Scarcity Cred | No Mercy / No Malice

In the last decade, blockchain technology and crypto have been laying the foundations for an alternative reality in which humans interact and organise themselves without the mediation of a third party. Crypto currencies are a US$2T asset today and billions of dollars are being traded globally without the need of a bank or intermediary, with transac... See more

I think all of this feels more natural to people who are immersed in the fine art market, or the market for rare limited-edition sneakers, etc. (I am not!) These are markets in which scarcity by design is a huge part of the fun, and that’s not true for all, or even most, markets for creative work. (I’m thinking of the market for, say, streaming TV ... See more

It’s easy to see why NFTs inspire both excitement and deep skepticism: They’re a completely novel asset class, and we don’t see new asset classes appear that often. But what drives the value of an asset that’s really just a digital token people can pass around? To appreciate NFTs properly, we first have to think through what they actually are and t... See more

However, in a digital context scarcity must be constructed- there is nothing that demands the next block in the blockchain be harder to make than the last. If anything, the opposite should be true- computers grow ever more efficient and powerful. This means any scarcity is artificial, a process that demands ever more energy, ever more resources los... See more

NFTs offer the promise of scarcity and authenticity for digital goods. NFTs aren’t the only way to create scarcity and authenticity online — trusted, centralized entities such as banks (and platforms such as Twitter and Apple) do it within their verticals, and blockchain tech is evolving to address myriad environmental and security concerns. So the... See more