Stay Good, Cartoonist! Stay Good!

Comic Transcript

A: Tell me more about these “fake” NFTs.

B: They’re not actually fake, they just don’t play by the rules they use to define themselves. Digital NFTs aren’t actually non-fungible. Because they’re digital, they can be copied and distributed with abandon. For supporting evidence I submit the entire Internet, from the moment of its creation onward.

A: So if they’re actually fungible, how are they… er… unfunged?

B: Don’t ever use that word again. A purely digital NFT usually declares its “uniqueness” by including a pointer in the blockchain that identifies the location where it exists. Usually a URL.

B: For example, if the cartoonist wanted to make yesterday’s comic an NFT, he might include the URL “https://www.eviscerati.org/comics/osw/2022/02/knockoff/” in its metadata on the blockchain, and that entry would essentially be a declaration that the URL is the only location of the “original,” and that finding the image anywhere else would make it a “copy.”

A: In this example, the cartoonist would be creating an NFT of a comic that declares that digital NFTs are essentially copycat brands masquerading as the real thing?

B: Yes.

(Silence.)

A: That would be hilarious.

B: Don’t encourage him!