Thread by @choffstein

1/ Back in 2001, I used to play this game called Runescape (runescape.com)

(Which is still very much around, but looks nothing like it did when I played.)

2/ There was a whole world to explore, quests to complete, skills to learn, and players to meet.

3/ I sank hundreds of hours in the mines, clicking on rocks to mine ore, then hauling it back to town to smelt and then crafting it into armor to sell.

4/ The game developed it's own economy. Completing later quests meant fighting stronger monsters. Stronger monsters required better weapons and armors. Better armor and weapons required rare ores to be smelted by skilled blacksmiths.

5/ On holidays, the developers decided to have some fun by dropping items like party hats (New Years), Santa hats (Christmas), and masks (Halloween).

But the fixed supply created scarcity.

And over the years, these items became a status symbol.

6/ Some 20 years later, party hats now sell for several thousand USD and for several *billion* in in-game currency.

7/ Why do I bring all this up?

Because for all the skepticism I have about NFTs ("it's just a jpeg!"), I've seen cases where jpegs maintain their value for decades.

8/ Culture/passion assets are weird.

Why does Rolex command a premium over Breitling or Tudor? Why do people pay up for Air Jordans?

Why do people collect trading cards (be it sports, MtG, Pokemon, etc)?

https://twitter.com/punk6529/status/1424127515476598796

9/ "But Corey," you say, "When I own a Rolex, I physically own it! When you own a party hat in Runescape, it has in-game utility! You can't prevent me from copy/pasting a jpeg!"

True.

10/ But we're already seeing the NFT/game cross-over with applications like zed.run

11/ And I suspect, in the future, there will be further NFT integrations.

(e.g. "enter your wallet address to import your NFTs into this digital world")

12/ But, perhaps, there's just cultural value. Both in the contemporaneous action of being part of the "in-group," and, in the future, owning something that was a part of crypto history.

13/ It's easy to be dismissive of jpegs.

But I spent hundreds of hours of my youth toiling away in a digital world to afford a digital item.

Silly? Probably just as silly as my watch collection today.

Fin.

14/ Also, Venezuelans using Runescape as a currency hedge is an awesome story.

h/t @NotQuiteMidlife

npr.org/2021/07/21/101…