[Nhcoll-l] VEROs

[Catherine Early (she/her)]

Hi Sam,

We certainly all need more funding and this would be a creative solution,
but I want to make sure members of our community are aware of some of the
concerns regarding NFTs. For one, they rely on a system that has a large
carbon footprint. Perhaps your article omitted this issue because there
aren't many peer-reviewed publications on the topic. Here are some opinion
and popular press articles about it:
https://everestpipkin.medium.com/but-the-environmental-issues-with-cryptoart-1128ef72e6a3
https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/15/22328203/nft-cryptoart-ethereum-blockchain-climate-change

There have also been issues with people other than the creators of the
media making and profiting from NFTs of the original media, with the
creators never seeing that money (
https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/20/22334527/nft-scams-artists-opensea-rarible-marble-cards-fraud-art).
You recognize this issue in your article and propose VEROs as a way around
this. But if we create a market for VEROs of 3D models of museum specimens,
what will prevent anyone from creating and selling a non-VERO NFT of the 3D
models of museum specimens that are freely available for educational use
and making money from that, thus profiting from the demand that we helped
to create?

I also worry that monetizing our collections will have legal and ethical
ramifications that we haven't considered. Yes, we would be monetizing
digital models of our specimens and not the specimens themselves, but the
digital models can only exist because we collect and care for the physical
specimens. Will funders and administrators expect museums to generate a
certain percent of their income from minting VEROs? Will customs officials
accept that the specimens we import are priceless but carry no monetary
value if we then sell the rights to digital models of the specimens?

 Given that we as a community are dedicated to the preservation of
biodiversity (threatened by things like large carbon footprints) and
because of the other issues I brought up, we should think hard before
diving into the world of NFTs. I welcome further discussion.

Best,
Catherine

<https://www.smm.org/>

*Catherine M. Early, PhD*

she/her

*Barbara Brown Chair of Ornithology*

e: cearly at smm.org

https://catherineearly.wixsite.com/home

We envision a world where everyone has the power to use science to make
lives better,
and we are committed to using STEM as a tool to advocate for justice and
equity.


On Tue, Aug 10, 2021 at 9:14 AM Samuel Bolton <
samuel.bolton77 at googlemail.com> wrote:

> Dear all,
>
>
>
> Please see the link below to a paper on the use of non-fungible tokens
> (NFTs) to help 3D digitize natural history collections. This email is to
> alert you to this potential funding mechanism.
>
>
>
> https://www.mapress.com/mt/article/view/megataxa.6.2.2
>
>
>
> NFTs are potentially important to us because we are one of the few
> communities that can greatly benefit from 3D versions of our holdings. I
> don't think the art history community is dealing with a mass extinction.
> And every important piece of art has already been photographed. Moreover,
> unlike the art history community, we are far short of the funds that we
> need to do our jobs properly.
>
>
>
> It is truly astonishing to see the sums of money that are being paid for
> NFTs like CryptoPunks, largely because these things are rare rather than
> genuinely good or even deliberate art (see post script). Perhaps we, as a
> community, can add some quality to NFTs while also using them to fund an
> important enterprise. More than 2 billion dollars were spent on NFTs during
> the first quarter of 2021 alone. That is a lot of money for digitization.
>
>
>
> Here is a link to a website we just developed to help explain the concept
> of VEROs to a broader audience.
>
>
>
> https://www.vero-nft.org/
>
>
> Best wishes to you all,
>
>
>
> Sam
>
> (contact details on the above link)
>
>
>
> P.S. Below is a link to CryptoPunk 7523. It is an NFT worth over 11
> million dollars? It’s not valuable because it is art (cryptopunks were
> originally intended for a smartphone app). It is valuable because it is the
> only one of 10,000 cryptopunks to be an alien (blue skin) that is sporting
> a surgical mask. In other words, the investor who bought this bought it
> because it is weird and one of a kind. There is plenty of weird and
> wonderful in our collections, and a lot of it is one of a kind (e.g.,
> holotypes).
>
>
>
>
> https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2021/natively-digital-cryptopunk-7523/cryptopunk-7523
>
>
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