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Fair point. However...
Quote. "In order to add this block to the blockchain, this miner must race against time—and other miners—to solve a cryptographic puzzle."
That is a feature of the way one or two current cryptocurrency firms are doing particular blockchains. It is not a necessary feature of distributed ledgers. It is very misleading to imply that that is an inherent feature of NFTs and contracts cleared through blockchains. It is not the way that the firms using the Fintech "sandboxes" under the supervision of the financial regulators are managing their Blockchains. Now, on the other hand, financial firms have far more settlement and clearing transactions than the art world, so the total clearing need is far greater. When financial firms transact on behalf of clients, they must act quickly, but they are already acting as the agents on behalf of the their customers and their payment is already assured. Just one of the many payment systems coordinating transactions through the Bank for International Settlements needs to clear over 26 billion contracts annually.
https://stats.bis.org/statx/srs/table/t13?c=US&p=2019
There are many such central counterparties that predate blockchain using an older electronic technology. So, compare the clearing requirement of a distributed ledger for the 26 billion annual FCC contracts cleared by BIS as a distributed ledger compared to traditional central counter party clearing. In this case, both electronic. The distributed ledger is more efficient and more transparent for all users. In a world of contracted intermediaries (agents) , no, there is no need to have an artificial race to drive payments that would drive the CO2 calculation in that chart. The race (and CO2) is not necessary for the ledger.
My points about the spread of distributed ledgers (blockchain under a different name) across many industries (NFTs) in the future remains the same.
Here is an example of Blockchain application in medical research. I am going to excerpt the author's statement about when it is appropriate to use a blockchain ledger and when it is wasteful. Notice the reference to vulnerability to fraud, and which direction that leads the authors to.
"Although there can be many applications of blockchain technology, it is necessary that blockchain be an appropriate technical solution to a particular problem. If there are no incentives for data tampering and all writers can be trusted, blockchain technology is not necessary. On the other hand, if there are incentives for data tampering and it costs a lot to use a trusted third party, such as the Clinical Research Organization, using blockchain makes sense. Due to the frequent occurrences of misconduct in clinical trials and the large consumptions of clinical trial budgets and time by current SDV practices, blockchain is an appropriate technical application in the data management of clinical trials to solve these problems."
https://www.jmir.org/2020/6/e18938/
Data Validation and Verification Using Blockchain in a Clinical Trial for Breast Cancer: Regulatory Sandbox
Published on 2.6.2020 in Vol 22, No 6 (2020): June
Tomonobu Hirano 1
; Tomomitsu Motohashi 1 
; Kosuke Okumura 1 
; Kentaro Takajo 1 
; Taiyo Kuroki 1 
; Daisuke Ichikawa 1 
; Yutaka Matsuoka 2 
; Eisuke Ochi 2, 3 
; Taro Ueno 1 
That whole text you've just written does not change the fact that NFTs, as they are most commonly and widely used now, have a carbon footprint larger Peru and most other nations. And those are just the NFTs on the ETH blockchain, that doesn't include energy required for the IPFS where a lot of content is uploaded to for NFTs, the Filecoin transactions as a result from that storage, other NFT blockchains like WAX, and so on.
What is misleading is to downplay that. Theories are fine, but real world consequences are what counts.
No, not theories. The NFTs you are talking about are about Bitcoin, etc and related. Bitcoin and similar are not necessary parts of distributed ledgers. That is why I linked to the Federal Reserve governor. It is not theory to talk about the blockchain ledgers by the financial industry. The volume of financial contracts that need to be settled and cleared dwarfs art NFTs, and they have no reason to race other participants in the way described in that flow chart. Fed Governor Brainaird is not talking just about theory. The financial 'sandboxes' are real. The medical research example in their sandbox is real. The links to the various clinical trial results that are recorded in the medical distributed ledger are tokens, non fungible.
So, repeat because of the drifting - I AM NOT DEFENDING CRYPTOCURRENCIES AND THE WAY CRYPTO FIRMS HAVE SPONSORED ART NFTS.
** Note - I was wrong for saying that folks were confusing the ledger for the currency if people were assuming that that one flow chart represented how all distributed ledgers work. **
EDIT - financial firms do have an incentive to have other forms of racing, but those forms of racing are generally to expend less energy, not more (travel shorter distances, for example)
A few posts back when I was talking about my vision of a dark future, this is an example of the kind of "rent seeking" I was referring to... https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/06/volkswagen-plans-to-offer-subscriptions-for-autonomous-driving-extra-ev-range/?comments=1
If you don't want to read the article, basically it's about Volkswagen planning to charge drivers $8 an hour subscription fee to use the autonomous driving feature in their cars that have the feature.
My guess is they snagged the idea from BMW... https://www.businessinsider.com/bmw-subscription-model-for-features-2020-7
BMW's take on subscription is to make the cars all have the premium features, but to access individual features you pay a subscription for them... want the heated seats?... Pay a subscription fee... Want adaptive cruise control? Pay... I suppose braking and doors that open will still free...
Basically this is the gateway to charging the owner to access the features in a car they already paid for.
As far as I'm aware, neither of these plans have been fully implemented yet, but this is the kind of thinking I'm talking about when I say the present and near future is looking very darkly anti-consumer, filled with rent seeking micro transactions and eliminating ownership of things one would normally own.
The thing is that while these things are usually isolated incidents, each becomes a small precedent, and each of these precedents cumulatively join together as a trend, and these trends wear aware consumer rights until there is nothing left.
While these examples are not related to NFTs, it's relevant to the previous discussion about having virtual goods/content that employ an NFT-like system and my point about how companies don't like you to own what you bought... Subscriptions are the epitome of this nonsense.
Sounds pretty awful there, McGyver. And I've no doubt all the big companies can't wait to do that.
I suppose the Chia-driven hard drive shortage is just one more footnote in the whole cryptocurrency saga, but might be tough to get high-capacity hard drives
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/may/26/new-cryptocurrency-chia-blamed-for-hard-drive-shortages
They use great tracts of hard drive space full of random numbers as their proof.
Madness! 
I'm starting to wonder if the lumber shortage is because of cryptocurrency too...
I can totally see some toxic cryptobros saying "screw killing forests indirectly, lets make our mining process run directly off of burning wood!!"...
Now I'm also pretty sure as soon as I've forgotten I said that, an Ars Technica article will show up about that actually happening.
I really have to watch what kind of dumb jokes I make, they often have a bad habit of becoming reality lately.
You know, I was wondering about this the other day, but I bet DAZ could make more money selling cool DAZ merch as opposed to the stupid NFTs.
Naa... Thats stupid, people might actually want that.
Update: Tuesday July 18, 2023...
Not actually an update... I just need a random thread to test using an Imgur linked image... and why not test it in a post within a thread in a practically dead forum where nobody will ever miss it if it disappears or gets erased.
So without further ado... "The day Mr. Rodgers burned the Neighborhood of Make-Believe"
Yes, it's AI generated and that's only marginally better than NFTs, but it's a throwaway image.
But apparently if you choose "Share Options and "BBCode" and remove the parts that say "image" in brackets, it works.
Well... carry on with whatever you were doing before this.
More dark future stuff... Not that it's a surprise or anything, since Farcebook has implied this long ago, but it's Oculus VR platform will now require a Farcebook account to tie the users' data for targeted advertising "in selected games"...
FB's announcement includes a carefully worded statement that "for now", while the collected biometric and VR use data is examined by FB, it will not be used with its new advertising platform.
For now.
Currently all your movements within the VR playing area are being recorded, while that is mostly for safety, to keep you from running into stuff or punching a wall, that information can easily be used to build a very detailed personal biometric profile... also collected are your chats and vocal interactions within the games.
More about that here: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/06/facebook-begins-tying-social-media-use-to-ads-served-inside-its-vr-ecosystem/
Fun stuff.
Once again, not related to NFTs, but a reminder that any and every way of monetizing the customer is more often than not the end goal... be it up front or "downstream"... So nothing should ever be a surprise.
Daz merch could be good for their brand - It could raise awareness and interest outside of the community. Not sure how many folk would actually buy.
No doubt FB looks forward to making the real world resemble Minority Report in terms of ad placement and personalization.
Oh, I think that would be a treat to have old Zuck have all that info about me. /sarcasm
That's a myth... the past was much worse than you realize as polio/whooping cough/smallpox were a true threat, medical and science weren't nearly as advanced, cars were unsafe compared to today's standards, and pneumonia deaths were much more common; not to mention this nation being hell on earth for a large population of people that weren't even considered as human beings, plus you will always have someone pining about the past being a fantasy land of cupcakes and butterflies in every single era of human history!
Sure there are things that are crap today, but we still have it better today rather than back in the fairytale nostalgia land stuck in our minds; I like how I can talk to, and meet people from any nation in the world while sitting at home, or through my phone, and if it were not for the advancement in computers and software programs we wouldn't even be here enjoying the hobby that has brought us to a website that would have never existed in the first place...
Getting back on topic, it looks like NTF's days are numbered according to this article... hopefully when it dies out, so too will this subforum and the NFT influence with this site!
I dunno... 3 to 5 years cyber-anything years is like a thousand human years... literally anything can happen in that time.
But that said, 3-5 years does sound about right for NFTs to morph into something far stupider... so like in 2026 when we are posting in the FSNFT forum complaining about FSNFTs we'll all be like "yeah, and we thought NFTs really sucked back then..."
I do hope you're proven wrong as I don't want to see a future with NFT in it!
Wouldn't be surprised to see biomass power plants and biofuels being used to power cryptocurrency mining operations... burning entire trees, wood chips, tire chips, garbage...oh wait, is this one?
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/redefining-biomass-waste-crypto-platform-062000687.html
Calling biomass "renewable energy" is a fallacy — many of these Biomass plants are burning whole trees for energy production... https://youtu.be/Zk11vI-7czE?t=3166
If you haven't seen the documentary Planet of the Humans, check it out for free on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk11vI-7czE
"According to an estimate from the end of last month, the popular crypto art platform OpenSea had emitted about 67.8 million kilograms of carbon since launch, and a recent NFT drop by musical artist The Weeknd emitted somewhere in the range of 86,000 kilograms of carbon. That’s roughly equal to the amount of energy used to fly from New York to London 86 times, according to online platform Aerial."
Can carbon offsets make up for the environmental impacts of NFTs?
Thanks Kaleb for posting that. And here we are, DAZ still stubborningly promoting NFTs. I mean, with everyone make big bucks here with NFT how can they not? /s
That movie was something else.
Thanks for the article Kaleb.
I said it before: Planting trees so you can buy/sell NFTs is like clubbing baby seals while donating to Greenpeace. It really does not make thing better, we need to plant trees AND stop NFT trade.
What do you mean?... I am paying 20eur to my brothers "Environmental Carbon Offset Fund" each time I pass scented wind... You don't mean he uses that money to buy himself more beer, do you?
What do you mean "What do you mean?"?
You'd think someone would have second thoughts about NFTs now that the northern hemisphere is catching fire.
It's sarcasm. Carbon offsets are a corporate dodge against reducing emissions. Yes, you would think that would happen. You should watch that movie Kaleb referenced. It's horrifying.
I knew it was sacrasm, it was my attempt on a corny dutch joke that obviously does not translate well. Sorry for that.
I watched the movie: I used to work in renewables, mainly wind and photo-voltaic solar, and I knew some of this, but my god,...this is just the most terrifiying horror movie, you were not exaggerating. I don't see it ending well.
Becoming a monk and to prepare for the apocalypse seems like a pretty sane thing to do now.
Hi BlueFingers. I like your new avatar
Humor is a difficult concept! Also, comedy is not pretty.
I agree, I don't see it ending well. But there is always hope that someone with the power to do something finally hears the clue-phone ringing and sees fit to answer it.
Thanks!
I found what I saw about thermo-voltaic parks (solar energy with the mirror arrays) kind of heartbreaking. That was really seen as the best hope for the future, together with nuclear, but that was seen as politically not viable.
I wish I shared your hope.
This article McGuyver shared shows that such hope may be futile. It's another horror show.
Here's another interesting/depressing set of figures and calculations on NFTs carbon footprint...
https://memoakten.medium.com/the-unreasonable-ecological-cost-of-cryptoart-2221d3eb2053
One interesting takeaway for the TL;DR crowd might be this part...
*************************
A single NFT can involve many transactions. These include minting, bidding, cancelling, sales and transfer of ownership. If we were to break down the footprint by transaction type, we get (details in part 2):
Minting: 142 kWh, 83 KgCO2
Bids: 41 kWh, 24 KgCO2
Cancel Bid: 12 kWh, 7 KgCO2
Sale: 87 kWh, 51 KgCO2
Transfer of ownership: 52 kWh, 30 KgCO2
This generally pushes the footprint of a single NFT into hundreds of kWh, and hundreds of KgCO2 emissions, and often higher.
In fact, of the ~18000 CryptoArt NFTs that I analyzed, the average NFT has a footprint of around 340 kWh, 211 KgCO2 (details in part 2).
This single NFT’s footprint is equivalent to a EU resident’s total electric power consumption for more than a month, with emissions equivalent to driving for 1000Km, or flying for 2 hours.
***************************
If you look through the information, many credible sources are cited with links to various articles and scientific studies.
But a good takeaway is the single NFT's carbon footprint being equal to driving 600+ miles or flying in a jet for two hours... but that's only for an NFT that's sold and done with... not one that might change hands or have multiple copies.
Yay.
interesting video by an artist
I think the idea that everything must almost by definition be better today then it was in whichever past is unfortunately quite as flawed as uncritical nostalgia, because it uses the same broad black and white brush strokes. Undeniably, an awful lot of things are better today (vaccines, like you said, come to mind real quick here), but some things may just seem better and have not really changed all that much at their core (thinking of female inequality), and some are actually worse, like the exploitation of nature since the start of the Industrial Revolution (at the latest). Also, some things were not quite as bad as they're often portrayed. For instance, the poor oppressed peasants of 'the dark ages' did often have a quite stable and important relationship with their lords, where each side was bound by certain rules and rightful expectations, making the lords accountable to village elder councils in some respects. It wasn't all 'Pillars of the Earth', really. Not by far. I guess all ages are mostly grey, not black or white.
But I think what the poster before really meant was that earlier times were less complicated than they are today, and I guess I agree with that, in a lot of matters at least. Seeing how my old parents struggle to keep up with the development of IT, I'm thinking: THEIR parents didn't have to stomach such immense changes on their last leg, did they? No wonder older people find it hard to keep up. Gee, I find it hard myself. It's like we're all driving our cars real fast, and our brains are just not made to keep up with that kind of speed. I understand the longing for some kind of breathing space, some rest, some TIME to think it all through, or maybe just lay on the grass for a little while and look up at some clouds. Can't you? Maybe some more of that could serve to prevent ideas like NFTs from spreading too widely ...
Am I mistaken, or are you saying that the public price of a single NFP will be roughly $800? If so...well, I'll refrain from further comment for now.
That's what I come up with as well. Interesting.