Tim Berners-Lee, the computer scientist and developer of World Wide Web (WWW), has auctioned his original source code of www as a nonfungible token (NFT) on auction house Sotheby’s.
It has been reported that Sotheby’s will be putting up the World Wide Web NFT for bids starting on June 23. Bidding for the NFT, named “This Changed Everything” and containing time-stamped documentation of the code, will start at $1,000.
Created in 1989 before, there were web browsers, Amazon, or even shareable memes, the roughly 10,000 lines of code, written using Python, include implementations of the HTML, HTTP, and URI languages and protocols. Berners-Lee has also included a letter explaining how he created the code and his signature.
He said:
“NFTs, be they artworks or a digital artefact like this, are the latest playful creations in [the realm of technological transformation], and the most appropriate means of ownership that exists. They are the ideal way to package the origins behind the web.”
However, he never patented the WWW source code, choosing instead to make it free for all. Perhaps, as a result, current estimates put the computer scientist’s net worth at around $10 million, rather than what could have potentially been in the trillions or quadrillions.
According to Sotheby's, all the proceeds for the NFT sale will benefit initiatives that Berners-Lee and his wife support. Sotheby’s is seemingly becoming more well-known for high-profile NFT auctions. In March, the auction house announced it would be offering tokenized art by a creator known as Pak.
Thus, last week, Sotheby's London salesroom sold a CryptoPunk for $11.8 million, reportedly a world record for the type of artwork.
Source: Cointelegraph | Image: Education Today | Aljazeera