I just got off a zoom call with a "utility" NFT developer
So I just got off a zoom call with a “utility” NFT developer and it was truly one of the most frustrating, low-key terrifying, and shockingly informative conversations I’ve had in my life.
I wish I had recorded the conversation, because some of the things he said were so egregious.
At one point I asked him about privacy concerns related to the blockchain and he said they were “just trusting on the underlying technology to provide that security.”
I also learned that NFT software developers literally have no idea how society works.
Today I also learned about Tether. It’s the thing holding up bitcoin and is also one of the biggest scams in history.
Originally, I was like “huh NFTs those are dumb and possibly scary” but the deeper in I get, the more I learn about the deep scams propping up the crypto space, the truly terrifying privacy issues associated with mainstreaming blockchain technology, and the various hidden interconnections of currencies that are officially not supposed to be tied to each other.
And like, talking to people in the crypto space is awful. I asked the “utility NFT developer” guy pointed questions for 45 minutes and a lot of the answers he gave me either implied that he doesn’t understand how consumers think or essentially boiled down to “idk, handwavium.”
The concept of handwavium comes from sci-fi and fantasy spaces, and it’s basically a term used to describe situations where stuff happens that doesn’t make sense and the writer essentially handwaves it away or uses technobabble to explain it. It’s not the same as ex machina – handwavium is just questionable science for the sake of the plot.
I feel like the term handwavium really describes the way crypto people think about solving crypto related issues.
“I’m not sure but I just trust that it’s going to work eventually.”
So I talk to this guy who is like, “yeah we should embed RFID tags containing updateable NFT smart contracts into clothing and regular household items”, and I’m like “wait, do you realize that RFID information can just be scanned without my knowledge, why would I want regular items to be tagged with smart contracts?”
And he was like, well, “I don’t think information that proves your ownership of the T-shirt is that important to keep private” and then proceeded to tell me that he actually has no clue how RFID works.
Not that I really know how RFID works either, but I’m not the one proposing to develop unnecessary technology that sits on top of it, and I know enough to know that huh, that might be a bad idea. Not that blockchain technology will ever go mainstream - it’s a bursting bubble of a financial instrument right now – but if it does, these are the people who are building on top of it.
I also asked him about what he thought about the fact that transaction history on the blockchain is both permanent and public and he was like, well, the user should just be aware of that.
And this guy says he has been involved in the crypto space in some way or another since 2017, right? So he should know people who think about these things.
So I ask him if he knows anyone working on the privacy angle of all of this and he’s like no, I don’t think I can point you to anyone.
And the entire time he says that he understands that privacy concerns are important while simultaneously implying that no one in the space actually thinks they’re important so no one is working on it.
I found all of this extremely concerning.