Did you know that NFTs use three times as much energy as the rest of the world combined if you lie about how much energy they us

OPINION – 03/18/21

This has been a very interesting week to be in the NFT space. As the adoption of NFT technology spreads across the art, gaming, collecting, and digital finance there are many who are feeling shoved aside or don’t understanding what the new player in the scene represents. All too often when people who are afraid of change see the world changing in ways they don’t understand the result is fear, and fearmongering. And this week has been full of it.

Let’s take a look at a few headlines:

Bitcoin, NFTs and other crypto fads are destroying our planet

NFTs Are Hot. So Is Their Effect on the Earth’s Climate: The sale of a piece of crypto art consumed as much energy as the studio uses in two years. Now the artist is campaigning to reduce the medium’s carbon emissions.

Think cryptocurrency is bad? NFTs are even worse.

Over the past week the subject of NFTs and how they are literally destroying the world has become a very popular one. If one didn’t know any better it really looks like the sky is falling and CryptoKitties are the cause. However, what if you DO know what you are talking about?

There is one thing that all of these articles have in common and that is their connection to CryptoArt.WTF and its creator Memo Akten. This website garnered a ton of attention over the past few weeks through a tool which, they claimed, could be used to calculate the environmental impact of any Etherium address. The tool did this calculation by creating a global average for energy cost, calculating the cost of a transaction on the Etherium blockchain, and then doing some simple multiplication. The result is literally always the same: This ETH address is using roughly the energy that a major company uses in multiple years.

I’m not going to go into detail explaining why this process and the metrics used by this tool are flawed in a fundamental way. I think it is fair to say that when a tool is using metrics like “global average energy cost” anyone with basic critical thinking skills are going to notice that is cartoonishly misguided.

But before you could say “Wait, none of this makes a basic level of sense.” The story had been picked up by dozens of major news outlets and media personalities. Crypto has always been bad but NFTs … way worse, after all CryptoArt.WTF says so.

Since then CryptoArt.WFT has taken the tool offline as people has been using it as “as a tool for abuse and harassment.”. Also, I suspect, because it is a fundamentally broken tool that was created to cast a very specific light on NFTs. I think it’s fair to ask Mr. Akten what he thought would happen when he created a tool that told people that small artists were literally destroying the world. Is this something that you thought result in anything but extreme harassment?

Now, five days after the tool has been taken offline, there are still articles trickling out repeating the same lies and sourcing them to tool that has been taken offline due to the damage it’s dishonesty caused.

One of the places this story is being spread the most effectively is the video “My Art Almost Destroyed the Environment - The Dark Side of NFTs & CryptoArt” by Ten Hundred on Youtube. This video is currently sitting at over 110k views, includes paid promotion, and is repeating the same old lie from CryptoArt.WTF. I reached out to Ten Hundred and they asked me to prove that the math is wrong. I explained the history of this story and how the single source for this claim has been taken offline. Ten commented that he never sourced CryptoArt.WTF missing the larger point that the majority of the articles he does take the time to  mention do use it as a single source.

Since then Ten Hundreds video, where he claims that NFTs are destroying the environment and paints himself as someone who just cares so much that he’s not willing to do that no matter how much he stands to make, have gotten tens of thousands of additional views based on repeating tired lies.

These are not the actions of someone who cares. This is a clickbait video doing it’s job extremely well.

This is how propaganda is created and spreads. The right lie is created and, by the time it’s been repeatedly disproved, it’s been accepted as fact by those who have no idea what they are talking about but are all too ready to repeat it.

Put extremely simply “If you have even a basic understanding of what a NFT is you should be insulted by the “This JPEG sold for $69million” posts.” (Looking at you Guardian)

There have always been those people who are all to happy to lie straight to your face by intentionally misunderstanding something and then passing it along as a concept so stupid it’s simply beyond understanding. They are treating you like an idiot and expecting you to love them for it.

Bitcoin is a scam. It’s going to zero.

Ethereum is broken and impossible to use.

PoW is destroying the entire world and no one sees a problem with this.

NFTs are using the energy or entire countries to mint playing cards.

As someone who has been a collector their entire life I’ve seen this cycle so many times before it’s not even funny. This is what a boom looks like and this is what comes before mass adoption.

I listened to people make fun of me for a decade before the VHS I were collecting suddenly started selling for $100/each. Every single cent I have ever put in cryptocurrency has been a waste of my time and attention. Magic the Gathering is just a kids game and the fact that sealed boxes have their value go up by 100% in 5-10 years doesn’t mean you should make money there.

Earlier this month I write an article about selling an NFT in Neon District and the backlash was immediate. Only a stupid idiot would make money by selling virtual objects and only a bigger idiot would be so stupid to buy them!

What are these people going to do when they find out about the money I’ve been making flipping bulk rares, DOTA skins, and rare horror VHS for the past decade? The M:tG collection I built up over years got sold for $2k+ which kept me in college long enough to graduate. That did not and does not seem stupid to me. I sold a collection of Bollywood VHS last year for $1000+ and that is in small part helping finance a cross-country move. Keep rolling your eyes.

People saying NFTs are the single stupidest and most destructive idea created in the past decade is the single clearest proof available that NFTs have arrived, some simply cannot understand them, and that means there is opportunity for those of us who do.

These rapidly evolving fields that are changing the world so often make me think of the quote: “He who has ears, let him hear.". I cannot tell you why some people seem to be able to understand topics like this while others cannot. That said, how many people have you met who could not understand blockchain who were honestly trying? If they don't have the necessary ears that's on them. Don't ever let someone brag to you about the things they do not understand.

Let those with ears here.

Let those with eyes see.

And let those who make their way through dishonesty get left in the dust.