitalists who 100% thought they would very soon be able to profit from renting "digital real state" as soon as they got the dumb consumers to be into the virtual reality; any day now. (but gen-"AI" is a pretty different type of scam, which is why it's been more enduring.)

[flesh@transfem.social]

@mynameistillian@plush.city Worth noting that a big chunk of the scheme was the potential to sell them off to the next fool at a profit.
A bunch of managers and such likely had some investments in it and convinced the celebs to push them.
Also, they're an expensive accessory, celebs love those.

[hazelnot@sunbeam.city]

@mynameistillian I don't feel pity I feel like that meme of a drawing of some guy laughing his ass off in like 3 different poses in the same image tbh

[yza@plush.city]

@mynameistillian a lot of them were paid to endorse NFTs, being sold ones for virtually nothing. a lot of those celebs did it for the attention or because they were convinced it's make them appear trendy or because they were trying to get in on the scam too. some may have even been true believers, but i won't expect that of most of them.

[patterfloof@meow.social]

@mynameistillian should have tried buying JPEGs from furry artists, those are much more permanent & a better use of money

[mynameistillian@plush.city]

@patterfloof W take

[colon_three@icosahedron.website]

@patterfloof @mynameistillian we had less shit nfts before the cryptocunts did

they're called adoptables

[yza@plush.city]

@mynameistillian if you were a taylor swift type and you were given a special deal to buy an asset you're told has a value potentially in the millions at super cheap and were told that the more people interested in NFTs the more valuable it'd get, then why not shill it? you're a soulless rich ghoul and you have no respect, so why not? especially since if you sell it the fact that it was owned by a celeb would theoretically increase the value more, right?

[ericjames@booping.synth.download]

@colon_three@icosahedron.website @patterfloof@meow.social @mynameistillian@plush.city HELL YEAH

[yza@plush.city]

@mynameistillian don't. they were warned. they chose to ignore all warnings and insult the people who tried to tell them this was the inevitable outcome. they chose this

[yza@plush.city]

@elilla @mynameistillian 100%. part of why NFT bros got so culty is that once they bought in thier investment became entirely dependant on the price of the asset going up, which could only happen if more people kept buying in. to profit off your asset you had to sell it to someone for more than you paid for it, so you need to convince everyone else that it's super worth it. it has to be the future. you want in too, right?

[yza@plush.city]

@elilla @mynameistillian we can divide NFT bros into 3 types: the grifters, the wannabes and the true believers

the grifters have the money and connections to market their NFT crap and make it look like the next big thing. these types have people like mr beast endorse it or they make deals with famous artists or whatever. they have the money to do wash trading: buying their own asset from the themselves for a huge sum to fake interest in the market

[yza@plush.city]

@elilla @mynameistillian "i bought this NFT for $200 and then sold it 2 weeks later for $2000! imagine how much it will be worth in a year! buy now while you still can and you can get rich with me! please don't consider that i just sold it to myself and that nobody would actually buy this shit for that amount for real. just give me $500 for this other NFT - that's a bargain when the are selling for as much as 2k. you can't afford to miss this chance!"

[yza@plush.city]

@elilla @mynameistillian the wannabes are the dumbasses who see the grifters geting rich and want in. they don't have the resources to make a scheme popular, so they are dependant on catching an NFT project mid boom and then sell before it crashes. they like to think themselves smart investors, which makes them easy marks. unlike the grifters they don't have the connections to know when the people running a particualr grift are going to cash out, taking all the money with them

[frikisada@beige.party]

@mynameistillian this is the best reminder we have on the Spanish speaking Internet, we never let him forget about this (translation is in the alt text)

[icil@app.wafrn.net]

Unironically though. We already have pictures of goobers you can trade digitally, they're called adoptables and they're infinitely better both in terms of looks and environmental impact

[burnitdown@beige.party]

@mynameistillian yes, they absolutely do. it's all a race to be seen following the most expensive, shitty trend.

[icil@app.wafrn.net]

I do but only because of dan olson's incredible video essay tearing them apart

[yza@plush.city]

@elilla @mynameistillian the true believers are the biggest marks of all who believe in NFTs as a lifestyle and technology. generally they're indoctrinated into the cult and become beholden to its ideology

NFT bro culture has extreme toxic positivity problems, because for a project to succeed, for the asset to go up in value, people have to be excited for it. if you've bouth it you need other people to be hyped for it, so any negativity or reasoned analysis is taboo. everyone has to shill 24/7

[icil@app.wafrn.net]

To steal a joke from bluesky: perhaps the same can be said of all big tech fads recently. We already have the metaverse, it's called vrchat. We already have the ability to put words into a box and get art out, it's called a commission. Anything silicon valley dorks can do furries can do better