How to defeat NFTs

Here’s a fact: A lot of money is being put behind NFTs (which are a scam), and it’s not going to go away. Complaining about it is also not going to solve the problem. We need to switch gears to the next phase, where everyone and their mum have NFTs, and they can’t be shouted down. We don’t need to get rid of it, we need an alternative.

So here’s an alternative:

Solid

The origin of Web 3.0 is about hosting your own data in something called Solid Pods. The idea being that websites access that pod to get and update data, but the data is fundamentally yours. This is why cryptobros have taken the terminology of Web 3.0, but said “what if instead of storing data in your own location, you stored it on the blockchain instead” because crypto is like a useless hammer which cannot find a single nail.

OK but this is also a hint for how to actually beat crypto at its own game. Set up a pod.

Wait, that’s not an NFT!

OK not yet, but go with me. What if there was a dance, like the OAuth dance (also the OAuth dance would be a part of this dance but the point is that there’s a protocol which two parties follow):

• “Buy” a thing using a Web 3.0 app. Let’s pretend it’s a monkey pic.
• The Web 3.0 app uploads the monkey pic to your pod (via 3 legged OAuth) and signs the metadata, saying “this pod owns this monkey pic”, and another piece of metadata saying “this pod paid $x for that monkey pic”.
• The metadata is kept both on the pic but also aside from it for tracing. The metadata can be accessed by other Web 3.0 apps (it’s not public, but apps can ask for access to the data or your purchase history).
• The metadata is also signed by the pod when it is stored, so both parties have signed that a transaction took place.
• The app takes the double-signed metadata, and stores it in its own app. This way you both know that you paid a million bucks for a stupid monkey pic

It’s private, it’s scalable, it’s secure, there’s no bullshit. It beats Crypto.

Use it

This part is pretty key. Once an ecosystem is set up to use this thing, and people start buying stuff, this would naturally displace NFTs.

That’s how we defeat NFTs.