Nft's are only for the really important characters, like Armada Optimus and Kicker's mother.
I hope we can get a very "tasteful" nft of Kicker's mother.

 

I foresee this biting them in the ass hard.

1) Don’t fuck over artists. Word will get out.

2) Bad PR for a company that’s already looking to raise prices in the middle of a pandemic

3) Bad PR for a company that’s noted to treat veteran talent like Peter Cullen and Frank Welker like crap in order to save some coin on hiring non-union voice actors with absolutely abysmal voice direction

4) Bad PR for a company that’s “committed to environmental sustainability” and yet uses these NFTs. You can’t preach about being pro-environment and producing something that’s not only highly pollutant but doesn’t really create anything of value (unlike cryptocurrencies)

Saving money doesn’t always correlate with saving face

 

I don’t disagree. Seems more of a move that 1 of the suits made while seeing NFT hashtags trending or something and not realizing what kind of effect it had overall aside from possible quick money in the interim. Definitely seems like a shortsighted move

 

No Fun Toys.

 

Not quite. Most NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) use Etherium, which is an already existing type of cryptocurrency, which isn't quite as popular as Bitcoin. If Bitcoin is the Coca-Cola of crypto, Etherium is the Pepsi. Dogecoin is Faygo.

Paper money is fungible, meaning each US$1 bill is functionally equivalent to every other. But, they're also unique, each with a distinct serial number. If we wanted to, we could build a system to track these serial numbers whenever a bill changes hands, and we'd know if the $1 bill in my wallet now is the same one you spent in a vending machine last month.

Crytocurrency uses such a system, tracking each Bitcoin (or Etherium or Dogecoin) whenever it changes hands. The computing power to track all these changes requires a lot of electricity, which generates a lot of greenhouse gases. The computing rigs also use a lot of high end graphics cards, which is part of why they're so expensive now.

NFTs take advantage of this ability by treating each token as a distinct item, not equivalent to any other token. It's like if someone pointed to the unique serial number on a US$1 bill and said, "This particular bill is no longer legal tender! It is now exclusive bragging rights to nyan-cat! Trade me regular money for it!"

And people do.

If you're thinking, "I don't understand this. It makes no sense", you're half right. It makes no sense, which you understand perfectly.

The closest I can find to logic in this is as the ultimate expression of conspicuous consumption, where you buy something simply to show off that can afford to buy it. If you buy a regular piece of art, you can keep it in your house and look at it, but you can only show it off to your visitors. You can loan it to a museum, and maybe get some more viewers/publicity, but can't look at it yourself whenever you want.

But, if you buy an NFT representing a globally available image, then theoretically, everyone with internet access can look at what you "own" and be jealous of you.

 

NFTs are such a scam. They\'re literally tricking people into thinking a JPEG can be valuable

 

Thanks for the explanation

Outside the financial sector, NFTs sound dumb, like REAL dumb

 

its very strange, but MMC products are feeling an awful lot more appealling now. no idea why.

goodness, you're fluent in speaking facts.

 

I can buy a jpg of pat lee's fat robots?!? Or one of Rob Liefeld's anatomically inaccurate superheroes?

Count me in!

Screw the Environment, who needs a planet to live on when in the future everyone's minds will all be uploaded to the internet!

 

Hasbro's timing literally could not be worse. They've made it so abundantly clear that it's about the money, and the "eco-friendly" shit a year ago was just PR. None of this is surprising, of course, but sometimes (well, okay, a LOT of the time) we forget that Hasbro is a corporation like any other, and the fact that they're selling toys has no bearing on whether or not they're "ethical."

All of this combined makes the decision to drop this hobby a lot easier for folks like me. Folks who already only have a limited amount of money to spend on... well, anything, really. And there's such a wealth of entertainment options out there - some of which are far more affordable - that it doesn't feel like much of a sacrifice.

Your loss, Hasbro.

 

Ugh. I hate that corporatists have seized on the NFT bugaboo as if it's something positive for the world. Sure, you can make a copy of a JPG of GIF, add it to a blockchain and charge an arm and a leg for it, but what does it actually do other than suck down yet more resources so somebody with more money than sense can say they own the "authentic" copy of the file?

I hope the Transformers fan base is smarter than that and they make zero money from this dumb move.

 

I imagine this is going to be a short lived attempt at generating profit that may fade into obscurity and possibly not mentioned at all in the next earnings call.

I can imagine Hasbro would probably offer something like “Own an NFT of the final PDF file we used from Marcelo Matere to make this WFC box art!”. Then fans might be like “why when I already have that box since I already bought the figure?”.

However I don’t think Hasbro should pull a DC and tell it’s freelancers not to make Transformers/GI Joe NFTs.

 

Can somebody explain why they are bad for the environment? I get that mining for bitcoin can use up electricity but how does an NFT do that? Does it not just sit as a bit of code somewhere?

 

From what I understand its the verification process. Every time one of these changes hands, it has to be verified, and that verification process uses an inordinate amount of power. Something like a multi-day output for a small country just so they can make sure your fake art is "real"

 

It's better for the environment than windmills.

 

And squirrels are renewable

 

I know a number of American companies are starting to look in to being more "green" and are concerned as investors look for more forward thinking companies in that regard.

So it's entirely possible that news of this will hit the investor market and trigger that kind of backlash that would actually cause real change.

Because as many pointed out: Hasbro was praised for finding ways to scale back their use of non-renewables in packaging. So they can't really pat themselves on the back for that while diving head first in to NFTs without getting a number of "WTFs?!"

 

It's not the verification process, it exists on the blockchain, which is basically a network that's hosted on a bunch of mining rigs. These mining rigs essentially solve complex mathematic calculations 24/7.
They run so hot that some people use them to heat their basements.
The most famous of these blockchains is the Bitcoin one, which uses more electricity than some countries, just by existing.
These NFT however are mostly on Ethereum, another more versatile and efficient blockchain. It too uses massive amounts of power, it's getting an upgrade to be more efficient though.
These NFT use energy to get created, sold, resold, used and just by existing.
Should the crypto currency this is hosted on fall out of favour and the miners switch to a different one the cryptocurrency and it's network along with these things just cease to exist.

 

N. F. T. should stand for Not F**king Transformers".

 

Yes, but your ownership does not entitle you to any say in how that image is used, or any profits made from selling copies of it on merch. However, anyone who sees said image, gets curious as to who owns its NFT, determines which NFT system said NFT is stored on, and looks up that NFT's current owner will know they are looking at your image.

No blue text because I'm not kidding. That is the only benefit to owning an NFT. Unless, of course, you can find a bigger sucker to sell it to.

Mr. Powerbomb, our accountants have determined that it's more profitable for us to repurpose the server your mind is stored on to cryptomining. We'll refund your upload fee, but you'll have to find some other place for your consciousness to exist. Immediately. Your meat body has not been preserved.

Again, no blue text because I'm pretty sure that's how that would play out.

A computer mining for bitcoin is performing the complex math needed to update the cryptoledger tracking transactions whenever a bitcoin or NFT is transferred. When the computer finishes the math needed to update the cryptoledger, it is rewarded with some amount of bitcoin of its own. Did you ever see the Rick and Morty Purge episode, where the guy at the end says he'll keep track of everyone's food if he gets extra food for it? It's like that.

One problem is updating the the cryptoledger means checking every transfer of a particular bitcoin (or NFT) since it was created. As the list of transfers gets longer, the math gets more involved, and requires more power. This is why people collecting plastic crack can get all high and mighty about cryptocurrency. The environmental impact of my Siege Acid Storm is finite: resources for production, fuel for transportation, and eventually landfill space. The environmental impact of an NFT (or cryptocoin) grows over time.

Another problem is that there are often multiple computers competing to solve the same math. Only the first one to solve the problem gets rewarded with cryptocurrency. So, you've got way more computers than necessary running to mine. Supposedly, there are updates coming to reduce this, but I think that's just what cryptocurrency people are saying to avoid discussing the environmental impact. I think the relevant terms are "proof of work" versus "proof of effort". You can try googling those to learn more.


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