NFT of the original World Wide Web code fetches $5.4 million at Sotheby's auction

NFTs • June 30, 2021, 3:56PM EDT

A non-fungible token (NFT) representing the original source code for the World Wide Web has sold for $5.4 million in a sale hosted by luxury auction house Sotheby's.

The auction began on June 23, with bids starting at $1,000. All proceeds of the sale will go to initiatives supported by Berner-Lee and his wife.

NFTs are unique collectibles that represent digital files, like audio and video. This particular NFT is for a code British computer scientist Sir Tim Berners-Lee developed. The files referenced by the NFT contain over 9,000 lines of code, which include parts of the three languages and one protocol Berners-Lee invented: HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol), and URLs (Uniform Resource Identifiers).

“The process of bringing this NFT to auction has offered me the opportunity to look back in time to the moment I first sat down to write this code thirty years ago, and reflect on how far the web has come since then, and where it could go in the decades to come," Berners-Lee said in a statement.

The sale marks Sotheby's third auction involving NFTs. The auction house sold its first NFT by anonymous digital artist Pak in April, and its second NFT in June, selling a rare CryptoPunk for nearly $12 million.

Most recently, musician and entrepreneur Jay-Z announced he is selling an NFT at Sotheby's which is based on his debut album.

Image courtesy: Sotheby's

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Saniya More (pronounced: Saan-ya Mo-ray) is a quadrilingual journalist at The Block. She got her master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and did her undergraduate degree at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University. Her work has appeared in CBS News, Bangkok Post, Thai Enquirer, Globalists, Byline Times and other publications. When she’s not chasing a story, you will most likely find her biking, tweeting, taking photos or creating Spotify playlists for every occasion.