Life In 19x19

I don't know much about NFTs, but I stumbled across this article: https://decrypt.co/71219/nft-of-go-play ... for-210000

I guess Lee Sedol sold game 4 of the AlphaGo match as an NFT - whatever that means.

Kirby, it's like your son drew a picture of Lee Sedol's game 4, and you sold a receipt for it for mega virtual bucks (you can keep the picture framed on your mantelpiece).

I've seen this explanation, fwiw

Hardly a new idea. They sold indulgences in medieval times, and by a very strange coincidence the Latin the word fungible comes from is medieval Latin (fungi - to enjoy), not classical Latin.

It's also not much different from a church or museum displaying an alleged relic such a finger bone or a lock of hair and charging money to view it. Still, while many saints seem to have had had more than the average number of fingers, I'd say the average saint probably did rather more for mankind than Yi Se-tol.

John Fairbairn wrote:Still, while many saints seem to have had had more than the average number of fingers, I'd say the average saint probably did rather more for mankind than Yi Se-tol.

Yes, a number of religious figures have had impacts on mankind, of which, some may appreciate more than go. Nice observation!

Shenoute wrote:I've seen this explanation, fwiw

I think this characterization is a little too optimistic because the broom closet with the handmade label may be closed or lost at any time, or the museum may close. So any record of what was supposedly purchased may be lost. Furthermore, it is only the museum itself that keeps the records indicating the person having the signature on the purchaser's receipt. And even then, this is only really verifiable if the person Tweets about the museum sale from their verified Twitter. There is nothing to prevent someone from creating an NFT for the exact same time beyond a verified Twitter account. And if Twitter verification is the crux of an NFT's value, then what is the point of using NFTs for the sale?

So then, did Lee Sedol actually sell an NFT of game 4 or did someone else pretending to be Lee Sedol make $210,000?
EDIT: $161,008 and going down by the hour recently.

Did Lee Sedol actually post about the sale himself from some verified account?

While the idea of selling an NFT using blockchain technology really is something I doubt, perhaps it's possible to use NFT's of professional game records as a sort of currency that is owned by each professional that played it. The game record itself obviously can't be copyrighted, but the NFT of it in a certain format could be automatically by law be owned by any professional players who played it. This is much more environmentally friendly than Bitcoin mining and new money is dependant upon the number of official pro games. A government body will be created to determine which games count under the law, thereby becoming a regulator of the creation of the new currency.