A blockchain-based token carrying Tim Berners-Lee’s source code for the World Wide Web sold for $5.4 million in an online auction organized by Sotheby’s. The NFT includes an animated version of 10,000 lines of source code and a letter from Berners-Lee himself. Sotheby’s Auctions Tim-Berners Lee’s Source Code for the Web Sotheby’s New York division managed a weeklong event to sell the source code for the World Wide Web with assistance from its inventor, British-born computer scientist Tim-Berners Lee. The code was tokenized in a nonfungible token that was minted by Berners Lee in 2021 and represents the ownership of code that led to the creation of the web in 1989. According to Cassandra Hatton, global head of science and popular culture at Sotheby’s, the bidding for the token started at $1,000 and the auction firm allowed the market to determine the final price of the asset. She stated, “We let the market decide what the value is going to be. There have been multiple bidders who have all agreed that it’s valuable.” The NFT contains 9,555 lines of code written between 1990-1991, a 30-minute animated video of the code, and a letter penned by Berners-Lee, reflecting on his creation. As per reports, the token was sold for a final price of $5,434,500 and a part of its sale profits will go to Berners-Lee, although he intends to donate his earnings to a charity. Sotheby’s World Wide Web Auction Sees New Participants Almost half the participants in Sotheby’s auction of the web’s source code were first-time buyers at the auction house. Like other auctioning firms, Sotheby’s is also competing in the digit asset space for a sizeable share of the emerging market. And money isn’t the only factor motivating the likes of Sotheby’s because every NFT sale has the potential to bring new wealthy customers — in this case a younger demographic of crypto millionaires — to their databases. And these customers can crossover from digital assets to traditional assets over time. Recently, traditional auction houses have made headlines for giving blockchain-based assets the same treatment as physical collectibles. The most notable initiative was made by Christie’s that organized the sale of 3D artist Beeple’s work “The First 5000 Days.”
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