The NFTs return to the center of the scene with a novelty as striking as it is surprising. Tim Berners-Lee will auction the source code of the World Wide Web , along with other digital elements as part of a package. The sale will be for charitable purposes, as all the money raised will go to causes sponsored by the British computer scientist and his wife.
The auction will be online and will be run by Sotheby's. The bid will begin in thousand dollars and will take place from June 23 to 30. “'This Changed Everything' is a unique NFT that includes fundamental documentation, time-stamped, of Sir Tim's creation of the Internet,” says the auction house.
According to the BBC, Berners-Lee's decision has caused surprise because historically refused to patent his invention . In any case, as it is an initiative with charitable purposes, it is understood that the creator of the website does not intend an economic profit. In addition, for years the source code of the WWW has been publicly available.
“NFTs, whether they are works of art or a digital artifact like this, are the most convenient means of ownership there is. They are the ideal way to package the origins behind the web “, assured Tim Berners-Lee.
The source code of the WWW becomes the definitive NFT
Paul Clarke (Wikimedia)
According to Sotheby's, the NFT to be auctioned consists of four elements. On one side are the original files containing the source code written by Tim Berners-Lee. They are approximately 9955 lines of code written between October 3, 1990 and August 24, 1991 , and include the implementation of HTML, HTTP and URI. Also included are original HTML documents that explained to early users how WorldWideWeb worked.
On the other hand, the buyer also receives an “animated visualization” (a video, after all) of the code being written. The clip It lasts just over 30 minutes and is in black and white with no audio. Additionally, the NFT includes a digital “poster” that represents the entire code. This is an SVG graphic of 841 millimeters wide and 1189 millimeters high, which was created by Berners-Lee in Python from the original files. In the lower right corner it incorporates the graphic representation of the WWW creator's signature.
https://playback.brightcovecdn.com/playback/v1/accounts/104524641001/videos/6258840804001/high.mp4 ? bcov_auth = ewoJInR5cGUiOiAiSldUIiwKCSJhbGciOiAiUlMyNTYiCn0.ewogICJhY2NpZCI6ICJ7eW91cl9hY2NvdW50X2lkfSIsCiAgImlhdCI6IDE2MjE0NTU3MDIKfQ.FXpTYp3hOUiHBNSn-x5ie4sjvgl9pIh2QtOdj2ekpauXuyt2J5LodTs9lGfwQa0oVS0ts95is3DcW2sswj20CgvGNo5EFfxRNig4V5rdNrdMcc-B_WwtM_-mu2ku6SwA7Exo7ClfpyYs8CKC0pOH_VhMGO5TN2Yh7UyqMJoATDG52E04DEDRkpqAUQDqbaQjlT9s19pjeOOTneaXgEDfJEBmXBg7Q6TGoUM1X8ctSqMkXtxuLXDugnuCy3Smw0ZcjS78hutnOMp1s6kSrK3QP8BfdRIYfkIj7UarcaVayP0NU06AmuoXVEwN3vE4x3ngEP74qh0eK2PZGr0ueGxnHQ
Finally, the package includes a letter written by Markdown Berners-Lee this year. In it, the computer scientist reflects on the code and its creation process .
The Sotheby's auction will allow the payment of the NFT using cryptocurrencies. The British company would pay a “carbon offset” for the environmental impact caused by the computational demand for the blockchain.
