NFTs are unique blockchain entries through which people can prove that they 'own' something. However, the underlying images can be copied with a single click. This point is illustrated by The NFT Bay which links to a 19.5 Terabyte collection of 'all NFTs' on the Ethereum and Solana blockchains. And it comes with an important warning message too.
nftbayNFTs have been booming over the past year. People are willing to pay millions of dollars just to prove that they âownâ a digital item that was worthless before.
These digital entries, stored on a blockchain, allow the buyers to prove that they are legitimate owners. While itâs different from a copyright, NFTs owners are rightsholders in a sense.
The NFT Bay
However, that doesnât mean that other people canât copy the associated files, which are often widely available. This is made pretty clear by The NFT Bay, which launched just a few hours ago. The site, which is clearly inspired by The Pirate Bay, shares a torrent with âpiratedâ versions of NFTs.
âThe Billion Dollar Torrent,â as itâs called, reportedly includes all the NFTs on the Ethereum and Solana blockchains. These files are bundled in a massive torrent that points to roughly 15 terabytes of data. Unpacked, this adds up to almost 20 terabytes.
geoff tweet
Australian developer Geoff is the brains behind the platform, which he describes as an art project. Speaking with TorrentFreak, he says that The Pirate Bay was used as inspiration for nostalgic reasons, which needs further explanation.
Too Much for PRQ
The NFT Bay itself lists a few examples of âpiratedâ NFT images but these uploads point to the same massive torrent file. Downloading the torrent can be a challenge as it requires quite a bit of disk space. In fact, finding a hosting solution for the seedbox wasnât straightforward either.
âFor authenticity I was going to host at PRQ but unfortunately they donât offer servers with enough disk space,â Geoff notes.
This comment may not mean much to the general public. However, veteran followers of file-sharing news will recognize PRQ as the former hosting partner of The Pirate Bay, launched by the siteâs founders Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij.
The developer eventually hosted the torrented NFT archive elsewhere. And despite the massive size and the attention itâs getting, both the site and seedbox are running smoothly.
âThe seedbox hosting the torrent has 4 x 10TB SATA drives configured in RAID0 and the website is humming along just fine even though the website is going insanely viral,â Geoff says.
Wake-Up Call
The NFT Bay is not just any random art project. It does come with a message, perhaps a wake-up call, for people who jump on the NFT bandwagon without fully realizing what theyâre spending their crypto profits on.
âPurchasing NFT art right now is nothing more than directions on how to access or download an image. The image is not stored on the blockchain and the majority of images Iâve seen are hosted on Web 2.0 storage which is likely to end up as 404 meaning the NFT has even less value.â
The same warning is more sharply articulated in the torrentâs release notes which are styled in true pirate fashion.
â[T]his handy torrent contains all of the NFTâs so that future generations can study this generationâs tulip mania and collectively goâŚâ it reads.
nft release notes
Fifteen years ago this would have been a project The Pirate Bay could have come up with. Itâs a thought-provoking piece of art that shows that ownership can be a trivial concept, especially in the digital realm.
Greed and Scams
This is not to say that all NFTs are useless and have no future. Some will probably remain very valuable. However, people who aspire to own them should understand how they work and what they represent. And making a personal copy of is probably a good start.
Geoff himself appears to be quite critical of the NFT hype. While the software developer believes in the possibilities that Web 3.0 can offer, todayâs implementations often result in greed and scamming, which he describes as sickening.