Berners-Lee, a London-born computer scientist, invented the
World Wide Web in 1989, revolutionizing the sharing and creation
of information in what is seen as one of the most significant
inventions since the printing press appeared in Europe in 15th
Century Germany.
The digitally signed Ethereum blockchain non-fungible token (NFT),
a digital asset which records ownership, includes the original
source code, an animated visualization, a letter written by
Berners-Lee and a digital poster of the full code from the
original files.
The auction ends at 1801 GMT on Wednesday.
NFTs have exploded in popularity in recent months.
The most expensive NFT known sale to date was in March 2021,
when a digital collage by the American artist Mike Winkelmann,
also known as Beeple, sold for $69.3 million at Christie’s.
It was the first ever sale by a major auction house of a piece
of art that does not exist in physical form.
Since then, no NFT sale is known to have come close to this
amount. In June, a single “CryptoPunk” NFT – a pixelated image
of a cartoon face – fetched $11.8 million at Sotheby’s.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge and Elizabeth Howcroft; Editing
by Angus MacSwan)
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