Paul Orford

www.fxcubic.com

Get ready for the Crypto drones 2.0

Like most sensible people, for social, political and economic commentary I follow Comedian Tim Dillon on his hilarious podcast The Tim Dillon show. In case you are not aware, he is openly acknowledged as the king of fake business along with having his finger on the pulse of the current zeitgeist.

In his most current show at the time of writing, he discussed Non Fungible Tokens and how they work in the modern world. With it being a Sunday morning when I was listening, my faculties were not quite upto 100%, but it seemed like an intriguing subject to look further into. as collectables. Each NFT has its digital properties held in its meta data, of which there is a limited number of them. The number of tokens are verified on the blockchain, which cannot be split into smaller denominations (I will confess I copied that bit from the video).

To be honest with you, even after watching the dummy level YouTube videos I was still a little confused as to what they were. However here is my chimp level of understanding how it works.It’s probably best to start off with what the definition of fungible is. A good example is a one USD note that can be interchanged with another one USD note. It is a liquid market where it can be exchanged freely and easily with others.

Non Fungible is probably best outlined by using a piece of artwork. Usually it is a one off piece along with the entire art market being pretty illiquid compared to other markets. Moreover, the price is notoriously subjective with so many variables being taken into account. Traditionally a Non Fungible Token (NFT) is usually associated with digitally scarce goods, such So what does all this mean? Well like most things it starts off with great intentions. Much like the internet which was supposed to give our species the keys to untold knowledge and empowerment. However, it quickly spiralled into becoming a wasteland of Daily Mail articles being reported as fact, and people anonymously screaming at each other using caps lock. Will NFT’s follow the same fate as ICO’s and the many worthless coins out there, or have some real social utility?

One huge market that NFT ‘experts’ do see an oncoming boom in, is the virtual real estate market. This is a concept I have always been fascinated with, which as a side note I asked an online casino owning friend about fifteen years ago to build his own virtual casino / universe. I was met with the usual infringements on my spectacular visions, such as it is technologically not possible to make and nobody would go...such minor details given by this dream killer!

However, if NFT’s were to trigger off the virtual world real estate boom, would this also act as a catalyst

to really push the next generation of virtual reality technology? With Facebook looking to radically advance the use of Oculus, could we start to see some huge leaps forward.

Sadly there are some short term drawbacks that will have to happen. We will again have to give oxygen to a species I thought had long become extinct...the Crypto drone. Most of us reading this have all been cornered by a Crypto evangelist, who proclaims he will carry out an Ethereum based jihad on anyone who uses money. The bad news for us all, is that they have evolved into becoming ‘experts’ in anything that is related to the borechain, and usually Tesla / Elon Musk. After my in depth studies of watching ten minutes of YouTube videos, with their content perhaps having a very loose relationship with both facts and reality. I have decided to make a new career move into becoming Cyprus number one virtual real estate supplier, perhaps having a side gig as selling people virtual bricks to build their dream home.

The bricks will be generated using the same cryptography as bitcoin to give them scarcity, and within 3 months I will have employed an army of meat puppets and astro turfers to generate enough of a following to sell it as an NFT, Consequently this will be hastily cashed out to a Belize based bank account.

Perhaps the most important factor in the brave new virtual world, you can make your neighbour jealous by having more virtual bricks than them. Moreover, you will have the ability to construct whatever you like on your virtual patch of land. The ultimate aim for most will probably be similar to the real world, by torturing your neighbor with your laissez faire attitude to architecture.

I am just deciding on whether to create a private virtual security force (which will also be an NFT) within this brave new world of cyber scaffolding, futuristic foundations and footings. This is something that I am sure will be hotly contested when I gather the grand council of NFT overlords to discuss further.

Like anything in the financial world, we always ask the question of, could this also be traded on a secondary market in both futures and options. Perhaps turned into something akin to the bundled mortgage investments that crashed the global economy in 2008, If there are any brave FX liqu