The original source code from the World Wide Web fetched $5.4 million (4.6 million euros) at auction. Briton Tim Berners-Lee wrote the code he used to create the web between October 1990 and August 1991.
Interested parties are given a week to submit a bid on Sotheby’s website. The opening bid was $1,000. Proceeds from the auction will go to charities supported by Berners-Lee and his wife.
The code consisted of about 955 lines, and was sold as the so-called ‘non-fungible token (NFT)”. This is a kind of digital proof of ownership within blockchain technology.
In addition to the source code, the new owner will also receive a 30-minute video describing the code, a digital poster signed by Berners-Lee, and a text file in which the computer scientist explains how the code was generated.
Earlier this year, auctions of other NFTs also yielded millions. The first tweet was traded on Twitter for $2.9 million (2.4 million euros) and a digital artwork by artist Beeple was auctioned for more than $69 million (58 million euros).
Read also: ‘Charlie bit my finger’: one of the most popular videos of all time was auctioned for 622,000 euros
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