Before understanding how NFTs get lost you must understand how NFTs work. A non-fungible token can be anything ranging from jpeg images to digital artworks and short videos, and their value depends on the interest that people have in them. When a person buys an NFT, they are not getting anything an actual image, or even the rights to an image, but rather a digital code that points to a piece of media located somewhere on the internet.
The digital artworks themselves are not located or registered on the blockchain. Rather, when an NFT artwork is purchased, the buyer gets a cryptographic signature, or certificate, that points to an image hosted elsewhere. The actual item could be located anywhere on the internet, and the NFT effectively serves as a digital pass for that internet address where the media file (image, video, etc.) is stored.
If you really want to understand the whole thing the Folding Ideas video Line Goes Up is a great, if a bit long, breakdown.
The short of it though is that if it seems nonsensical and you don't understand it you already understand it more than most of its proponents. The more you learn about NFTs and crypto the stupider it gets.
Wait so just to be clear, NFTs are an encoded version of the web address where it's hosted? Or something else?
Yep interestingengineering.com/nfts-are-mysteriously-disappearing-heres-how
Pretty silly
So to be totally clear, because I'm not super tech savvy, if the hosting site goes down the NFT effectively becomes a link pointing to nothing?
That's correct
But that's stupid
so is turning the planet to ash for the fleeting benefit of a tiny handful of people, but here we are
Hilarious. Good thing they can save a copy as a backup!
If you really want to understand the whole thing the Folding Ideas video Line Goes Up is a great, if a bit long, breakdown.
The short of it though is that if it seems nonsensical and you don't understand it you already understand it more than most of its proponents. The more you learn about NFTs and crypto the stupider it gets.
Yeah, Etherium is so mind-bogglingly inefficient that they can't save something as large as an actual image on the blockchain.