What's Causing the Current NFT Trust Crisis?

Author: Chao Wang, Crypto KOL; Translation: Jinse Finance xiaozou

Currently, a trust crisis is sweeping the NFT market, and a friend asked me some questions about the trust mechanism within the community.

In the world of Web3, when we discuss trust, we encounter two main scenarios.

First, protocol-based projects implement trust by deploying code, which is known as the "trustless" concept. Take Bitcoin as an example: People don’t need to trust Satoshi Nakamoto, they only need to trust the integrity of the Bitcoin code. Similarly, if a person is concerned about the security of Uniswap, he/she does not need to trust the founder Hayden Adam, only the code of Uniswap itself. This trust stems from the consensus at the technical level and supports the fundamental value of the encrypted world.

Second, there are community-based projects that create trust by aligning with shared values and goals. Although these projects are community-focused, there is usually a central sponsor or executor who oversees the progress of the project over an extended period of time. In this case, trust stems from shared values and goals, and the community must agree on shared values and trust that performers (whether individuals, groups, or companies) are equally committed to their fulfillment. It is important to understand that the impact of technology is limited, and there are many areas where technology cannot be regulated. In such cases, there is always a way to bypass the constraints if the executor so desires. This is where Web3 technologies can come into play, assisting in team coordination and change of ownership, rather than imposing strict control over all aspects of the project. Multiplayer games have also become a mainstream narrative in Web3, although this does not fit the original philosophy of encryption technology.

Clearly, the above scenarios are two extremes of a wide world; the world is indeed complex, with many gray areas in between. There are plenty of innovators working towards more mature autonomy through technology so that community-based projects can also have a higher level of trust in the technology.

But to this day, community-based projects still rely heavily on values to reach consensus. If an individual or team attempts to build a complex mechanism for gaining community trust, it indicates that they did not have a broad consensus on societal-level values to begin with. In my opinion, this is a clear sign of failure for a community-based project.

Let's go back and discuss NFT projects, especially PFP NFT projects. Do these projects really have a value consensus? Seems unlikely. Most NFT projects attract investment by trying to tell a compelling story, while the main purpose of most community participants is to make money. **The common goal seems to be to find the next successor, and there is no real consensus on values. ** Has the technical layer introduced consensus? Since it's just a collection of on-chain/off-chain images, and lacks even community-owned multisig accounts, there's little technical consensus to speak of.

While such projects may maintain a delicate balance of trust for a period of time, and may even exhibit strong consensus characteristics to attract more participants, this balance is very fragile and easily broken. The fate of a community-based project is not determined by the project's originator, but by the community itself. A community is not an assembly line product - a community needs to mature and develop organically with its own cultural philosophy.