A non-fungible token representing the original source code for the world wide web written by its inventor Tim Berners-Lee has been sold for $5.4 million, auction house Sotheby said on Wednesday.
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An NFT is a form of a crypto asset that shows ownership for a digital object such as a drawing, animation, music, picture or a video. NFT has garnered attention from all over the world with the NFT artworks, music and internet memes selling for millions of dollars.
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“One of the most historically significant digital artefacts ever sold, an NFT of the source code for the Web has brought $5.4 million,” Sotheby said in a tweet.
“Offered by Sir Tim-Berners-Lee, proceeds will benefit initiatives that Sir Tim and Lady Berners-Lee support.”
The auction for the NFT made by the British computer scientist Berners-Lee began on June 23 with an opening bid of $1000.
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It includes time-stamped files containing 9,555 lines of the source code written by Tim between October 1990 and August 1991, an animated visualization of the code lasting 30 mins, a digital poster and a letter written by Tim on his invention.
Invented by Tim in 1989, the world wide web enables users to access, create and navigate links between files across a network of computers.
According to the condition report on Sotheyby’s website, the NFT is in excellent condition and the data security of the particular item is very high.
While the web code was sold for $5.4 million, it fell way short of American artist Beeple’s $69.3 million digital collage but exceeds the $2.9 million paid for Twitter Boss Jack Dorsey’s first tweet.