Trump's digital trading cards -- I don't get it

[vlyons]

Hey I'm an old lady of 75, so I've never heard of digital trading cards. Are there actually such things? If they are digital, how are they traded? If they are merely digital files, what's to prevent someone from simply copying the files?

They are quite ugly, who would spend money on such nonsense?

[jcgoldie]

1. Copy them?

You act as if honesty isn’t a terribly important quality for maga trumpers…

[Walleye]

2. That's my question, why not just copy and paste

[Ocelot II]

4. They can't be copied, they are NFTs.

[Walleye]

6. Screen shot?

[Ocelot II]

16. The supposed value of an NFT is that they can be resold,

and a screen shot wouldn't have the digital marker proving ownership. You buy these things not because you want the picture but because you want the investment. An expert forgery of Van Gogh's "Starry Night," or even a good-quality photo reproduction, would be just as beautiful hanging on your living room wall as the original, but art collectors want the originals because of their monetary value. If you owned the original "Starry Night" you could sell it for millions. NFTs are the same thing, only digital, but since you have to carry them around on your phone or your laptop and can't even hang them on your wall, their aesthetic value is negligible. So it's really just bitcoin involving art.

[Dorian Gray]

39. They're dumb

and ended being a thing 8 months ago, and Trump is trying to scam his most ardent followers.

[Ocelot II]

3. You are not part of the target market.

The way digital trading cards work is that they are NFTs, "non-fungible tokens." They have a unique digital identifier that is recorded somewhere and can't be copied, which certifies ownership and authenticity. But you can resell them, which is supposedly what gives them value. So when you buy one of TFG's trading cards, you will be able to download it to your computer or phone, and there's some sort of tag on it that makes it impossible to copy. Now you can show it to all your friends from your phone. Or you can sell it, since of course it will be worth even more than you paid for it, right?

I don't get it either....

[Jirel]

5. There's no such thing as impossible to copy.

Ergo, part of NFTs’ worthlessness. 30 seconds. Done.

[ProfessorGAC]

9. That's What I Wondered

I understand they can make it hard to copy, but I'd think impossible is a big ask.

[Jirel]

34. It's not hard.

You won’t have the LICENSE to sell, use, etc., but it is easily copyable.

It is therefore worthless. Sure, someone can SUE if you use it. Ok, whatever. You gonna sue thousands of people for $99 each assuming you even know those people are copying your NFT? If you aren’t using it commercially, detection is difficult and it’s more work and expense to sue than they’d ever get back.

Ergo the more or less destruction of the NFT market. It’s the Emperor’s New Clothes, all over again. Except the very stable genius behind Trump Steaks decided to get into the market when it was all but dead. LOL.

[ProfessorGAC]

37. Good Finishing Line

A steak company???

[Ocelot II]

10. That's the theory, anyhow. I'm sure the digital marker can be overridden

if you know how, though impossible for the griftee who didn't know what they were getting. But yeah, NFTs are right up there with bitcoin as an investment to be avoided.

[Celerity]

24. Non-fungible token

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-fungible_token

A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique digital identifier that cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided, that is recorded in a blockchain, and that is used to certify authenticity and ownership. The ownership of an NFT is recorded in the blockchain and can be transferred by the owner, allowing NFTs to be sold and traded. NFTs can be created by anybody, and require few or no coding skills to create. NFTs typically contain references to digital files such as photos, videos, and audio. Because NFTs are uniquely identifiable assets, they differ from cryptocurrencies, which are fungible.

[Jirel]

32. Totally copyable.

I don’t care what they claim. Show me any image, I can copy it and print it in great quality with impunity.

Will I have a license? Of course not.

Do I care? Of course not.

[Celerity]

33. but it will not be on the blockchain nt

[Jirel]

35. Seriously, why TF would I care about that?

If I wanted to get an image, I’d get an image. Free. I’m not interested in reselling, if I did that. Trying to resell would open up a lot more liability under copyright law.

But literally, that is exactly what makes NFTs worthless. The only people who care about the blockchain are lose crypto bros who want to pretend that their Monopoly money is worth something in the real world.

The rest of the world points and laughs, and steals their images because it makes them mad. Which is HILARIOUS.

[Celerity]

38. I just sent you a short video on blockchain tech, and it is far from just cryptocurrency

you clearly do not care (as you stated) so I am ending my interactions on this with you

cheers

[Dorian Gray]

41. I mean...

maybe that could possibly matter for original pieces of digital art, I suppose. (And I still think it's mostly dumb, as the bored ape NFTs fracturing market shows us.)

But for these ridiculosities? Mass produced and sold?

LOL

[Celerity]

42. I think Trump NFTs are a joke because it is Trump for one, and also because the NFT market is

collapsing, on balance.

Here is how many will be made:

https://www.pcmag.com/news/no-joke-former-president-trump-is-selling-99-nfts-of-himself

A maximum of 45,000 NFTs will be minted during the contest period. But some of the NFTs will be one of a kind. “Others will be limited to 2, 5, 7, or 10 copies. No Trump Digital Trading Card will have more than 20 copies in existence!” Trump’s website says.

if he is lying and tries to make more, he can be sued (good luck with collecting on THAT)

the entire thing is just a grift attempt and a con

a person would have to be a serious duncy git to spend a single dollar on any of it, but millions of Trumps fanbois/fangurls are duncy gits

[Dorian Gray]

43. Oh yeah, absolutely

and he's jumping on the NFT bandwagon after the bandwagon already crashed into an oil factory and was set on fire.

And I have every bit of confidence that he'll make money off of this from the rubes who think he's a genius.

[Celerity]

45. the funny thing is, I have been dealing with virtual items since I was 6 years old, in Second Life

via a closed beta account that my father gave to me in November 2002 (and that my parents monitored me on until I was 9 or 10 or so)

virtual currency too (Linden dollars, which came in the end of 2003)

and it all was called the metaverse, a term that has been around for over 30 years (I am 26)

none of this is new to me (albeit no true blockchain tech in terms of Second Life), in fact it has basically been a part of most of my life

SL uses this similar tech:

LSL Key

https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Category:LSL_Key

A key is a universal unique identifier in Second Life for anything mostly, be it a prim, avatar, texture, etc.

You may see key referred to as UUID, UID, "Asset UUID", or "asset-ID".

The key itself is formed of ?hexadecimal characters [0-9a-f] and each section of the key is broken up by dashes (for a total amount of 36 characters).

this is the brief history of blockchain:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain#History

Cryptographer David Chaum first proposed a blockchain-like protocol in his 1982 dissertation "Computer Systems Established, Maintained, and Trusted by Mutually Suspicious Groups." Further work on a cryptographically secured chain of blocks was described in 1991 by Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta. They wanted to implement a system wherein document timestamps could not be tampered with. In 1992, Haber, Stornetta, and Dave Bayer incorporated Merkle trees into the design, which improved its efficiency by allowing several document certificates to be collected into one block. Under their company Surety, their document certificate hashes have been published in The New York Times every week since 1995.

The first decentralized blockchain was conceptualized by a person (or group of people) known as Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008. Nakamoto improved the design in an important way using a Hashcash-like method to timestamp blocks without requiring them to be signed by a trusted party and introducing a difficulty parameter to stabilize the rate at which blocks are added to the chain. The design was implemented the following year by Nakamoto as a core component of the cryptocurrency bitcoin, where it serves as the public ledger for all transactions on the network.

[Whiskeytide]

44. So according to the ...

… website

… No Trump Digital Trading Card will have more than 20 copies in existence!” Trump’s website says.

I believe you, but it doesn’t make sense. There are 45 cards. Even if there are 20 of each for sale (which is contrary to their claim), that means 900 total cards. At $99 each, this scam is only going to get him a little less than $90k? That’s not his style.

I must be missing something.

[Celerity]

46. I did not see where there would be only 45 different card styles.

[Abolishinist]

47. The post you are referring to says there will be

a maximum of 45,000 NFTs minted during the contest period. But some of the NFTs will be one of a kind. “Others will be limited to 2, 5, 7, or 10 copies. No Trump Digital Trading Card will have more than 20 copies in existence!

However, you bring up a good point. Let's say the average number of copies is 15. At that level, if I'm understanding this, they will need 3,000 unique designs, which seems to be quite a project.

[Celerity]

36. Blockchain 101 - A Visual Demo

[MineralMan]

8. Well, If I didn't know better, I'd be calling it a prank.

But Donald isn't smart enough to do pranks. He is, however, stupid enough to try a bonehead NFT fundraiser.

Moronic! He will now be even more of a laughingstock.

[sarcasmo]

7. Trump's new grift at a 100 dollars a pop.

[Bleacher Creature]

11. Honestly, I'm not sure there's anything to get.

For some reason people want to pay large amounts of money for digital drawings. It makes zero sense to me, but to a grifter like Trump there's no way he's going to pass up that opportunity.

[blogslug]

12. They're NFTs.

I was going to post a Wikipedia link that explains Non Fungible Tokens but the site is barely loading, which is kind of scary

[Celerity]

25. here

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217466370#post24

[blogslug]

26. Thanks

Yes, Wikipedia is loading now.

I'm going to make a guess that, after TFG made his announcement, thousands of MAGAs went to that page and overwhelmed the server. They've got a lock on the page now so unregistered randos can't edit it.

[Celerity]

27. yw!

[GPV]

13. The new decorative plate.

[TlalocW]

14. They are digital files

Simplest explanation is that there is something called the Blockchain, which is used with cryptocurrency. It is essentially an immutable ledger of transactions. Then there are NFTs (stands for non-fungible tokens) which are associated with digital files, not just images. These will show who owns the digital image when it is purchased or re-sold, etc.

You could copy the image by simply taking a screenshot of your computer screen, but they won't have the token in them so if there are any investors both savvy enough to realize this and stupid enough to think Trump Cards are a good investment, they won't buy copies.

Basically, the idea was that people thought owning digital images of art would be a good investment, but it wasn't, and the market imploded several months ago. The fact that Trump thinks this is going to be cash cow shows how bad a businessman he really is. In fact, one of the best cards that he could actually make would be him with a Beanie Baby in one hand and a Dutch Tulip in the other.

Now as for whether or not NFTs are worth it overall, I could see like maybe one company gathering data for another company and selling a spreadsheet of it through the Blockchain, and the token and the date it was sold would prevent - or make the first company liable - if they sold the same data to a third company as a possible use. I'm sure there are others. Just not art.

[Chainfire]

15. If Trump can sell them, more power to him.

That is less money that his followers will have to buy guns and transportation.

[Beetwasher.]

17. I Get it Now! They're Not Trading Cards! They're TRAITOR CARDS!

[electric_blue68]

50. Bwah!

[dgauss]

18. Lindsey Graham might buy a set.

Kevin McCarthey? Eric Trump?

[Chakaconcarne]

19. I'm betting Russia will be buying a few hundred thousand

[Irish_Dem]

20. Maybe it is a money laundering scheme?

Anything is possible at this point.

[Ocelot II]

21. Wouldn't surprise me.

[Irish_Dem]

22. In another thread you explained it, sounds like the bitcoin scam.

And it could be money laundering as well.

[Ocelot II]

23. From what I can understand of it, it sounds like bitcoin only with pictures.

I'm not sure how payments are tracked, but given the lack of any meaningful oversight I wouldn't be at all shocked - shocked! to find out money laundering is going on.

[Irish_Dem]

48. Yes art bitcoin. And more.

Given that this is Trump, probably more than just one scam or crime going on.

Yes shocking isn't it.

Actually what would be shocking is if Trump ever did the right thing.
Or was on the up and up.

[Nevilledog]

29. And a way to get around campaign finance laws against foreign money.

[Irish_Dem]

49. I was sure that there would be several crimes/cons going on.

It is Trump after all.

You would think with all the prosecutors after him, he would clean up his act.

[LuckyCharms]

28. They are called NFT's, which stands for non-fungible tokens.

Even though anyone can take a screenshot of the trading card, there is only one owner of "the original" which has a digital footprint and is tied to what is called the "blockchain" to prove ownership.

I personally think that NFTs will have several uses in the future, but right now, they are in their infancy, and are mainly used to own these jpeg NFTs which are essentially worthless unless for some reason a value is assigned to the original because of its scarcity.

NFTs are like anything else...if people feel that they have value, then there will be a market for them. Kind of like when Beanie Babies were selling for thousands of dollars. People said the "rare" ones were worth that much, so a market was created.

[Initech]

30. I can sum it up in two words: some bullshit.

That's about it. I know they are NFTs, but even the whole NFT market is based on some bullshit.

[GoodRaisin]

31. MAGAts will spend their money on this.

They will buy a bucket of shit, as long as it’s his authentic shit. Wait…is that an idea for his next big annoucement???

[Tree Lady]

40. All I know is he has us all talking about him again

There must be something coming out in the news soon.

[electric_blue68]

51. NFT Trump Trading Cards? Ohhh..."JOY!" 🙄🙄🙄🙄 Yeah, I know I'm Not the target market😄.

[Brainfodder]

52. It's like taking a picture with a digital camera, and encoding it to be ONE OF A KIND, and then sell

Hidden watermark with something like: #1 of 500 series

Meanwhile any representation shown of it can be used to make a copy.

AND WHO CARES?

I DON'T DO YOU?