To tl;dr this entire video: Artists are currently playing the role of ethereum hype-men, and the mainstream attention is driving transactions much higher. Artists actually have the power to incentivize expediting the move to Ethereum 2.0 and other PoS blockchains, and I'm not sure there's a bigger possible impact on climate change that an individual artist has in their lifetime than being part of that. Further discussion tomorrow (Thurs, April 8th) at 10pm ET right here!
One word....Cardano...Cardano....Cardano...Cardano....Cardano.....much much better for the environment than Ethereum. I am never going to mint on Ethereum again once this last series I am working on now is complete. Cardano is EXPONENTIALLY better for the environment than Ethereum.
What is the platform you mentioned that uses Tezos? I’m curious in what alternatives currently exist for artists who want to try NFTs but using proof of stake block chains instead of the harmful ones like Ethereum.
The arcane complexity of this seems key in the obfuscation of costs which profiteers happily take advantage of. How many people really have any idea how blockchain tech works, never mind different implementations? It's not an easy thing to understand. It's like learning exactly how VPNs work. Not something even technical people like to do. I appreciate you making this video. It's very helpful, and hopefully will be influential.
Awesome video as usual…one question tho…what’s a blockchain? Is the idea that your computer creates an encryption and that encryption is considered valuable because we say it is?
@@TheSpoonwood The second glass was an extended dance remix, which was used in an exclusive mashup with a glass of OJ poured by Deadmau5, which was then sold to a rich idiot for 5 gazillion international beer tokens. Isn't technology exciting?
The NFT fad is like if those places that sell you a deed to a star somehow got taken really seriously all of a sudden. Even if the massive environmental problems were solved, the whole thing would still be fundamentally a scam. A less environmentally hazardous link to a jpg is still a link to a jpg. Hell of a thing to shell out for. Really liked this one. Hoping the mention of ethical concerns around artificial scarcity was a teaser for a deeper look in another video. That's something I really, really, really wish more artists would wrestle with a bit.
It's honestly scary how few artists, especially major ones, understand that NFTs are not a "proof of purchase", they're literally link to a hosted file on a website. The proof of purchase is the blockchain itself, which is no different than a regular receipt except for being decentralized. I wish people would at least be honest that they're anti-regulation against markets and against the central banking system but instead want to lie about how owning a link to a hosted image file is the same as owning the Mona Lisa.
Amen to the star deeds simile. I would only sell an NFT to someone I hated, because they are completely wasting their money in the long term. It's the opposite of making nice things for your truest fans to buy and enjoy. You didn't make a unique thing they can enjoy in their lives, you sold them a long number with your name on it. Alternatively, if you can't articulate why "buying an NFT from you" is better than "sending you a check", you probably shouldn't sell them.
thats not really true. the people selling you a deed to a star have literally no connection with the star. the person selling you the "deed' to their art is the person who actually made and owns the art, so you are getting an authentic thing connected to the artist.
It's kind of hilarious that the industry went from banning CD long boxes for environmental reasons, but now we're pressing digital recordings to flimsy plastic discs and hoarding virtual collectibles which are significantly worse. And Bitcoin...ugh. Instead of converting bitcoin to physical currency, we should measure it in tons of Chinese coal. Mining 1 Bitcoin currently requires 6.2 tons of Chinese coal. Good job everyone.
One bitcoin transaction using as much energy as your house for a month just entirely blew my mind, that is obscene! Sold my paltry fraction of bitcoin - which I guess is another housemonth's of energy used, but it'll be the last that isn't powering my actual house.
When you're saying Big Daddy Bennyboi, my mind immediately goes to Benny Benassi. The guy behind Satisfaction and other song with music videos that were sexualized to the point of parody.
REFRESHINGLY informative. Unfortunately I don’t see myself ever participating in NFTs after the feelings of betrayal from the hype of this past month or so. Even if there’s a way to do it without hurting the environment, the majority of what’s popular right now *is* hurting it. I sincerely hope these artists who jumped on the hype train do something to educate people about that. Looking at you, Certain Virtual Band With Environmental Themed Album
Even if they fix the environmental problems, NFTs are still mostly just an attempt to lend a veneer of legitimacy to what is otherwise basically a giant pyramid scam. Compared to other technologies, blockchains are only significantly better at two things: unregulated speculative trading, and black-market transactions. In other words, it's good at facilitating illegal monetary practices, because blockchains are very resistant to regulation. Traders can make huge profits as long as people keep dumping money into the system. But to do that, the people behind it have to find ways to make it seem legitimate. So they invented NFTs. It's the latest attempt to pull fresh money into this massive scam. Using proof-of-work blockchains adds insult to injury, because in addition to being a scam, it also hurts the planet. Fixing that still doesn't make it _good._
Ok,. this was awesome. I am an IT professional and developer, and I didn't "get" the concepts of the digital currencies, but the way you explain it is honestly very good and much better than anything I have seen before. Thank you!
You did not disappoint. This covers pretty much every issue I’ve got with PoW cryptocurrency and the NFTs minted on them. I’ll be sharing this as wide as I can with all my music creating friends.
This sort of conversation is about crypto in general, specifically bitcoin and ethereum. The inconvenient truth is that it's so profitable for so many people, to the point where there is no chance of them diverging their interests from it. The future has to be focused on optimizing these mediums, not ignoring them or just detesting them. These things are here to stay for the indefinite future, and like cars, or electrical grids, we should be concerned with creating a more efficient and effective ecosystem for cryptocurrency.
Great video, 100% agree on everything said here. Not to mention that we're going through a global chip shortage and all this hype is just adding to a crazy supply problem. We're living in a world where a large percentage of the population is suddenly required to work or study from home and companies can't produce the hardware for all this quickly enough. And in part this is also happening because miners are buying graphics cards like crazy thanks to all this hype. So, poor kids can't afford computers to get their education, because artists mint NFTs on proof of work blockchains. This sure isn't a problem I expected people to have during the virus apocalypse ...!
A response I like to make when it comes to the current enviornmental argument is this: one of the more prevalent points to me is that crypto was made by man to be so wasteful from day one, when it didn't have to be (that is, if it were designed better.) We all do things that have a negative impact on the planet, and saying "well what are YOU doing to help?" doesn't address the endless gas being guzzled by cyrpto alone right now, by it's intended design by people who didn't care. I mean hell, as digital artists we're literally using WAY more electricity than a traditional artist would to produce art, but that energy usage is not highly disproportionate to the outcome product of what's being made, while the energy costs for *just a single block of the blockchain* is freakin' unreal. This is the real issue about the environmental impact: the fact it's so disproportionate. Yeah, the meat industry is an absolute abomination of pollution and disease, for sure, but that doesn't mean Crypto should just come along and drop it's load of problems onto the pile too. Imagine pointing at the factory dumping waste into the river and saying they must be stopped -- "but hold on, just gotta dump a little in the river myself first, one sec"
much like crypto itself the vast majority of cheerleaders wouldn't give two fucks about "decentralisation" and "giving power back to the artist" and are quite clearly only in it to make a quick buck. It's shameful and disgusting to watch so many big names giving in to this while still preaching about climate change. Major kudos to people like Jacob Collier for, as you say, waiting for a fucking minute.
cryptocurrency mining are basically just entropy generators: spending resources and generating absolutely nothing. If we have Dyson Sphere-level technology (aka virtually infinite energy), then crytomining might be justifiable. but as of now, crytomining needs to be carbon-taxed into the ground.
The current state of how artists/creators get paid on the internet is pretty miserable. It seems like artists get paid in the most meta ways only - like from ad revenue, merch, pooled streaming payments, and now weird collector'ism blockchain stuff (NFTs). I wish artists could just be paid directly by their fans in normal currency for the actual content they are creating... Thing is, I think fans are plenty willing to pay, but the infrastructure is just not there to support it - one reason being that the infrastructure is inundated with these giant, free, ad-driven content hosting services like youtube, soundcloud, spotify, etc. Simultaneously, a service like bandcamp is too narrow-scope to truly help creators of all kinds - it's only for music, and isn't as widely adopted as something like spotify by listeners. I actually believe fans are willing to pay creators directly for their content. However, I think they are highly unlikely to do so when it involves pulling out their wallet, going through an online form, or even logging into their paypal. IF it happens automatically though - as it is with streaming, for instance - I think people are plenty willing to pay. I might be crazy, but I think the biggest barrier to direct payment is just the hassle of dealing with the money - not the willingness to pay! I wonder if in the future, foundational social media elements should be transformed into monetary transactional elements: the 'like' button gives a cent to the creator, 10 seconds of a video or song streamed gives a cent to the creator, etc, etc (and as a content consumer, your "wallet" information is simply set up once at the beginning). This means fans have to pay for content services that exist for free today, but there would be value for creators and consumers in not having an ad-driven system (which seems to corrupt content) and content consumers would be able to support the content creators they love directly, automatically, and with zero hassle.
what I don't get about all this is why it has to be in a blockchain at all. Like why is no one responding to this fad by just releasing "analogue NFTs" right now, i.e. pieces of paper that authenticate the holders ownership of a certain piece of digital art? After all that's basically all that NFTs are. I feel like it's because without the fancy crypto blockchain involvement it's just too obvious how ridiculous this whole "digital ownership" concept is lol
Really great video. I like they you got into the artificial scarcity bit. I don't think we are going to be freer or more successful artists using more tools built for capitalism. Just look at spotify, a while ago people thought that it would help them. Giving a landlord a portion of sales for the right to sell doesn't help me.
Hey Ben, you didn't mention anything about the negative environmental impact of fiat (normal) money. Even the costly and outdated bitcoin has a lower carbon footprint than the u.s dollar. Please take this into consideration :)
Okay, who’s going to be the one and tell all the crypto miners in developing nations that they should switch professions and stop mining crypto... Not it!
Excellent video 👍 as far as I can tell this NFT thing is just people trying to go back to the pre-internet business model. Even without NFTs the energy consumed to preserve and manipulate the world's data is already on an unsustainable trajectory. At some point humanity is going to have to start curating and/or discarding data (says I while planning my next TH-cam video).
Hey Ben, was psyched to see myself In this video as I really enjoy your videos and regularly tune in. Great work showing a bunch of points I haven’t seen made in the countless things I’ve watched on this. Great work.
Thank you for making this video! I've been following this same line of research for the past couple of months and you won't believe this...but I waited! Was actually planning to start minting on HicEtNunc on the Tezos blockchain next week.
i think you did a good job as usual, yet this is still complete alien gibberish to me as soon as you get into the "proof of stake" i don't see how it's not still assigning made-up value to a computer's farts.
Proof-of-work: computers need to fart continually to verify incoming made up numbers. computers who fart harder get paid more Proof-of-stake: computers are all swapping around farts in jars (no new farts being farted) to verify incoming made up numbers. whoever has the most fart jars, or whoever has the oldest fart jars, gets paid more
This video was shared in an artists' Discord I'm in and I was pleasantly surprised to see a video on NFTs that directly acknowledges the consequences of PoW blockchains. I follow so many great artists on Twitter who are all on the ETH train and it's sad because I want to continue supporting their work but not if they're feeding the beast.
Literally all digital artists have to do to do the same thing as NFTs is issue certificate saying someone owns an artwork and have that recorded somewhere reliable say a gov agency auction house etc. Anything on top of that is just insane hype.
Awesome as always. Didn't know the absurd amount of energy required to mine on current proof of work blockchains, would you mind putting some of your sources on the description, please? I would love to read it myself.
Have you looked into making them? You could make a pretty decent one for 20$ ;) look into teensy microcontrollers, they have some tutorials and the teensy lc is cheap (there are other cheaper ones like seeeduino Xiao but I think teensy is a bit easier to get into)
I’m not a clever person so thank you for quantifying the whole subject in a digestible manner. I knew there was an environmental impact surrounding this whole thing but I wasn’t aware of the gravity of it all, and I feel like the same is true for most people, perhaps even many of those who are creating NFTs. Either way, I appreciate your dedication to well thought out content with no bullshit.
8:00 Wait a minute, but wouldn't an empty train running at the same speed have less energy consumption because it weighs less? If the vehicle (be it a train or a car) weighs more because of passengers or baggage, its engine has to transport more weight and work harder, therefore using more energy.
True, they would use marginally less energy, but the bulk of it is used for the train running in the first place. Hence transport companies drastically reducing schedules during non-peak hours. Boston is a good example bc most public transit gets cut down by a lot for the summer as far fewer than the average 250,000 students will be in the city.
Genuine question: Isn’t crypto attempting to reduce the carbon footprint of trade as the end goal? I know you touched on it in the video, but from what I understand it’s trying to cut out the middlemen businesses which use buildings filled with appliances, computers, and building compliant resources. These can range from a small buildings to skyscrapers in size. I’m not trying to say “but these use electricity!”, but I can imagine there isn’t much data showcasing the energy-use for these businesses. I really am curious of the global energy use of these in comparison to cryptocurrency, especially when looking into energy grids that are on renewable or nuclear energy. Thank you for the video and glad to be better informed!
Two main problems: the margin on mining is thin so that's done on the cheapest power available, usually carbon; crypto won't be used for regular trade as it's way too volatile (and you can find a bunch of articles on why bitcoin will stay like this and will skyrocket in price every some years when there's a halving of the mining reward) and it has become a financial trading commodity so now there's a bunch of people who will try to keep cryptos hyped and unrealiables.
I love the way you deliver information and its awesome to see the man behind the flashbulb on camera, like we get to see a side of you that isnt exclusively melodies and rhythms
What if the energy used for bitcoin mining came from renewables? It is estimated 65% of bitcoin mining comes from china largely due to the cheap cost of energy there. The miners get their power from energy grids in hydro-rich provinces that are built for populations that are expected to move there in 5-10 years. These miners are essentially subsidizing clean energy projects in mostly vacant cities! Similar operations are taking root in the US by companies like Blockcap. Additionally, energy companies in Canada are using excess flare gas which would otherwise be difficult to dispose of to mine bitcoin.
But why not just migrate to a more modernized and secure blockchain that doesn't require proof of work and use renewables for other things? PoW being unsustainable isn't news to anyone working in crypto. It's very nature by design is to convert energy into blocks, and it can be easily changed with no consequence to anyone but crypto miners.
First of all, you did an awesome job again sir! Everytime I watch a video, I end up thinking: "Damn, how is this guy so kind?!" I think your charisma-lvl is like over 3000.... And even though I live on the other side of the Atlantic ocean, I still want to be friends with you! Aaand! I am curious about where you've minted your NFT! :o
You know, that energy issue wasn't brought up nearly as often during the whole life of crypto as it's being brought up when NFT came by, and I wonder why. As much as I don't like the NFT model, the environmental argument does feel like it has its origin in FUD. Didn't know about the PoS thing tho, it's good to know crypto can outgrow mining
I've heard the environmental argument plenty of times over the past few years, maybe it's fresh on your radar because artists with a new reason to pay attention are figuring this out
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Speaking as a semi-Old Fart who has been trying to get his head around this shit for months now, this is superb (although the whole "mining" thing still confuses me). I had heard about the insane resource waste regarding NFTs though and it's nice to have a solid explanation of that. Keep up the good work and fighting the good fight.
Of course... this is CLASSIC ME!! Monday, TWO DAYS AGO, Im all excited to mint one piece... ONE PIECE! ... and here comes Benn, like Mutumbo, to smack it down the shitter!! OF COURSE!!!
dont get me wrong i'm everyone's goto anti-capitalist tree-hugger but i think you missed a couple of very very important whatabout-isms lol. what about the fact that 72% of bitcoin mining is done with sustainable energy (because sustainable energy is impossible to store which makes it cheaper to mine with)? what about the fact that this actually contributes to the development of green energy?
5:50 uh, Dude,.... That is an absurd usage of kWh for ONE MONTH! blame bitcoin, but look at your own usage. Last year I used 828 kWh IN A YEAR! hope you got a wrong calculation there...
NFTs are digital shackles. If someone is selling NFTs, it's restriction through technology that they're selling. If you wanna think of a good use for NFTs just think of a good use for digital shackles. Easy as that really, somewhere where you want to have a bit that can't be flipped. That's what they're essentially for.
But, Benn. We can use market logic to defeat market logic by designing a new system from scratch with market logic. It's totally not just DRM 2.0. We're democratizing music!
Thanks for providing an objective view on the topic. Most people just state that NFTs are bad and pointless, but you've actually done your research very thoroughly and explain an extremely complex topic in a very clear way that is easy to follow and understand. The best thing is, you are actually pointing out the fact that not all NFTs are the same. Every blockchain works differently and there are actually green blockchains out there. Whenever I try to bring up these carbon neutral blockchains, the automatic response I have often got is that they can't be truly carbon neutral - then again, how many things out there are? The way I like to explain it is that Bitcoin and Ethereum are like the first computers that filled up a room, now we have smartphones and smartwatches. Proof-of-stake blockchains could even be considered almost a different technology altogether.
Environmental stuff aside, I find the whole concept and why people are buying NFTs incomprehensible. Someone pays $50m for a link to a jpg they could probably view online for free anyway? uhhh
Even when you remove the massive energy consumption from the equation (which so many artists and NFT traders haven't done, but seems to be totally possible with the Proof of Stake networks you mention), and even if you ignore the entire technological/logistical aspect of them, I don't understand WHY someone would buy an NFT to begin with. It's an asset to be traded, but who is going to buy it from you? Other speculative investors who assume it's price is going to go up? There can't be that many insane Benn Jordan devotees who all desperately want the unique NFT released by Benn Jordan, only to sell it to the next highest bidder later when for some reason all the devotees want it again but didn't buy it before. Am I off base? What am I missing here? Where is the value in these things to the buyer?
I am a HERS Rater! You are speaking my language now brah! There is a way to do it for a lower enviro cost. Some dude put their GPUs in their pool, and used it to heat the pool instead of a pool heater. Other than that i think that NFT in general is a problem. How do I make a playlist with NfTs exactly?
The two cases of proof of work and proof of stake is kinda too simular to the pro fossil fuel and progreen energy debate. The seeming energy debate surrounding this is super interesting. Thanks for the video. Im absolutely for decentralized economies, but i also like living on earth so i think i know which one id rather junp into
I needed this video a year ago. NFTs make me angry, like legit furious. This puts into words exactly how ive felt about NFTs and the blockchain. Here are over a year later and I believe still no proof of stake? Man this shit is already been ruined by the “early adopters” just trying to nickel and dime every person every transaction for every cent they can. This exact “ill get every cent i can” mentality has ruined so many things on this planet and i fear its just gonna get worse!
Ok why Ethereum and not Tezos or Cardano as in your example, because it is truly decentralised. And as you say PoS is coming to Ethereum, slowly but surely, it is a very complex transition, as you can imagine.
just to mention, the reason fungible is used is that in the token/crypto space the "criteria of money" are mentioned often. gold being durable/rare/fungible for example is why its been currency. bitcoin currently keeps this and add the blockchain functionality as value (whereas gold is an aesthetically pleasing conductor as well). so when NFTs were coming up the biggest difference between them and any sort of crypto "currency" specifically is that it is NOT money. dollars/quarters/pennies for the USD but bitcoin splits to satoshis. - so while your point stands perfectly true that it is not a good term for mass adoption I believe the term serves its function in signaling to the cryptospace that it is not an "alt coin". anyway no one is going to read this comment & i love your vids.
This may seem like a stupid question but why don’t artists just release on vinyl or cassette without a digital option? Wouldn’t the product then be limited and thus more valuable? The whole concept of the digital NFT boggles my mind as it seems like people are trying to create artificial scarcity to boost value. I’m old enough to remember a time when you couldn’t own every album because sometimes they were hard to get. There was an original copy of the Misfits ‘Walk Among Us’ on pink vinyl at my local record shop that I wanted but couldn’t afford because the real scarcity of the item put it out of financial reach for me.
The environment issue can be curved with blockchain protocols that facilitate the exchange of clean energy like energy web token (EWT).. Very interesting project!
![Should We Hate Spotify? [An Objective View From A Professional Musician]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/MXudOLStaXA/mqdefault.jpg)
![Should We Hate Spotify? [An Objective View From A Professional Musician]](/img/tr.png)
To tl;dr this entire video: Artists are currently playing the role of ethereum hype-men, and the mainstream attention is driving transactions much higher. Artists actually have the power to incentivize expediting the move to Ethereum 2.0 and other PoS blockchains, and I'm not sure there's a bigger possible impact on climate change that an individual artist has in their lifetime than being part of that. Further discussion tomorrow (Thurs, April 8th) at 10pm ET right here!
Thanks for the video and fighting the good fight
One word....Cardano...Cardano....Cardano...Cardano....Cardano.....much much better for the environment than Ethereum. I am never going to mint on Ethereum again once this last series I am working on now is complete. Cardano is EXPONENTIALLY better for the environment than Ethereum.
What is the platform you mentioned that uses Tezos? I’m curious in what alternatives currently exist for artists who want to try NFTs but using proof of stake block chains instead of the harmful ones like Ethereum.
The arcane complexity of this seems key in the obfuscation of costs which profiteers happily take advantage of. How many people really have any idea how blockchain tech works, never mind different implementations? It's not an easy thing to understand. It's like learning exactly how VPNs work. Not something even technical people like to do. I appreciate you making this video. It's very helpful, and hopefully will be influential.
Awesome video as usual…one question tho…what’s a blockchain? Is the idea that your computer creates an encryption and that encryption is considered valuable because we say it is?
say what you will, the man really does pour a nice glass of water
It made me thirsty
W A T E R C H E C K
The first pour was dope! The second , not so much.
@@TheSpoonwood The second glass was an extended dance remix, which was used in an exclusive mashup with a glass of OJ poured by Deadmau5, which was then sold to a rich idiot for 5 gazillion international beer tokens. Isn't technology exciting?
10/10 water pouring haha
Awesome video. You should cut the animated desert island bit into a separate video to quickly explain crypto in general.
I KNEW this video was coming as soon as I started seeing all of the NFT's haha. Great video, man!
Thanks for the info Benn!
Only Ben Jordan an Dan Worrall make me want to watch videos on topics I'm not really interested in
These videos are ridiculously high quality
He should sell them as NFTs
Agreed.
@@dadigitechman BIG ART DOESNT WANT NFT TO THRIVE!!! THE BIG CORPORATIONS HIRED BENN JORDAN TO SHILL AGAINST BLOCKCHAIN!!!1111
Your mom is ridiculously high quality.
The NFT fad is like if those places that sell you a deed to a star somehow got taken really seriously all of a sudden. Even if the massive environmental problems were solved, the whole thing would still be fundamentally a scam. A less environmentally hazardous link to a jpg is still a link to a jpg. Hell of a thing to shell out for.
Really liked this one. Hoping the mention of ethical concerns around artificial scarcity was a teaser for a deeper look in another video. That's something I really, really, really wish more artists would wrestle with a bit.
Let alone the fact that the digital medium is still infinitely reproduceable with no loss of quality and you cannot be sure the artist won't do that.
It's honestly scary how few artists, especially major ones, understand that NFTs are not a "proof of purchase", they're literally link to a hosted file on a website. The proof of purchase is the blockchain itself, which is no different than a regular receipt except for being decentralized. I wish people would at least be honest that they're anti-regulation against markets and against the central banking system but instead want to lie about how owning a link to a hosted image file is the same as owning the Mona Lisa.
Amen to the star deeds simile. I would only sell an NFT to someone I hated, because they are completely wasting their money in the long term. It's the opposite of making nice things for your truest fans to buy and enjoy. You didn't make a unique thing they can enjoy in their lives, you sold them a long number with your name on it.
Alternatively, if you can't articulate why "buying an NFT from you" is better than "sending you a check", you probably shouldn't sell them.
thats not really true. the people selling you a deed to a star have literally no connection with the star. the person selling you the "deed' to their art is the person who actually made and owns the art, so you are getting an authentic thing connected to the artist.
@@Faradaymusic Shhhh! Don't spoil the children's new toy with the truth or you'll get a mean tantrum :))))
It's kind of hilarious that the industry went from banning CD long boxes for environmental reasons, but now we're pressing digital recordings to flimsy plastic discs and hoarding virtual collectibles which are significantly worse. And Bitcoin...ugh. Instead of converting bitcoin to physical currency, we should measure it in tons of Chinese coal. Mining 1 Bitcoin currently requires 6.2 tons of Chinese coal. Good job everyone.
One bitcoin transaction using as much energy as your house for a month just entirely blew my mind, that is obscene! Sold my paltry fraction of bitcoin - which I guess is another housemonth's of energy used, but it'll be the last that isn't powering my actual house.
How many houses can one bitcoin buy?
Bro I just love Benn making more and more quality content and taking his time for such enjoyable editings, I love this mans energy
I legit don't know what an NFT is. Looking for big daddy Bennyboi to educate me. I'll never call you that again.
When you're saying Big Daddy Bennyboi, my mind immediately goes to Benny Benassi. The guy behind Satisfaction and other song with music videos that were sexualized to the point of parody.
My first thought it Ben Shapiro...
he is a BIG boi tho 😂
maybe from the South lol
@@KnzoVortex ok u just gave me a horrible mental image 😂
REFRESHINGLY informative. Unfortunately I don’t see myself ever participating in NFTs after the feelings of betrayal from the hype of this past month or so. Even if there’s a way to do it without hurting the environment, the majority of what’s popular right now *is* hurting it. I sincerely hope these artists who jumped on the hype train do something to educate people about that. Looking at you, Certain Virtual Band With Environmental Themed Album
Name of the artist ?
@@lolilollolilol7773 He's probably talking about Gorillaz.
Even if they fix the environmental problems, NFTs are still mostly just an attempt to lend a veneer of legitimacy to what is otherwise basically a giant pyramid scam.
Compared to other technologies, blockchains are only significantly better at two things: unregulated speculative trading, and black-market transactions. In other words, it's good at facilitating illegal monetary practices, because blockchains are very resistant to regulation. Traders can make huge profits as long as people keep dumping money into the system. But to do that, the people behind it have to find ways to make it seem legitimate. So they invented NFTs. It's the latest attempt to pull fresh money into this massive scam.
Using proof-of-work blockchains adds insult to injury, because in addition to being a scam, it also hurts the planet. Fixing that still doesn't make it _good._
I learned a lot about Cryto Currenecy! I had no idea there was a heavy environmental cost. Thanks Ben!!
Ok,. this was awesome. I am an IT professional and developer, and I didn't "get" the concepts of the digital currencies, but the way you explain it is honestly very good and much better than anything I have seen before. Thank you!
It's 2 years later and no one cares about NFTs 😄
Thanks for this video, mate. I appreciate it.
If you were my teacher in high school, I would have ended up a lot more prepared for this world. Great video bro
You sir get a like from me just for saying "The Tube" instead of the London Metro or something like that, big
You did not disappoint. This covers pretty much every issue I’ve got with PoW cryptocurrency and the NFTs minted on them. I’ll be sharing this as wide as I can with all my music creating friends.
Wow, this is such a good video. As a crypto expert and critic, this is sooooooooo spot on!
This sort of conversation is about crypto in general, specifically bitcoin and ethereum. The inconvenient truth is that it's so profitable for so many people, to the point where there is no chance of them diverging their interests from it. The future has to be focused on optimizing these mediums, not ignoring them or just detesting them. These things are here to stay for the indefinite future, and like cars, or electrical grids, we should be concerned with creating a more efficient and effective ecosystem for cryptocurrency.
Music should bring joy to the world, not damage it.
The only thing that I understood is that I'm dumb. No seriously what is he talking about.
Your level of work is godly. Always admiring what you do through zeros and ones since 09.
Thank you.
Great video, 100% agree on everything said here. Not to mention that we're going through a global chip shortage and all this hype is just adding to a crazy supply problem. We're living in a world where a large percentage of the population is suddenly required to work or study from home and companies can't produce the hardware for all this quickly enough. And in part this is also happening because miners are buying graphics cards like crazy thanks to all this hype. So, poor kids can't afford computers to get their education, because artists mint NFTs on proof of work blockchains. This sure isn't a problem I expected people to have during the virus apocalypse ...!
Seeing Seaspiracy documentary and then this is taking their toll. The world is indeed on fire.
I'd say I'm definitely in the 13% that fully understand this, probably a bit more, and this is one the fairest sumarisations I've seen so far.
A response I like to make when it comes to the current enviornmental argument is this: one of the more prevalent points to me is that crypto was made by man to be so wasteful from day one, when it didn't have to be (that is, if it were designed better.) We all do things that have a negative impact on the planet, and saying "well what are YOU doing to help?" doesn't address the endless gas being guzzled by cyrpto alone right now, by it's intended design by people who didn't care. I mean hell, as digital artists we're literally using WAY more electricity than a traditional artist would to produce art, but that energy usage is not highly disproportionate to the outcome product of what's being made, while the energy costs for *just a single block of the blockchain* is freakin' unreal. This is the real issue about the environmental impact: the fact it's so disproportionate. Yeah, the meat industry is an absolute abomination of pollution and disease, for sure, but that doesn't mean Crypto should just come along and drop it's load of problems onto the pile too.
Imagine pointing at the factory dumping waste into the river and saying they must be stopped -- "but hold on, just gotta dump a little in the river myself first, one sec"
I'm not sure if digital art consumes more energy than traditional art as a matter of fact.
Particularly if you end up scanning it in anyway.
I’d be interested in an update to this
much like crypto itself the vast majority of cheerleaders wouldn't give two fucks about "decentralisation" and "giving power back to the artist" and are quite clearly only in it to make a quick buck. It's shameful and disgusting to watch so many big names giving in to this while still preaching about climate change. Major kudos to people like Jacob Collier for, as you say, waiting for a fucking minute.
cryptocurrency mining are basically just entropy generators: spending resources and generating absolutely nothing. If we have Dyson Sphere-level technology (aka virtually infinite energy), then crytomining might be justifiable. but as of now, crytomining needs to be carbon-taxed into the ground.
The current state of how artists/creators get paid on the internet is pretty miserable. It seems like artists get paid in the most meta ways only - like from ad revenue, merch, pooled streaming payments, and now weird collector'ism blockchain stuff (NFTs). I wish artists could just be paid directly by their fans in normal currency for the actual content they are creating...
Thing is, I think fans are plenty willing to pay, but the infrastructure is just not there to support it - one reason being that the infrastructure is inundated with these giant, free, ad-driven content hosting services like youtube, soundcloud, spotify, etc. Simultaneously, a service like bandcamp is too narrow-scope to truly help creators of all kinds - it's only for music, and isn't as widely adopted as something like spotify by listeners.
I actually believe fans are willing to pay creators directly for their content. However, I think they are highly unlikely to do so when it involves pulling out their wallet, going through an online form, or even logging into their paypal. IF it happens automatically though - as it is with streaming, for instance - I think people are plenty willing to pay. I might be crazy, but I think the biggest barrier to direct payment is just the hassle of dealing with the money - not the willingness to pay!
I wonder if in the future, foundational social media elements should be transformed into monetary transactional elements: the 'like' button gives a cent to the creator, 10 seconds of a video or song streamed gives a cent to the creator, etc, etc (and as a content consumer, your "wallet" information is simply set up once at the beginning). This means fans have to pay for content services that exist for free today, but there would be value for creators and consumers in not having an ad-driven system (which seems to corrupt content) and content consumers would be able to support the content creators they love directly, automatically, and with zero hassle.
what I don't get about all this is why it has to be in a blockchain at all. Like why is no one responding to this fad by just releasing "analogue NFTs" right now, i.e. pieces of paper that authenticate the holders ownership of a certain piece of digital art? After all that's basically all that NFTs are. I feel like it's because without the fancy crypto blockchain involvement it's just too obvious how ridiculous this whole "digital ownership" concept is lol
Really great video. I like they you got into the artificial scarcity bit. I don't think we are going to be freer or more successful artists using more tools built for capitalism. Just look at spotify, a while ago people thought that it would help them. Giving a landlord a portion of sales for the right to sell doesn't help me.
Thank you so much for addressing this often intentionally obfuscated topic.
Can you make a video about ANRX? Very exciting NFT e-sport project soon to be listed on tier 1 Exchange. H
Hey Ben, you didn't mention anything about the negative environmental impact of fiat (normal) money. Even the costly and outdated bitcoin has a lower carbon footprint than the u.s dollar. Please take this into consideration :)
Whaaa? (I'm feeling old)... great video but I'm going back to something I sort of understand - playing a synth...
Okay, who’s going to be the one and tell all the crypto miners in developing nations that they should switch professions and stop mining crypto... Not it!
Excellent video 👍 as far as I can tell this NFT thing is just people trying to go back to the pre-internet business model. Even without NFTs the energy consumed to preserve and manipulate the world's data is already on an unsustainable trajectory. At some point humanity is going to have to start curating and/or discarding data (says I while planning my next TH-cam video).
I hope the video discusses the environment
The burning globe in the thumbnail would seem to suggest it :)
oh yes he did
@@ModernDevotion I’m on my phone and didn’t notice, wrote this comment when the video was about to premiere!
Hey Ben, was psyched to see myself In this video as I really enjoy your videos and regularly tune in. Great work showing a bunch of points I haven’t seen made in the countless things I’ve watched on this. Great work.
Benn Jordan for president.
The reason no one wants to wait a month is because the hype will have died down and they won’t be able to get rich quick anymore.
Thank you for making this video! I've been following this same line of research for the past couple of months and you won't believe this...but I waited! Was actually planning to start minting on HicEtNunc on the Tezos blockchain next week.
Excellent - though I'm going to have to watch it quite a few times to wrap my pooh-bear-of-little-brains around it all...
Not looking at any most successful virtual band or anything.
i think you did a good job as usual, yet this is still complete alien gibberish to me as soon as you get into the "proof of stake" i don't see how it's not still assigning made-up value to a computer's farts.
Proof-of-work: computers need to fart continually to verify incoming made up numbers. computers who fart harder get paid more
Proof-of-stake: computers are all swapping around farts in jars (no new farts being farted) to verify incoming made up numbers. whoever has the most fart jars, or whoever has the oldest fart jars, gets paid more
It’s almost like nfts are my clothes and I’m laundering them 💀
Honestly though I'd buy a CD-R you hand labeled and signed just for the novelty of that.
This video was shared in an artists' Discord I'm in and I was pleasantly surprised to see a video on NFTs that directly acknowledges the consequences of PoW blockchains. I follow so many great artists on Twitter who are all on the ETH train and it's sad because I want to continue supporting their work but not if they're feeding the beast.
How are you supporting their work? Have you hired them for a project? Are you buying artwork from them on a regular basis?
I think you’re just jealous that you can’t produce any original art
Came here straight from another video that points out boring corporate art styles. Not giving an opinion. Just highlighting the irony.
Fucking THANK YOU, not enough people are focusing on the environmental aspect of this.
Man, the quality of your videos have elevated to the next level. Just.. wow!
Thanks Benn, your honesty is so refreshing. Also your perfectly synchronized high five at the end. So refreshing.
Brilliant overview. Thanks
This is money laundering right? Am I crazy?
Literally all digital artists have to do to do the same thing as NFTs is issue certificate saying someone owns an artwork and have that recorded somewhere reliable say a gov agency auction house etc. Anything on top of that is just insane hype.
Awesome as always. Didn't know the absurd amount of energy required to mine on current proof of work blockchains, would you mind putting some of your sources on the description, please? I would love to read it myself.
Are you talking about A. Jones?😂😂😂
In short: The irony in buying a Tesla car with bitcoins?
I’ve never felt so fucking old as I do watching this video. Might as well be speaking Mandarin.
Tezos is where it's at
Dude I Can't Even Afford A Flippin Middie Controller So This Is Not Something I Can Get Into it
Have you looked into making them? You could make a pretty decent one for 20$ ;) look into teensy microcontrollers, they have some tutorials and the teensy lc is cheap (there are other cheaper ones like seeeduino Xiao but I think teensy is a bit easier to get into)
@@woulg Wow I Never Knew That Was Possible And I Am Willing To Give It A Chance
I’m not a clever person so thank you for quantifying the whole subject in a digestible manner. I knew there was an environmental impact surrounding this whole thing but I wasn’t aware of the gravity of it all, and I feel like the same is true for most people, perhaps even many of those who are creating NFTs.
Either way, I appreciate your dedication to well thought out content with no bullshit.
This is by far the best-researched, informative and nuanced piece I've seen on the subject so far. Thank you for making this content.
This video used a lot of words that I don't understand 🤔
8:00 Wait a minute, but wouldn't an empty train running at the same speed have less energy consumption because it weighs less? If the vehicle (be it a train or a car) weighs more because of passengers or baggage, its engine has to transport more weight and work harder, therefore using more energy.
True, they would use marginally less energy, but the bulk of it is used for the train running in the first place. Hence transport companies drastically reducing schedules during non-peak hours. Boston is a good example bc most public transit gets cut down by a lot for the summer as far fewer than the average 250,000 students will be in the city.
@@bolttracks That's a good point. It just seems that they missed the weight/power consumption ratio thing entirely, lol.
Genuine question:
Isn’t crypto attempting to reduce the carbon footprint of trade as the end goal? I know you touched on it in the video, but from what I understand it’s trying to cut out the middlemen businesses which use buildings filled with appliances, computers, and building compliant resources. These can range from a small buildings to skyscrapers in size. I’m not trying to say “but these use electricity!”, but I can imagine there isn’t much data showcasing the energy-use for these businesses. I really am curious of the global energy use of these in comparison to cryptocurrency, especially when looking into energy grids that are on renewable or nuclear energy.
Thank you for the video and glad to be better informed!
Two main problems: the margin on mining is thin so that's done on the cheapest power available, usually carbon; crypto won't be used for regular trade as it's way too volatile (and you can find a bunch of articles on why bitcoin will stay like this and will skyrocket in price every some years when there's a halving of the mining reward) and it has become a financial trading commodity so now there's a bunch of people who will try to keep cryptos hyped and unrealiables.
Please let the algorithm pick this one up!
what happened to hash graph? isn't is far far more efficient than blockchain. Blockchain at its core is unsustainable.
In before the cryptobros.
I love the way you deliver information and its awesome to see the man behind the flashbulb on camera, like we get to see a side of you that isnt exclusively melodies and rhythms
Best explanation of this.
I'll now preach to whole my based nft hype man.
What if the energy used for bitcoin mining came from renewables? It is estimated 65% of bitcoin mining comes from china largely due to the cheap cost of energy there. The miners get their power from energy grids in hydro-rich provinces that are built for populations that are expected to move there in 5-10 years. These miners are essentially subsidizing clean energy projects in mostly vacant cities! Similar operations are taking root in the US by companies like Blockcap. Additionally, energy companies in Canada are using excess flare gas which would otherwise be difficult to dispose of to mine bitcoin.
But why not just migrate to a more modernized and secure blockchain that doesn't require proof of work and use renewables for other things?
PoW being unsustainable isn't news to anyone working in crypto. It's very nature by design is to convert energy into blocks, and it can be easily changed with no consequence to anyone but crypto miners.
@@BennJordan At the moment there isn't proof that PoS is more secure than PoW
@@halfish757Sure there is. PoW isn't quantum resilient and is more theoretically vulnerable to a 51% attack.
First of all, you did an awesome job again sir! Everytime I watch a video, I end up thinking: "Damn, how is this guy so kind?!" I think your charisma-lvl is like over 3000.... And even though I live on the other side of the Atlantic ocean, I still want to be friends with you! Aaand! I am curious about where you've minted your NFT! :o
You know, that energy issue wasn't brought up nearly as often during the whole life of crypto as it's being brought up when NFT came by, and I wonder why. As much as I don't like the NFT model, the environmental argument does feel like it has its origin in FUD.
Didn't know about the PoS thing tho, it's good to know crypto can outgrow mining
I've heard the environmental argument plenty of times over the past few years, maybe it's fresh on your radar because artists with a new reason to pay attention are figuring this out
What's the name of the song at 9:05?
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaking as a semi-Old Fart who has been trying to get his head around this shit for months now, this is superb (although the whole "mining" thing still confuses me).
I had heard about the insane resource waste regarding NFTs though and it's nice to have a solid explanation of that.
Keep up the good work and fighting the good fight.
Of course... this is CLASSIC ME!!
Monday, TWO DAYS AGO, Im all excited to mint one piece... ONE PIECE!
... and here comes Benn, like Mutumbo, to smack it down the shitter!!
OF COURSE!!!
Aphex Twin Trees ©®™
Bam. Solid delivery. Thanks Benn.
dont get me wrong i'm everyone's goto anti-capitalist tree-hugger but i think you missed a couple of very very important whatabout-isms lol.
what about the fact that 72% of bitcoin mining is done with sustainable energy (because sustainable energy is impossible to store which makes it cheaper to mine with)? what about the fact that this actually contributes to the development of green energy?
5:50 uh, Dude,.... That is an absurd usage of kWh for ONE MONTH! blame bitcoin, but look at your own usage. Last year I used 828 kWh IN A YEAR! hope you got a wrong calculation there...
NFTs are digital shackles. If someone is selling NFTs, it's restriction through technology that they're selling. If you wanna think of a good use for NFTs just think of a good use for digital shackles. Easy as that really, somewhere where you want to have a bit that can't be flipped. That's what they're essentially for.
But, Benn. We can use market logic to defeat market logic by designing a new system from scratch with market logic. It's totally not just DRM 2.0. We're democratizing music!
Man I would really appreciate a NFT/blockchain 2022 update video. Great video my friend!!!
Thanks for providing an objective view on the topic. Most people just state that NFTs are bad and pointless, but you've actually done your research very thoroughly and explain an extremely complex topic in a very clear way that is easy to follow and understand. The best thing is, you are actually pointing out the fact that not all NFTs are the same. Every blockchain works differently and there are actually green blockchains out there. Whenever I try to bring up these carbon neutral blockchains, the automatic response I have often got is that they can't be truly carbon neutral - then again, how many things out there are? The way I like to explain it is that Bitcoin and Ethereum are like the first computers that filled up a room, now we have smartphones and smartwatches. Proof-of-stake blockchains could even be considered almost a different technology altogether.
Environmental stuff aside, I find the whole concept and why people are buying NFTs incomprehensible. Someone pays $50m for a link to a jpg they could probably view online for free anyway? uhhh
Even when you remove the massive energy consumption from the equation (which so many artists and NFT traders haven't done, but seems to be totally possible with the Proof of Stake networks you mention), and even if you ignore the entire technological/logistical aspect of them, I don't understand WHY someone would buy an NFT to begin with. It's an asset to be traded, but who is going to buy it from you? Other speculative investors who assume it's price is going to go up? There can't be that many insane Benn Jordan devotees who all desperately want the unique NFT released by Benn Jordan, only to sell it to the next highest bidder later when for some reason all the devotees want it again but didn't buy it before. Am I off base? What am I missing here? Where is the value in these things to the buyer?
TL;DR: Money printer goes brrrrrrrzzzzgzzzzzzzt... (please don't inhale the blue smoke)
I am a HERS Rater! You are speaking my language now brah! There is a way to do it for a lower enviro cost. Some dude put their GPUs in their pool, and used it to heat the pool instead of a pool heater. Other than that i think that NFT in general is a problem. How do I make a playlist with NfTs exactly?
The two cases of proof of work and proof of stake is kinda too simular to the pro fossil fuel and progreen energy debate. The seeming energy debate surrounding this is super interesting. Thanks for the video. Im absolutely for decentralized economies, but i also like living on earth so i think i know which one id rather junp into
I needed this video a year ago. NFTs make me angry, like legit furious. This puts into words exactly how ive felt about NFTs and the blockchain. Here are over a year later and I believe still no proof of stake? Man this shit is already been ruined by the “early adopters” just trying to nickel and dime every person every transaction for every cent they can. This exact “ill get every cent i can” mentality has ruined so many things on this planet and i fear its just gonna get worse!
Ok why Ethereum and not Tezos or Cardano as in your example, because it is truly decentralised. And as you say PoS is coming to Ethereum, slowly but surely, it is a very complex transition, as you can imagine.
just to mention, the reason fungible is used is that in the token/crypto space the "criteria of money" are mentioned often. gold being durable/rare/fungible for example is why its been currency. bitcoin currently keeps this and add the blockchain functionality as value (whereas gold is an aesthetically pleasing conductor as well). so when NFTs were coming up the biggest difference between them and any sort of crypto "currency" specifically is that it is NOT money. dollars/quarters/pennies for the USD but bitcoin splits to satoshis. - so while your point stands perfectly true that it is not a good term for mass adoption I believe the term serves its function in signaling to the cryptospace that it is not an "alt coin". anyway no one is going to read this comment & i love your vids.
This may seem like a stupid question but why don’t artists just release on vinyl or cassette without a digital option? Wouldn’t the product then be limited and thus more valuable? The whole concept of the digital NFT boggles my mind as it seems like people are trying to create artificial scarcity to boost value. I’m old enough to remember a time when you couldn’t own every album because sometimes they were hard to get. There was an original copy of the Misfits ‘Walk Among Us’ on pink vinyl at my local record shop that I wanted but couldn’t afford because the real scarcity of the item put it out of financial reach for me.
The environment issue can be curved with blockchain protocols that facilitate the exchange of clean energy like energy web token (EWT).. Very interesting project!