| Abstract: |
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are decentralized digital tokens to represent the
unique ownership of items. Recently, NFTs have been gaining popularity and at
the same time bringing up issues, such as scams, racism, and sexism.
Decentralization, a key attribute of NFT, contributes to some of the issues
that are easier to regulate under centralized schemes, which are intentionally
left out of the NFT marketplace. In this work, we delved into this
centralization-decentralization dilemma in the NFT space through mixed
quantitative and qualitative methods. Centralization-decentralization dilemma
is the dilemma caused by the conflict between the slogan of decentralization
and the interests of stakeholders. We first analyzed over 30, 000 NFT-related
tweets to obtain a high-level understanding of stakeholders' concerns in the
NFT space. We then interviewed 15 NFT stakeholders (both creators and
collectors) to obtain their in-depth insights into these concerns and
potential solutions. Our findings identify concerning issues among users:
financial scams, counterfeit NFTs, hacking, and unethical NFTs. We further
reflected on the centralization-decentralization dilemma drawing upon the
perspectives of the stakeholders in the interviews. Finally, we gave some
inferences to solve the centralization-decentralization dilemma in the NFT
market and thought about the future of NFT and decentralization. |