The original source code for the World Wide Web sold Wednesday for $5.4 million as an NFT at Sotheby’s Auction in London.
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are pieces of data housed on digital ledgers called blockchains that certify the asset represented by the data is unique. Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, auctioned the code up himself.
“The process of bringing this NFT to auction has offered me the opportunity to look back in time to the moment I first sat down to write this code thirty years ago, and reflect on how far the web has come since then, and where it could go in the decades to come,” Berners-Lee said.
TIM BERNERS-LEE TO SELL WORLD WIDE WEB CODE IN SOTHEBY’S NFT AUCTION
Founded in England in 1744, Sotheby’s works as a marketplace for the world’s most expensive art items. Many tech-savvy buyers and sellers have started to sell art items as NFTs. This sale represents the first time such an item has been purchased at a Sotheby’s auction.
“This unique auction marked the first time a digital-born artefact has ever been offered for sale at Sotheby’s, and this has to be the ultimate example of its kind — one minted by Sir Tim himself, a legend in the digital realm and far beyond, that relates to the most important invention of our era,” said Cassandra Hatton, Sotheby’s vice president.
The NFT is composed of four elements, including the original time-stamped files of the 9,555 lines of code written by Berners-Lee in 1989, as well as their animated visualization.
The buyer, who was not identified by Sotheby’s, also took home a letter from Berners-Lee in which he reflects on the code and a digital poster he created.
Bidding for the item opened on June 23, with a starting price of $1,000. Seven days and 51 bids later, the NFT sold for $5.4 million.
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The proceeds from the sale will benefit initiatives supported by the Berners-Lee family.
