Amid the new enthusiasm about non-fungible tokens or NFTs, a pretty well-known figure is getting into the game with a rather unique offering tied to none other than the “source code of the World Wide Web.”
Sam Shead at CNBC reports Tim Berners-Lee is auctioning off an NFT piece called “This Changed Everything” that purports to be a digital ownership asset of the WWW’s origin. The auction, begun June 22, was started at $1000, but the bid price is reportedly up to $3 million and change.
The package being auctioned off by the renowned computer scientist includes timestamped files with original source code, and a poster signed by TBL himself, who called the asset the “most appropriate means of ownership that exist” for such an intangible thing.
Shead has also reported that proceeds are expected to go to some type of charity that Berners-Lee and his wife support, although details are scant.
“Are the proceeds from this auction going to charity or his wallet?” asks Reddit user Fleischgewehr2021 on a thread. “Also who buys these things?”
Other Redditors have in-depth comments on the philosophy of allowing TBL to credit himself with building the web in the first place.
“I think it’s rather misleading to credit any individual with inventing the web, for a few reasons,” writes one user represented by a number instead of a name. “First, 99% of the engineering behind webpage is the underlying, less apparent aspects like TCP. Second, very little of the webpage you are looking at now could have been implemented with that simple first version of HTTP. Third, there were many different protocols for slinging text around at the time – yes, including hyperlinks. HTTP is the one that won out. None of what I am saying disputes the fact that Berners-Lee has had as much or more impact on the web as we know it as any other individual. But there is no individual without whom it wouldn’t be pretty much the same as it is now at this point.”
How much will TBL’s “source code” NFT bring? If you are into NFTs, this is one to watch.
