What is an NFT and how is it “bad for the environment?”

[SamsaraTrickstar]

You pay real money to own a copy of your favorite memes, that I can right click and save still. But you'll be the owner of that meme, but not the copyright holder mind you, that still is the creators. So you just pay money for pixels everyone else can still download for free.

Yep, but mostly people buy it in hope to sell for more. onlly to find out they can't. And yes no one sell the copyright ©️

[Dewslam]

You ever fall for one of those "own a star" scams? It's one of those but for stolen internet art and each transaction, not merely a sale or the creation of such, consumes more power than a family of four does in a month.

[Averax]

You ever fall for one of those "own a star" scams? It's one of those but for stolen internet art and each transaction, not merely a sale or the creation of such, consumes more power than a family of four does in a month.

If only people would go back to selling "tickets to heaven"

[Breakbeat]

An NFT is a "Name your own star!" for the modern human. It's just a "guarantee" that you own a digital image. Others can see the image, download the image, edit the image, or delete the image, but YOU OWN IT! Just like you own the third star from the left if you paid $89.99 back in 1994.

It literally means nothing, it is nothing, it was created from nothing (just like the stock market) and now we care immensely about it.

Humans can be very stupid and gullible. If you hit something at the right time, there's billions and trillions of dollars to be made.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Nobody was really buying the calls about their car's extended warranty anymore, so the scammers are branching out.

[Rhysati]

An NFT puts out no more pollution than any other always on electronic device, or the servers used to run an MMO like FFXIV, or the servers used to make sure that everyone has access to their always on and available streaming services, etc.

You should maybe actually research it before you make such an incorrect statement. Studies are showing that a single bitcoin transaction uses around the same amount of power that the average American household uses in a MONTH. It also causes about a million times more carbon emissions than a single credit card transaction. Bitcoin mining alone uses about as much energy across the world as the entire country of Sweden uses.

And that's not even touching every other blockchain coin or NFT. NFTs work the same way bitcoin does when it comes to transactions. If you want to know more about WHY they use so much more electricity, feel free to do a simple google or youtube search.

[SeiyaSoiya]

You should maybe actually research it before you make such an incorrect statement. Studies are showing that a single bitcoin transaction uses around the same amount of power that the average American household uses in a MONTH. It also causes about a million times more carbon emissions than a single credit card transaction. Bitcoin mining alone uses about as much energy across the world as the entire country of Sweden uses.

And that's not even touching every other blockchain coin or NFT. NFTs work the same way bitcoin does when it comes to transactions. If you want to know more about WHY they use so much more electricity, feel free to do a simple google or youtube search.

a single bitcoin transaction has a gas fee of 1.81 usd on average, you would need to mine 59 times 1.81usd to reach the average monthly use of electricty in the us (893kwh at 12 cents a kwh), that is absolutely 100% not worth it because every time you manage to mine a transaction you would, according to you, be paying 59 times that much earned in power bills.

[Altera]

NFT and Cryptomining has pretty massive impact on enviromental pollution. The farms require huges loads of electricity to run and each NFT token creation is said to cost as much energy as a average household uses in 1-2 days, on 1 NFT token. Now imagine millions token made?
Also with more blockchains, more computing power is needed, which means sucking up every GPU and CPU around, and making these components also impact the globe. And the cards are usually run 100% 24/7 and prolly needs replacement GPU every year or 2.

The report states that each Bitcoin transaction consumes 1,173 kilowatt hours of electricity. That's the volume of energy that could "power the typical American home for six weeks," the authors add. The Bitcoin mining that enables a purchase, sale or transfer, it posits, uses a slug of electricity that costs $176.
https://youtu.be/Oz9zw7-_vhM?t=792

And that Square Enix CEO wants to start NFT, means SE will also contribute a lot to enviromental pollution and in Europe specially, there is a power crisis as electrical bills has risen to 8 times normal and have to start up old coal power plants to manage the increasing demand for power as windmills are not producing as its not a lot of wind lately

[Illmaeran]

If it’s a digital item, how is it polluting the environment? I tried googling this and, much to my surprise, I couldn’t understand it.

And how would this affect FF14 if it was implemented? If anyone can explain it in 3rd grade language I’d appreciate it, lol.

It has to do with generation of electricity and the power efficiency of systems that run NFT software. From what I've gathered, the design of NFT systems is intentionally inefficient, which causes them to consume a disproportionate amount of electricity. Someone stated that one of the current NFT companies uses the same amount of electricity per year as Libya.

That power doesn't come from nowhere and has its own environmental impact based on how it's generated. If you consider the overall carbon footprint of the electricity generated for that one NFT business is equivalent to a modestly populated country, one starts seeing how an increase in that technology is bad for the global environment.

[Larirawiel]

If it’s a digital item, how is it polluting the environment? I tried googling this and, much to my surprise, I couldn’t understand it.

And how would this affect FF14 if it was implemented? If anyone can explain it in 3rd grade language I’d appreciate it, lol.

The digital item itself is not bad for the environment. The token to secure this item, this needs tons of energy. Imagine, you have a printer. The picture or text which the printer creates is not the problem. But now imagine, the printing process needs tons of energy. This is the problem. It is also similar to coffee in aluminum capsules. The coffee is not bad for the environment but the aluminum capsule is. You need tons of energy to get the necessary aluminum. That is why aluminum capsules are bad and expensive.


Cheers