Treasure Chess, NFTs and How to Opt Out

As many will have noticed, chess.com updated its legal terms yesterday. Part of this concerns their new plan to issue NFTs. "Treasure Chess" they're calling it.

Now I'm sure chess.com are just hoping to make a fun new thing here, and aren't cynically joining in the NFT scam hoping to make a quick buck.

So I'm hoping we can persuade them to reconsider.

NFTs are a scam. They have no intrinsic value, and creating and trading them causes real environmental damage. Every time an NFT is created and every time it is sold that creates a transaction on the blockchain. Doing so requires Proof of Work, which is essentially solving deliberately difficult and pointless cryptography. This burns energy. A lot. All so that you can pretend you own a JPG of an artwork. Or a chess game.

Take action. Write to support@chess.com and object. Tell them to stop this planet-killing NFT scam and opt-out.

Hopefully if enough of us object they'll reconsider. Many artists around the world have dropped their NFT projects when they realised just how unpopular they are.

And if you're one of those people who don't care about the planet we live on and think "good",  there are better options.  If you really want to increase your carbon footprint and kill the planet, then why not go buy a massive beef burger instead? At least you can eat it.

To object, just email support@chess.com (as they say in their legal terms) and opt-out of Treasure Chess and tell them you object on environmental grounds.

eg.

---

Hi chess.com

NFTs are a blockchain technology which is causing huge environmental damage for no human benefit. Please reconsider your plans to issue NFTs.

According to your newly updated terms I can opt-out of this. I would
like to completely opt-out of the Treasure Chess Service. I do not want my
username, avatar or my games to be used for this purpose.

<username here>

I have done so.

If anyone isn't sure why NFTs are a bad idea, I suggest you check out Line Goes Up NFT video.  While it is 2 hours long, it explains NFTs and how they came to be well.

https://youtu.be/YQ_xWvX1n9g

The "NFTs are killing the environment" argument is a bit misleading.

There are many blockchains that aren't proof of work that have the ability to mint NFTs, and chess.com may opt to use one of those alternative blockchains instead of Ethereum (though they probably won't.)

Secondly, Ethereum is going to soon shift to proof of stake (probably by the fall or end of this year) so the environmental impact of doing any transactions on that blockchain (including minting NFTs) will soon be minimal.

Lastly, I should remind you that Stockfish analysis of your chess games requires significant computational resources, so you are also contributing to global climate change whenever you choose to review them. I doubt you're all that concerned about that impact, though.

Ok and where are the environmental reports about the stockfish engine?

Etherium has been claiming it will be there soon for years.  I have my doubts.

There's a world of difference between analysiing a chess game, and crypto currency transactions.  But by all means please continue the whataboutism.

1) chess.com have specifically said they are using Ethereum in their User Agreement; "All transactions made through our Service are managed and confirmed on the Ethereum blockchain"

2) Ethereum has been claiming for a long time that they are moving to Proof of Stake, but it has never happened. They still use Proof of Work for 100% of their transactions to this day. If and when that ever changes, we can look at the difference.

3) Nice bit of whataboutism there :-) With NFTs we're talking about using the planet's resources for no benefit at all. We're all on this site because we think chess is a worthy pursuit. NFTs are a scam. Nothing more than that. If you really want to destroy the planet, there are better ways to increase your carbon footprint than falling for an NFT scam.

Oops, I missed the commitment to Ethereum in the UA, my mistake.

Yeah, proof of stake in Ethereum been a long time coming, but it's a huge, fundamental change to the Ethereum network, affecting millions of users, and that takes time. The developers working on the change now say the change is imminent, when before they only gave vague estimates about when the change would happen. The blockchain community has recognized that proof of work is an inefficient, antiquated technology that doesn't make much sense in a energy-conservative world. The only place it will likely remain is Bitcoin, whose design is sacrosanct. Ethereum's shift from proof of work to proof of stake is inevitable.

NFTs are not inherently any worse for the environment than any other technology. Currently, the most popular blockchain used to mint NFTs is not energy efficient, and that's going to change. Soon NFT minting will have as much environmental impact as any other sort of electronic transaction. The attack on NFTs from an environmental standpoint is based largely on spite; there are far worse technologies we use that deserve the level of criticism that NFTs receive.

If Chess.com wants to appear environmentally respectful though, I think it'd be a good gesture to wait until Ethereum migrates to proof of stake before enabling a NFT minting feature.

Indeed, the entire Internet uses alot of inefficient structures and CDNs.

The carbon footprint of our online space is dreadful.  We need to do more to work on making our internet scale better.  The answer isn't putting more datacentres in with huge power plants next to them.

On that we can agree.

Thanks for writing this. It is completely unacceptable for chess.com to make an NFT marketplace. I have written to them and will soon cancel my membership and then delete my account.

It pains me to do so but I can't support a company that so blatantly disregards the environment and promote scams. I liked the idea of paying for a chess platform because I thought they could do some good for the chess community with that money, and I do think chess.com has done some good. But if they choose to go ahead with NFTs, then it's clear that they prefer to be a parasite rather than a good citizen. I will instead donate my money to lichess.

if you own a nft website, you gain money for doing nothing

you gain money off peoples mistakes

and paying money for gifs you can kinda easily reproduce by yourselves for free?

what has chess.com become...

1 day, 2 new bad, very bad features

I received confirmation today from support that I'm now opted out of Treasure Chess:

"As per your request, your account has been OPTED OUT ENTIRELY from the
Treasure Chess Service"

If you want to protest chess.com's use of NFTs, email support@chess.com and ask to opt out and tell them why. Hopefully they'll get the message.

...following

A currency like the US dollar has value mainly because it can easily be exchanged for goods and services (or other currencies). Vaults full of gold bullion at Fort Knox and other places help to back confidence in that currency.

NFTs rely entirely on Greater Fool theory:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory

ie. finding some other fool willing to pay money for something that is otherwise worthless.

The buyer of the NFT of the first tweet on Twitter paid nearly $3 million. At auction earlier this month he was struggling to find a greater fool to buy it. Bidding stalled at $12,600.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nft-auction-first-tweet-sina-estavi/

I would do your own research first! Real art is a lot different than what an NFT is

Doing a quick search lands you to this article, read up buttercup https://beincrypto.com/learn/nft-art-vs-traditional-art/#:~:text=The%20core%20difference%20between%20NFT,it%20on%20an%20NFT%20marketplace.