Ross Ulbricht's First Nonfungible Token

A virtual collection of 10 artworks made by Ulbricht at various stages of his life was worth $6.3 million at the time of sale.

In December, over 1,000 crypto investors who together comprise FreeRossDAO pooled their money to buy Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht's first-ever nonfungible token (NFT) for 1,446 ether, worth $6.3 million at the time of sale. NFTs are digital assets that live on the blockchain, with verifiable owners and transaction histories.

The NFT in question is a virtual collection of 10 artworks made by Ulbricht at various stages of his life. Death, shown here, is an oil painting on canvas that Ulbricht created in prison. He is serving a life sentence for crimes related to his creation of the online marketplace Silk Road, where users could use cryptocurrency to buy and sell illicit goods.

Comments

[rbike]

So I can get copies of these by having a duplicate .jpg file. For virtually nothing. SCM. Not getting my money.

[daveca]

I say they can go Funge themselves.

[copov]

I make 85 dollars each hour for working an online job at home. KLA05 I never thought I could do it but my best friend makes 10000 bucks every month working this job and she recommended me to learn more about it. The potential with this is endless.
For more detail ….. http://rb.gy/u603ti

[Sometimes a Great Notion]

Woodch...nothing to see here folks move along.

[Chumby]

NFT = NFW

[Libby Terry-Ann]

One dude that got the royal fuck treatment by our gubment.

[Don't look at me!]

It’s like everyone is crazy now.

[Brandybuck]

The NFT is not the painting. The NFT is just a unique number. That is all. One day the hype will implode.

[Agammamon]

They paid in Ether - in other words they paid in Monopoly money.

Crypto can't be used to buy anything except for really expensive crap - so it's not money. Crypto can not create dollars, only move them around. And there's not enough liquidity (ie, there isn't enough real cash available for buyers) to cash out crypto holdings.

It's tying up real money you have right now in the hopes that a bigger fool will come along and buy you out.

[ElvisIsReal]

You can buy amazon gift cards with crypto. You can also just cash it into your back account.

[CE]

as long as you keep track of all the capital gains and losses for your income taxes....

[Agammamon]

In other words, you need to find someone who will trade you dollars for bitcoin.

[Agammamon]

Also, they did not buy the artwork.

They bought a serialized token that contains a link to a server where *a copy* of the artwork is stored.

What that link points to can be changed at the whim of anyone who has control of that server. Or the server can just be taken offline.

[Agammamon]

Also also, the concept of 'digital scarcity' is disgusting and anti-libertarian.

We spend a massive amount of brain effort to overcome scarcity' in the physical world, then take the natural black of scarcity in the digital and try to destroy it?

[CE]

Yeah, but you get to have proof that you own the original, and not just a perfect copy of the original!

[Agammamon]

I get the joke - but it's not even that much in reality.

I can, literally, copy your NFT and then use the file to mint another NFT I distinguishable from yours - except the appended serial number is different - and then use/sell/whatever that one without you being able to do anything.

There are no rights transferred with an NFT sale.

[Hank Phillips]

Everything that happened to Ross is the result of fools being suckered into throwing away votes on the looter Kleptocracy. They could have instead invested their clout in law-repealing Libertarian spoiler votes.