Keanu Reeves is one of the most beloved actors in Hollywood. He has starred in cult classics such as Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, The Matrix, and Point Break. He’s known for giving away Rolexes to fellow cast members, making massive donations to children’s hospitals, and being a generally breath-taking human being. With Reeves’ track record of being such an incredible person, it almost feels blasphemous to say that he’s wrong. Still, his take on NFTs couldn’t be further from the truth.
What did Keanu Reeves say?
In an interview with The Verge, Keanu Reeves couldn’t help but laugh when asked about NFTs made for the new Matrix: Resurrections movie. When the interviewer asked Reeves about digital scarcity and things that can’t be copied, Reeves insisted that NFTS are “easily reproduced.” Although I can’t deny Keanu Reeves is an incredible person, I can’t help but think he is missing the point regarding NFTs.
Interestingly enough, the interview also revealed that Keanu Reeves is a crypto hodler, although he didn’t buy the tokens himself. Reeves’ friend gifted him some cryptocurrency that he has happily held. Still, he seems less interested in receiving NFTs.
Are NFTs easily reproducible?
The “right-click+save” argument is nothing new when it comes to NFTs. Naysayers have claimed that saving a jpeg on their PC is just as good as owning an NFT ever since digital assets first became mainstream. Still, this rhetoric seems to primarily stem from blockchain ignorance. Yes, you can save any image available on the internet to your PC the same way you can photocopy any major work of art — but is a copy of the Mona Lisa the same as owning the original painting?
NFTs are effectively a purchase receipt with unique encryption that makes them nearly impossible to reproduce. When an artist mints an NFT, they’re doing so from a specific wallet address at a specific time. Even if you were to save an image on your PC and use it to mint an NFT that looked the same as the one you’re copying, the asset ID, the creator address, and the date and time of the NFT’s creation would be entirely different.
Will this rhetoric ever change?
Although NFTs are technically several years old, they are still essentially in their infancy. The NFT community is still rife with scams, leaving many with the impression that all NFTs are inherently fraudulent. Still, many NFT scams target buyers that don’t fully understand what an NFT is. As NFTs continue to rise in popularity, people will become more familiar with the concept and learn how to spot scams more easily, until many scams aren’t even worth attempting.
When the majority of the general population has a better understanding of what an NFT truly is, we’ll likely hear the “right-click+save” argument less often. Nonetheless, there will always be naysayers that thrive on being contrary. If you love NFTs, and you understand the difference between an original NFT and a copy, you shouldn’t let this rhetoric impact your opinion, even if the naysayer is a beloved celebrity.
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Image credit via: Rolling Stone
NFT Artist. Musician. Founder of Crescendo.
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