Source code of Tim Berners Lee’s WWW to be auctioned as NFT

World Wide Web’s (WWW) founder Tim Berners Lee is auctioning the former’s source code, as part of a non-fungible token (NFT), with the initial bid at $1,000.

The auction, titled “This Changed Everything”, will be run by Sotheby’s, in London, from June 23-30. The Ethereum-blockchain NFT will include the original time-stamped files that contain the source code, a letter written by Berners-Lee on the code and its creation, animated visualization of the code, and a digital “poster” of the full code. Tim Berners Lee will digitally sign all the items.

"Why an NFT? Well, it is a natural thing to do, when you're a computer scientist and when you write code and have been for many years. It feels right to digitally sign my autograph on a completely digital artifact," Berners-Lee said in a statement.

An NFT is a unit of data stored on a blockchain, that certifies a digital asset to be unique and therefore not interchangeable. It is used to represent items such as photos, videos, etc. While every piece of digital media is infinitely reproducible, an NFT is not. There is only one NFT and one corresponding owner.

The files contain 9,555 lines of code and the implementations of the three languages and protocols invented by Berners-Lee: HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol), and URIs (Uniform Resource Identifiers).

The popularity of NFTs has risen. Sotheby’s sold a digital artwork called CryptoPunk as an NFT for $11.8 million, last week. It auctioned digital artist Pak as an NFT for $16.8 million, in April.

Picture Credits: Getty Images