NFTs and the $13B marketplace, explained

NFTs can be hard to grasp. What the heck is a non-fungible token? While most of the world grapples with understanding what they are or how they work, one company has taken the lead as the most successful NFT marketplace in the world. How did OpenSea, a company now valued at over $13B — billion! — become the defacto marketplace for buying and selling NFTs? The Verge’s Russell Brandom explains.

[comforteagle]

No one ever said scams weren’t profitable.

[lxfenix]

Now i understand NFT's much better. I now see they're even more stupid than i initially thought.

[WittyDroog]

A friend stopped talking to me after buying some NFTs, boasting it was an investment, all because I asked "But who's going to buy it from YOU?" I thought it was a simple question but I guess questioning the value of his provenance was the straw that broke the camel's back.

[SleepyPossums]

NFTs are purely gambling. For every person who it works out for, there are 5, 000 saps that lost thousands.

[jameschase]

i don’t know who need to hear this saving money won’t make you a millionaire investing will take out some money and invest Do it wisely tho

[homeape.]

opensea is $13b

that's certainly not a bubble at all. no, no

[eldiablo]

Shout out that guy for pointing out them exploiting civil rights activism

[teddycat]

Short summary, its a quick money scam

[dgmojojojo]

How *”coincidental”* that these NFT boomed when galleries and art purchases required by law to be more transparent to avoid money laundering

[cryptowizard]

This is a good insight, thanks! Btw, any recommendation for gambling utility NFTs that one can customize and breed? Have only heard of Slotie so far

[DanteKeith]

If you haven’t heard of an NFT you’ve been living under a rock.

Patrick Star: Do I like a joke to you.

[sltysailor]

Doesn’t even discuss the cons of NFTs aside from the gambling aspect. How about selling art as an NFT is a scam and how art is currently impossible to validate ownership as an NFT. The blockchain cannot host images for now so all exchanges are through links to hosting companies. So the NFT validates a link and not the actual art piece.

[rvent]

Can I ask why all the video calls in this video look like they’re on slow bandwidth? This is a serious question, in Africa and other places broadband isn’t available everywhere and people live with crappy video calls and super low quality YouTube. But aren’t you all in the US? Don’t you all have super fast fiber and 5G. I started wondering about this in the last couple of years of the pandemic where big CEOs, celebs and super savvy tech people interviewed on these types of videos look like they’re using super slow connections with blocky video quality. Genuinely curious why this is the case where most US users can stream clean HD and 4k media but video calls looks so terrible.

[AntonSlizzardhands]

The Verge should do investigative reporting on the NFT scammers and how they got caught.

[marioaradunelutz]

YELP! It’s just great that you barely scratched the surface when it comes to how super problematic NFTs. You more or less tried that wannabe “middle” approach of “some people made money out of it and we don’t know how it will evolve in the future. For people that actually want to be informed watch Folding Ideas video *Line Goes Up* . This video was not even informative let alone a critical view of NFT . Also… why did you change the title from Casino to Amazon? First title was actually accurate even if the video was not even close to explaining why it’s a Casino.

[Miloadeur]

This is just ridiculous, there’s clearly some sort of a scam, crime, or shady things going on.

[jrisner]

Don't throw around phrases like "makes it really hard to hack or cheat the system"... Yeah in some specific ways which rarely happen in real life... In other ways, that decentralisation makes cheating & hacking a lot easier

[benjamindaniel]

Thanks for the continuous great videos. The fact is, NFTS, BTC is the future of crypto and the question most people ask themselves is - if this is right time to invest? I feel those who would allow the market dynamism to determine when to trade or not are either new in this space in general or probably just naïve..

[ishantbhardwaj]

Why verge/anyone is not recording a different video while these question are discussed over a video call? Separately recorded video by individuals can be sent to editors/studio to use in final video. Why a crappy recorded video call is used? Is it intentional?

[alextaesung]

NFTs right now, the only people making money are the early investors, exchanges, and a few early artists. Everyone else is going to be left holding the bag. Compare it to the gold rush, people flocking into California like people flocking into NFTs now weren't the ones making money. It was the businesses selling shovels to them. People got manipulated by the media and their favorite influencer/company and a way for it to make you money in the future. How many celebrities and influencers shilling NFTS just so it gets rug pulled?? Pure money grab.