Jimmy Wales, a co-founder of Wikipedia, is auctioning off a non-fungible token (NFT) of the site’s very first edit.
Wales wrote “Hello, World!” after establishing Wikipedia on January 15, 2001, and the moment has been captured in an NFT being auctioned by Christie’s, according to a statement from the auction house.
An NFT is a digital piece of material that is linked to the blockchain, the digital ledger that underpins cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum. Digital artworks and other artefacts can be transformed into one-of-a-kind, verifiable assets that are simple to trade on the blockchain, which has sparked a lot of interest in the art world.
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What you should know
The NFT’s content can be seen at www.editthisnft.com, which hosts a mirror of Wikipedia.
Christie’s is hosting the auction, which will take place from December 3 to December 15. The auction will also include the strawberry-coloured iMac G3 that Wales used to design the website. Proceeds from the sale will go toward funding WT. Social, Wale’s non-toxic social network.
Wikipedia’s is not the first tech giant to create NFT. The NFT auction in Wales is similar to two previous auctions held by IT giants.
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Tim Berners-Lee auctioned the source code for the World Wide Web as an NFT at Sotheby’s in June for $5.4 million.
Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey sold his first tweet for $2.9 million as a non-fungible token in March.
Wales joked about selling his iMac at the time, adding, “it’s real and I could bring it to you,” unlike an NFT. Wales now appears to have decided to sell both objects.
