Anyone good with investing in this thread?

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Bonsai Nut

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(And of course, the uneducated will say "right click save", but if you're in the space at all, you know that doesn't work)
It absolutely works. It is almost impossible to intellectually protect anything that comes into my house. If it displays on my screen, I can grab the pixels. I can edit the data stream. If encrypted, I can decrypt it, and reproduce a decrypted copy. If all you want is a perfect electronic copy - I can provide it for you. Just not the NFT - because it is maintained in a distributed network outside of my reach.

And your argument is invalid when you say "it is electronically perfect from day 1" and "would you like to own the first copy... or the 1,000th"? Only a complete newb would pay a premium for an electronically identical copy of something - just because it is a lower copy. Wow - my copy of Windows 10 is the 1st electronic copy... but yours is the 1000th... loser! But I'm not a newb so I don't know :)

The downside? The downside is that an NFT that provides no value is a hassle... in the same way that remembering different passwords for different sites is a hassle. In the same way that having different USB cords for different devices is a hassle. And the beauty of having a Stacy Allen Muse original is that you own the original that is framed on your wall. You don't own a limited electronic copy that you get to view on your cell phone.

Just my opinion. I know there are people making a ton of money swapping electronic baseball cards that they will never physically hold. Then again, someone once paid me $400 for a manastone on Everquest... a game that for all intents and purposes has been dead for years now. $400 was a lot of money in 2001. It's a lot of money today. A fool and his money...
 

Forsoothe!

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Would also allow for people’s own collections to have appraisal and be backed by NFT/ blockchain. Say you have a great collection or one that’s growing… you know what you’ve spend on materials to produce and maintain the bonsai. Well now that’s all accounted for , and you have ability to claim the Bonsai in your collection as assets , that is reflected on the NFT of each/ collection of Trees
So what happens when the tree gets hit by lightning or gets stolen and the value goes to zero?
 

Kanorin

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I did some quick research. At the moment, the average cost of minting an NFT is somewhere between $70-$100 and on some platforms goes way higher than that. Platforms that have lower minting fees tend to have higher "transaction fees."

Why does it cost so much to mint an NFT? There is a lot of electricity and computing power needed to generate the unique codes - not to mention money for the platforms and people running the platforms that enable the transactions.

Am I interested in paying a middle man to waste tons of electricity to digitalize, encrypt and monetize my transactions?
No thanks.
 

Bonsai Nut

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At the moment, the average cost of minting an NFT is somewhere between $70-$100 and on some platforms goes way higher than that. Platforms that have lower minting fees tend to have higher "transaction fees."
A little more details are required because I am not sure exactly what you mean.

If you are tech savvy, you can create and deploy a smart contract, and then use it to mint an NFT on the Ethereum blockchain for free. Is the $70 - $100 the fee someone will charge to do it for you? (If you don't have the technical skills?)
 

FinnLakk

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I don't particularly understand NFTs other than the fact they are entirely digital no?

So how is having an NFT for your bonsai beneficial?
What would it be? A JPEG of your tree?

I can't wrap my head around the point, it doesn't make sense to me, NFTs are unique yes but your tree is unique anyway and your tree is physically Infront of you anyway. Why pay money to have a digital version of what you get too physically see and touch every day or am I missing the point?

I don't understand who wants to spend X amount of money on a digital piece of artwork you can only look at through your computer screen, be it a tree, a painting, a sculpture I would much rather get to own a physical version of it personally.
 

Shogun610

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no … not pushing gold into soil. How I would use it , as a numerical algorithm that has a running monetary value on each Bonsai material or collection. The owner of the Bonsai obviously has an idea of what their asset is valued at. But this algorithm accurately appraises that specimen or collection , and this value is on a NFT. The NFT is only owned by the person who owns that physical tree, more of a method to show value of the Bonsai as an asset and a way to actually solidify its value.
 
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Bnana

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It is really impressive how people keep coming up with totally useless things and manage to sell them and get rich.
It started with options for tulip bulbs in 1636 and has progressed to NFT's and crypto's.
 

Leo in N E Illinois

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Bonsai trees themselves are perishable goods, skip a watering, the value can drop to zero, or compost. The life span of a bonsai is a little longer than a ripe tomato, but a lot shorter than most would like to think. For most of us, bonsai is something between fresh produce to breeding a line of tropical fish or pedigree dogs. Plenty can go wrong, and often does. Value of a puppy can drop to "pet quality" very easily with an accident or disease. Fish can quit breeding, Plants die. Bonsai can be ruined by clumsy pruning. Bonsai are temporary. They are dynamic, always changing, sometimes for good, sometimes for worse.

Adding an NFT to a tree that changes from season to season, gets better in "good hands", gets worse in the hands of mere mortals. Turns to compost in the hands of the horticulturally disinclined. If you have been around more than a year or two, we have all killed trees. I raise orchids, bonsai, and have a scattering of rare plants. Just keeping an accurate list of what I have is a problem. I see no intrinsic value in a list, hence its not worth the time to keep a list current. I only update when I'm thinking of selling something to make room. Adding an NFT simply adds a book keeping headache, and expense. Why bother? It only begins to make sense if a bonsai is old enough and well developed enough where the provenance would matter.

In terms of provenance, I have a tree or two worked on by Peter Tea, another by Ted Matson, and another by Colin Lewis. All of these I have butchered to some degree or another myself with my own use of pruners and wire. None are worth more because of who worked on them because the work I did vastly overpowers the hands of the mentioned artists. No block chain would make these trees more valuable.

An NFT might make sense if your collection was exclusively maintained by renowned artists. And there are a small handful of private and public collections that meet this description. But 99% of us do our own work, and are not that "renowned".

NFT's might make some sense in the case of bonsai pots. But here too a dropped or chipped pot looses most of its value. Provenance is nice, but most people do not value provenance enough to make it worth the expense of an NFT. For example, Sorce has a unique signature to his pots. That signature is in a way an NFT. You can guess if an unsigned pot is a Sorce pot or not, but a Sorce pot always has his signature. The real value of the Sorce pot is its design, its visual elements it lends to a planting. Nobody cares about Sorce's unique signature, that's why we want his signature on the bottom, rather than somewhere visible on the pot.

In many ways an NFT is no more than an electronic signature. Electronic signatures make so sense when discussing real world physical objects. Its just apples and oranges. Reality versus electronic images. They are not the same types of things.
 

Kanorin

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no … not pushing gold into soil. How I would use it , as a numerical algorithm that has a running monetary value on each Bonsai material or collection. The owner of the Bonsai obviously has an idea of what their asset is valued at. But this algorithm accurately appraises that specimen or collection , and this value is on a NFT.
I foresee issues or exploits when a bonsai gets diseased, hailed on, chewed on, under-fertilized, over-fertilized, under-watered, over-watered, or even just outgrows it's silhouette.
 

Shogun610

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It is really impressive how people keep coming up with totally useless things and manage to sell them and get rich.
It started with options for tulip bulbs in 1636 and has progressed to NFT's and crypto's.
No it would actually empower you as a owner of that Bonsai to have its value appraised , and ability to claim it as an asset not a get rich scheme. You’d be the owner and you’d be able to use that Bonsai as tabulation of what your assets are , such as if used as inheritance or if a bank was asking for a total of all assets in your possession, you could claim the bonsai you have as valued goods.
 

Kanorin

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A little more details are required because I am not sure exactly what you mean.

If you are tech savvy, you can create and deploy a smart contract, and then use it to mint an NFT on the Ethereum blockchain for free. Is the $70 - $100 the fee someone will charge to do it for you? (If you don't have the technical skills?)
Must be. Got this info from these two articles.

Even if you mine it yourself, you still need to pay for the electricity though.
 

Shogun610

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I foresee issues or exploits when a bonsai gets diseased, hailed on, chewed on, under-fertilized, over-fertilized, under-watered, over-watered, or even just outgrows it's silhouette.
Right those are all external factors just like when you appraise real estate or any other thing of value.. it’s just an idea for how people can claim their bonsai as assets.
 

Bonsai Nut

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So how is having an NFT for your bonsai beneficial?
What would it be? A JPEG of your tree?
I can't wrap my head around the point, it doesn't make sense to me, NFTs are unique yes but your tree is unique anyway and your tree is physically Infront of you anyway. Why pay money to have a digital version of what you get too physically see and touch every day or am I missing the point?
Think of it like the stamp on the bottom of a bonsai pot. If the stamp is of a well-known potter, perhaps from 100 years ago, it indicates a potential value apart from the intrinsic / functional value of the pot as something that looks pretty and holds your tree.

A bonsai NFT (broadly defined) might include things like a history of who owned the tree, a photo record of the tree over the years, a "stamp" by a well-known bonsai master saying "I styled this tree and it has my seal of approval", a history of important awards the tree has won, etc. That assumes that these things are important to you. If you look at your trees in a vacuum, and just admire them for what they are, it isn't going to matter.

As another example, if you buy Japanese koi, the good ones will come with paperwork. It indicates not only the source, but the fact that the koi breeder has selected the koi as a certain grade. I guess the same with dog pedigrees, or even race horses. No one is going to buy a $1 million race horse without a whole lot of background history... and even the histories will have histories. I use these as examples, but you could use an NFT as an electronic proxy for what is currently being done with old school pen and paper, or electronic registries.
 
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Shogun610

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Bonsai trees themselves are perishable goods, skip a watering, the value can drop to zero, or compost. The life span of a bonsai is a little longer than a ripe tomato, but a lot shorter than most would like to think. For most of us, bonsai is something between fresh produce to breeding a line of tropical fish or pedigree dogs. Plenty can go wrong, and often does. Value of a puppy can drop to "pet quality" very easily with an accident or disease. Fish can quit breeding, Plants die. Bonsai can be ruined by clumsy pruning. Bonsai are temporary. They are dynamic, always changing, sometimes for good, sometimes for worse.

Adding an NFT to a tree that changes from season to season, gets better in "good hands", gets worse in the hands of mere mortals. Turns to compost in the hands of the horticulturally disinclined. If you have been around more than a year or two, we have all killed trees. I raise orchids, bonsai, and have a scattering of rare plants. Just keeping an accurate list of what I have is a problem. I see no intrinsic value in a list, hence its not worth the time to keep a list current. I only update when I'm thinking of selling something to make room. Adding an NFT simply adds a book keeping headache, and expense. Why bother? It only begins to make sense if a bonsai is old enough and well developed enough where the provenance would matter.

In terms of provenance, I have a tree or two worked on by Peter Tea, another by Ted Matson, and another by Colin Lewis. All of these I have butchered to some degree or another myself with my own use of pruners and wire. None are worth more because of who worked on them because the work I did vastly overpowers the hands of the mentioned artists. No block chain would make these trees more valuable.

An NFT might make sense if your collection was exclusively maintained by renowned artists. And there are a small handful of private and public collections that meet this description. But 99% of us do our own work, and are not that "renowned".

NFT's might make some sense in the case of bonsai pots. But here too a dropped or chipped pot looses most of its value. Provenance is nice, but most people do not value provenance enough to make it worth the expense of an NFT. For example, Sorce has a unique signature to his pots. That signature is in a way an NFT. You can guess if an unsigned pot is a Sorce pot or not, but a Sorce pot always has his signature. The real value of the Sorce pot is its design, its visual elements it lends to a planting. Nobody cares about Sorce's unique signature, that's why we want his signature on the bottom, rather than somewhere visible on the pot.

In many ways an NFT is no more than an electronic signature. Electronic signatures make so sense when discussing real world physical objects. Its just apples and oranges. Reality versus electronic images. They are not the same types of things.
You’re right.. it was just an idea I was thinking of haha nothing serious
 

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I'm gonna throw out one use case. To me this is simple. And you tell me if this isn't good for the ecosystem.

Stacy Allen Muse is a fantastic artist. He puts up one of his pieces of art on FB auctions and it sells in 2 seconds, as it should, because they are great.

Now imagine Stacy creates those pieces not on a standard 16x24, but on the blockchain. Let's discuss the benefits to Stacy

1. Larger audience. FB auctions vs the entire world of crypto/NFTs.
2. When and if it's resold, Stacy gets a commission. This happens FOREVER. Great benefit for the artist.

Now, let's discuss the benefit for the buyer
1. It's undeniably authentic. You can see it on the block chain. (And of course, the uneducated will say "right click save", but if you're in the space at all, you know that doesn't work).
2. In real life artwork has issues with wear & tear. Not on the blockchain. It's perfect on day 1 and day 1,000 & day 100,000.
3. All artists will go this direction, its just matter of time. Would you like to own the first Stacy Allen Muse NFT art piece or his 1,000th?
4. Easy to sell. Again, the marketplace for crypto/nft is large and growing. I can easily sell my SAM piece of art to anyone in the world in seconds.


NFTs and crypto are not for everyone, but the above situation would enhance and highlight both Stacy and his art to different and broader audience. It would also highlight bonsai. Again, I ask, what's the downside? You don't have to like it or buy it, but it seems like a good use of his time, no?

*edit: #4 for benefits of buyer.


Bringing up Stacy Allen Muse does not win you any BNUT points. He owes a number of BNutters apologies. I will not knowingly purchase anything created by him for this reason. I need another decade or two to forget.
 

Shogun610

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Think of it like the stamp on the bottom of a bonsai pot. If the stamp is of a well-known potter, perhaps from 100 years ago, it indicates a potential value apart from the intrinsic / functional value of the pot as something that looks pretty and holds your tree.

A bonsai NFT (broadly defined) might include things like a history of who owned the tree, a photo record of the tree over the years, a "stamp" by a well-known bonsai master saying "I styled this tree and it has my seal of approval", a history of important awards the tree has won, etc.

As another example, if you buy Japanese koi, the good ones will come with paperwork. It indicates not only the source, but the fact that the koi breeder has selected the koi as a certain grade. I guess the same with dog pedigrees, or even race horses. I use these as examples, but you could use an NFT as an electronic proxy for would is currently being done with old school pen and paper, or electronic registries.
Yes exactly I’m so bad w articulation sometimes but you put it better than I did for how i envision it.
 

PeaceLoveBonsai

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It absolutely works. It is almost impossible to intellectually protect anything that comes into my house. If it displays on my screen, I can grab the pixels. I can edit the data stream. If encrypted, I can decrypt it, and reproduce a decrypted copy. If all you want is a perfect electronic copy - I can provide it for you. Just not the NFT - because it is maintained in a distributed network outside of my reach.

And your argument is invalid when you say "it is electronically perfect from day 1" and "would you like to own the first copy... or the 1,000th"? Only a complete newb would pay a premium for an electronically identical copy of something - just because it is a lower copy. Wow - my copy of Windows 10 is the 1st electronic copy... but yours is the 1000th... loser! But I'm not a newb so I don't know :)

The downside? The downside is that an NFT that provides no value is a hassle... in the same way that remembering different passwords for different sites is a hassle. In the same way that having different USB cords for different devices is a hassle. And the beauty of having a Stacy Allen Muse original is that you own the original that is framed on your wall. You don't own a limited electronic copy that you get to view on your cell phone.

Just my opinion. I know there are people making a ton of money swapping electronic baseball cards that they will never physically hold. Then again, someone once paid me $400 for a manastone on Everquest... a game that for all intents and purposes has been dead for years now. $400 was a lot of money in 2001. It's a lot of money today. A fool and his money...

Owning an NFT, when done correctly, is about owning a piece of a community, not the just the art. To be honest, if you sold 100 BonsaiNut NFTs, I would buy one. Especially if you offered exclusive perks to the owners of those NFTs. Hell just a bonsai nut sub forum that only NFT holders can access would be cool enough, but what if you also used the proceeds of those 100 NFTs to give live QnAs, Demos, etc from a famous artist, say Ryan or Bjorn. What if you used the proceeds of that NFT to purchase a JBP or Juniper for everyone in the group, mailed them to us, then hired a professional to give us a demo? It's a club, it's a community. And to get into it, you've got to buy in through the NFT. The beauty of this is that the NFT is one of kind, not able to be replicated, right? I can't right-click-save my way into your exclusive bonsai club, can I?
 

Forsoothe!

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This all sounds like a government conspiracy to monetize everything under the sun. Technically, every transaction is a taxable event and you are responsible to pay taxes on income and gains. The IRS can't keep up with the cash economy of everyday transactions which are not booked by some company, but they'd like to. Janet Yellen would like an electronic file including all transactions for every person who cycles $10k through a bank account so she could track the underground economy. Computers could do that overnight, every night. So the local kid that cuts lawns for $15 skates on paying taxes because he gets paid in dribbles, but has a bank account to cash checks. He nets a couple thousand a summer and his account is too small to pay the IRS to check it out. That is, until a sort of his customer's accounts turns up the payments made by his six customer's that flowed into his account. The IRS can send him a bill for unpaid taxes & penalties without an agent lifting a finger. The city & state can piggyback on that electronic file, too. The taxpayer can always dispute the tax, all you have to do is jump through a couple dozen hoops and you're home free, maybe. Babysitters, the local handyman, snow shovelers, the minor elements that keep society on an even keel will get priced out of the market just like the kids that used to work in every shop. Every business used to have a kid that ran errands, swept the floor, did odd jobs working after school for not a lot of money. You can't hire them anymore because you have to pay Workers Comp, state and federal Unemployment Insurance, Medical benefits, and the minimum wage so it's not worth it to hire a kid, you just have the workers do it themselves. It's inefficient and most would rather not, it's nice having a kid to do bullshit jobs. So ambitious poor kids can't get those kinds of jobs anymore, and society loses the opportunity to train kids how to work, how to get along with fellow workers, earn some money and manage their money, time, and life in general.

Create an electronic file of NFT ownership and the same process will evolve. Every time ownership turns over, the gov wants its cut. You think that you are buying proof of insurable value? That's a definite maybe, -if you buy from a certifiable seller, probably. But if you think that the insurance company is going to take your word for it that your bonsai was worth $2k, I got big news for you. They will insist that you come up with written estimates from reputable sources, and fellow club members with no commercial history may not pass that bar. There's a lot to be said for the cash economy, -unless you're a government looking for revenue. The gov will vote yea on electronic tracking, every time.
 
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A little more details are required because I am not sure exactly what you mean.

If you are tech savvy, you can create and deploy a smart contract, and then use it to mint an NFT on the Ethereum blockchain for free. Is the $70 - $100 the fee someone will charge to do it for you? (If you don't have the technical skills?)

The $70-200+ is the gas fee on Ethereum - it's a cost for the minter, and is used to compensate for the compute/validate energy. Solana is another cryptocurrency that supports NFTs. Gas fees for minting on Solana are ~1-2 cents. Depends on the network and traffic.

I have spent a good amount of time on crypto/NFTs in finance and gaming. I don't think I care to purchase blockchain trees, but the premier bonsai artists could make some substantial coin if they cared to.
 
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