This was an amusing April Fools’ joke; theymos has a knack for those.  But I have been laughing with it, not at it.

The people who laugh and sneer at NFTs are like people who laughed and sneered at Bitcoin in 2010.

Myself, I look forward to the day when I will send you a bitcoin in exchange for an NFT of a house.  I don’t mean a “virtual world” house.  I mean a real house, the legal title to a house:  An NFT minted by your local government to represent title to a certain parcel of land with all improvements thereupon.

The swap will be done atomically—either on Bitcoin with RGB/Spectrum, or with cross-chain atomic swaps.  If implemented properly, it will be incomparably more secure than a system of notaries public, lawyers, recording clerks, and title agencies; and it will replace all of these functions with something better.  “Closing of title” will consist of your cryptographic digital signature (“Not your keys, not your house!”), a tx broadcast, and some blockchain confirmations.

Laugh it up while you can.  —While some of the high-profile uses for NFTs are laughable.  —While it is still early.  NFTs will take over the world.  And you had better make it a fancy house—because the stupid legacy systems have institutional inertia; by the time we do the bitcoin-for-house swap, a whole bitcoin will be worth at least a few million dollars.

No, I am not buying into some hot new fad.  To the contrary.  In the 90s, when many readers of this thread were not yet born, cypherpunks were discussing the application of cryptography to some of the uses cases just now being solved.  I have been awaiting this for a quarter-century, and it is beginning to happen!


Strong cryptography makes life better.

Through PGP, I apply cryptography to my e-mail.

Through Bitcoin, I apply cryptography to my money.  PGP doesn’t get jealous, because Bitcoin is not encrypted e-mail.  Obviously.

Through NFTs, I will apply cryptography to numerous use cases which would take a very long post to list, let alone to describe.  —To things that are not money, just as Bitcoin is not e-mail.


If NFTs run on Bitcoin via RGB/Spectrum or similar technology, then obviously, there is no competition at all.  If NFTs run on another chain, then that other chain may be a competitor to Bitcoin—or it may be complementary, insofar as Bitcoin keeps its focus on being the most secure, most decentralized money ever invented; I have always been suspicious of proposals which may compromise that focus.  I think that it is too early to predict how all this will play out—other than to note that Ethereum is a dumpster fire, and the future of NFTs will probably be a competitor to Ethereum.

All that being said, just remember:


There is no such thing as “investing in NFTs”.  Perhaps an NFT platform may make a good investment—perhaps not; that is a question of whether a particular business which applies a technology will be a successful business.  Whereas the general, non-specific notion of “investing in NFTs” does not even make sense!  Which NFTs?  This is the meaning of “non-fungible”!