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Sotheby's auctions digital historical artifacts! The inventor of the World Wide Web, WWW, releases the code as an NFT that can be purchased with cryptocurrency.

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Sotheby

The inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, will auction off an NFT consisting of 9,000 lines of code at Sotheby's from June 23 to 30. Update 6/31: Final auction price was $5.4345 million.

30 Minutes and 25 Seconds of Nine Thousand Lines of Code

"Source Code for the WWW" is a 30-minute and 25-second video NFT that records the original code created by Tim Berners-Lee from 1990 to 1991. The content includes the languages and protocols he invented: HTML Hypertext Markup Language, HTTP Hyper Transfer Protocol, URIs Uniform Resource Identifiers, and a guide on how to teach users to use the Web. The scalable vector graphics (SVG) provided by this NFT video were created by Tim Berners-Lee. The auction of this NFT also includes a letter written by Tim Berners-Lee in 2021.

NFT is the Ideal Way to Package the Origin of the Internet

Tim Berners-Lee stated: "Thirty years ago, I created something, and with the help of collaborators around the world, it has become a powerful tool for humanity. For me, the greatest thing about the web is the spirit of collaboration. While I cannot predict the future, I sincerely hope that its use, knowledge, and potential will remain open and available for all of us to continue to innovate, create, and bring about the next technological revolution that we cannot yet imagine. NFTs, whether they are artworks or digital artifacts like this, are the latest interesting creations in this field and the most appropriate form of ownership. They are the ideal way to package the origins behind the internet."