There are a few things that seem obvious to turn into Non-Fungible Token.
- Stocks
- Bonds
- Deeds
And, of course, from today's point of view, that seems logical.
Instead of having a stock market and a brokerage house keep "ownership" of stocks on a "we have to trust them" basis, we could turn stocks into NFTs, and then we could trade the NFT, and always know who had it. Or at least the one who had it, could prove it was theirs.
Stocks could be traded on the blockchain, 24/7/365. Forget the stock broker or the stock exchange.
Unfortunately, there are several huge problems, and the biggest one is, will they get the NFTs implemented before no one wants the stocks, or the houses?
NFTs = ownership??
Ownership, and proving it, has always been an issue. It is why we have registration of things with govern-cement. Deeds, births, titles…
NFTs - Non-Fungible Tokens is a way of using a block chain to prove ownership.
NFTs may be the ultimate solution to these things. But brings up all kinds of other problems. Theft can be permanent, and not fixable. Unless you are monitoring your digital assets constantly, you may never even notice the theft.
If people were perfect about keeping their keys safe, then NFTs could be the ultimate in ownership. However, the digital world is only a rough approximation of the real world. And discrepancies will exist, and will have to be handled. But, having someone with administrator privileges on a blockchain, is a security hole that is better not even thought about.
So, how do we maintain the NFTs? How do we settle disputes between the blockchain and reality? (we aren't even talking about ownership yet) With millions of properties, entering in each description will be fraught with errors. And real things, with real actions had to be done to fix property lines. How do we edit the NFTs when such changes are needed?
And then, what do we do about theft? With NFTs on things that change hands slowly, it can be very clearly when, and buy whom, things were stolen. But, who will watch the watchers?
Will we really do this?
The hype around NFTs is real, and so there is a great push to actually getting 'er done.
However, the people doing this have to be trusted by everyone, and they have to have some authority. At least the ability to show up in court as an expert witness.
Basically, the most logical choice is the govern-cement agency that is already overseeing these things. However, many people do not want the govern-cement involved. And to them, it would be a deal-breaker.
We all know how trustworthy govern-cement bureaucrats are. Just ask anyone about their Social inSecurity payments.
The ones at the top of the bureaus are the ones who are doing the most fraud. Further, these people can be bribed
And there goes most of what we wanted an NFT for.
The race to irrelevance
Imagine that real estate, the entire concept, is thrown out the window. And property "ownership" is decide by who is actually taking care of it now.
Or that everyone is now living in small communities, and there is a buffer space in between each.
In these cases, what good is an NFT? The people who are living there are the owners, and no database is needed to be kept to determine ownership.
This change in land "ownership" will happen before real estate NFTs will even be partially done.
Stocks will be converted to NFTs much faster. And, it will need to be done soon, because people will be losing faith in the stock market, as ghost shares become more "in the news". However, stocks and corporations will be gone in less than 50 years. How soon will we get the stock-NFTs online?
These NFTs may be very short lived.
So many of the things we would turn into NFTs will stop being assets, so you may ask, why bother?
Most of that answer is, we are still living in the past. Where house price always goes up. And the stock market is where you invest your money. Very few of us are thinking about, or seeing the collapse turning to dust of these things we base our daily lives upon.
Suburban houses will be put onto the blockchain quickly, but almost as quickly, they will all sit empty, and no one will honor the chain.
Gold will be put on the blockchain, but that chain will never be up to date, and that will cost a lot of people. Gold is completely fungible, so it will resist being put into an NFT in every fibre of its being.
Stocks will be put into NFTs to save the stock exchange, which will destroy the stock exchange. Just like no one is on the floor of the physical stock exchange anymore. And then comes the time when no one good will want stocks in evil corporations.
I really do not see a good use for an NFT today. The obvious ones, are also obviously going to turn to dust soon.