Minecraft, one of the largest games in the world, announced that they were banning NFTs this week. Within hours, tens of millions of dollars of NFT investments were wiped away.
In this video I talk about the ACTUAL reasons I think Minecraft banned NFTs, as well as the bizarre community reaction that followed.
0:00 start here
1:10 losing millions in NFTs from a single blog post
2:34 the ACTUAL reasons Minecraft banned NFTs
5:19 Microsoft vs the players
7:35 the community reaction was…weird
8:08 some good ol’ fashioned doublespeak
Our servers our rules keep your Corporate hands away from our servers And let me do what i want i feel as if The community has been betrayed the dark Ages of minecraft are upon us It’s not often that you see a series of Events that plays out like pure poetry With all the irony and the hubris and Hypocrisy that you might expect from Some great shakespearean play except It’s happening in real life and at a Massive scale and i find myself in the Blessed position where i get to share This tale with all of you if you haven’t Seen by now mojang the company behind The highly successful game minecraft put Out a controversial blog post two days Ago simply titled minecraft and nfts and There’s a lot of juicy bits in here that We’ll get to in a second but the basic Summary is them coming out and saying Miss me with those nfts specifically Quote integrations of nfts with Minecraft are generally not something we Will support or allow now this single Line sent a shockwave through the nft Community and basically wiped out tens Of millions of dollars in investment Pretty much immediately and the reason Why it was such a big deal is because Over the last year we’ve seen a series Of projects that were coming out and Selling nfts linked to minecraft perhaps The most popular example of one of these
Projects was nft worlds which i covered In the video a few months ago and this Was a project that was making it easy For other developers to create their own Crypto games using third-party minecraft Servers and all you had to do was buy One of their nfts to get started with Creating your own metaverse and According to them over 100 existing nft Communities and projects were already Building full-scale metaverses using nft Worlds one of which was the profile pick Collection artifact which is owned by None other than nike so things were Going well but as you can imagine having Your entire project’s very existence Tied to a single game and then having That game come out and basically tell You to lose her number is probably a Little more than a bump in the road this Is like if all you did was sell fresh Popcorn and then you got banned from all The local theaters okay you kind of blew It because that’s where that thing Happens it’s not like we’re out in the World just eating popcorn while we’re Running errands so to say that this Minecraft announcement had a negative Impact on nft worlds is an Understatement in the last 24 hours Alone it dropped 65 percent following That blog post to a floor of roughly 1 Eth or 1500 and its token world also Dropped about 70 in 24 hours wiping out
About 10 million dollars in market cap And completing a 98 decline from its All-time high essentially all the Projects that had anything to do with Minecraft are now either completely dead Or they have to do some radical pivot Into another business and look the Decision to ban these nfts wasn’t Incredibly surprising and it was Actually one of the major risks that i Pointed out when i did cover nft worlds But the reasons they gave for banning Them in the first place is a textbook Example of corporate gaslighting you see The position they took was one of a Parental figure that was watching out For their lost children okay had nothing To do with potential disruption or the Bottom line it was all about ethics now There’s a lot of layers of in Here that we have to discuss but let’s Start with this one quote nfts and other Blockchain technologies create digital Ownership based on scarcity and Exclusion which does not align with Minecraft values of creating inclusion And playing together the argument is That the blockchain creates digital Scarcity where it didn’t exist before Okay but that’s not entirely true Digital scarcity has always existed in Minecraft for example if we go to the Marketplace which i have open right here Everything the light touches belongs to
One entity and one entity alone and That’s microsoft it’s all their property And the keys to turning whatever they Want on and off permanently those are Scarce and they just happen to have one Owner when a player hits the buy button In the marketplace and purchases a skin Pack what they’re really buying is a License to use those skins and if you Break any of the 5000 rules in the terms Of service that nobody reads then the Actual owner microsoft can ban you and Revoke your license completely the only Difference with an nft is that the data Associated with the digital items can Actually be owned by the players Themselves that’s it okay there’s no Added scarcity and in fact you could Just have an unlimited supply of skins As you want so that everybody could get One the only difference is that now You’re getting digital property rights Similar to what we have in real life so You can sell it you can actually license It out yourself or not you can just keep It in your collection and stare at it Years from now long after minecraft has Faded away often people get confused and Think that nfts have to have like 10 000 Items or whatever but that’s just one Smart contract that uses nfts in a Specific way in that case usually just To create collectibles but there’s Nothing in entities themselves that have
To be limited but microsoft either Hasn’t done their research on this or They have and they’re purposely Misleading their audience because in the Next line they double down again quote Nfts are not inclusive of all our Community and creates a scenario of the Haves and the have-nots again there are Already haves and have-nots except in This case there’s actually only one have And that’s microsoft and there are Hundreds of millions of have-nots which Are all the monthly active players we Also see them trying to pin nfts to the Word exclusivity again even though Nothing in the way that their Marketplace is structured right now Actually has to change right they can Continue to sell unlimited skins they Can keep the prices the way they are the Only thing that changes is that the Players actually get to own the items so The rest of the post has even more of This corporate speak that attempts to Paint microsoft as his savior but i’m Gonna put that aside for now because This story has yet another very rare Moment of shakespearean irony now Becoming the kind of script that you Know would get ripped apart on rotten Tomatoes for being a little too Unrealistic and heavy-handed you see Only a few weeks prior to this Announcement minecraft had found itself
In another very controversial moment When they announced that they were Updating their chat moderation system by Adding a new tool that let players Report inappropriate chat messages that They would see from other players now on The surface this doesn’t seem like the Craziest update but the kicker is that This didn’t just extend to the base game But it also extended to all the private Servers the one that are supposedly Owned by the players themselves and Maintained and paid for by them this Caused an uproar in the community and Particularly on reddit there were these Huge mega threads where people were Expressing their discontent with a Decision and i happened to pick out some Of my favorite gems from those threads And i think this is going to show you Where some of the poetry starts to kick In so here we see our servers our rules Keep your corporate hands away from our Servers and let me do what i want i feel As if the community has been betrayed This is absolutely ridiculous if i’m Playing on my own servers hosted by me With my own money with my also adult Friends i have every right to say Literally whatever i want the dark ages Of minecraft are upon us i really do Struggle to imagine what would motivate A person to willingly defend this new Age corporate double speak notion of you
Bought it but it’s not yours that last Comment really hits at the heart of all This because in reading these threads it Became clear that people really believe That since they were maintaining and Paying for their servers that they did Have some kind of true digital ownership But of course that wasn’t the case and Microsoft looked at them and said oh you Sweet summer child and then they put up A another post called addressing player Reporting tool where they reminded them Who the boss actually is quote does this Affect private servers yes it does we Recognize that private servers function Independently from mojang studios and Many use that independence to create Remarkable minecraft innovations that Enrich the community but it has always Been the case that minecraft servers of Any scale must follow the rules Described by the eula and our community Standards so no you don’t actually own What you think you own and this little Exchange was all the more hilarious when You realize that a bunch of these Minecraft players came out in support of The minecraft nft band from a couple of Days ago in fact i made this tweet about How gaming journalists tend to get all Hot and bothered with these types of Stories but there were also a ton of Similar comments from players themselves And so even though only a few weeks ago
You had a big chunk of the minecraft Community begging microsoft for some Kind of digital property rights when Microsoft comes out and says that They’re banning nfts then they all jump Up and start shouting yeah don’t let us Own anything guys the reason for the nft Ban isn’t about epics this isn’t a robin Hood story it’s a corporation trying to Minimize disruption and keeping an eye On their bottom line you see minecraft Makes about 400 million dollars a year And a big piece of that already comes From selling in-game skins and mods Through their online marketplace they Also already have their own in-game Currency it’s called minecoin and here You can see them telling kids exactly How it works step one get minecoin step Two explore the catalog three exchange Your minecoins aka buy things and four Have fun come again minecoins are a pure Margin business okay minecraft has Already developed this fine-tuned Monetization system so anything that Could disrupt that maybe because players Start selling their own items to other Players which means fewer purchases from The marketplace that’s a risk to their Business of course you’re not gonna Provide that rationale in a press Release they’re gonna give you some good Old corporate double speak and tell you That they’re really just trying to save
The kids and by saving the kids they Really mean wrangling the kids back to Minecoins which is of course a safe Family-friendly currency now if you Don’t play minecraft you might not see This as a big deal but it is because Between minecraft and roblox we have the Closest things to actual metaverses in Real life today about 75 of american Children ages 9 through 12 play roblox Regularly with friends which is an Absurd figure when you think about it so As we go down the path of having these Mega conglomerates own the metaverses That we spend the majority of our lives In Maybe we should be a little bit more Open-minded about a decentralized Alternative all right guys that’s it for Today thanks for watching and i’ll catch You in the next video
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