The Defiant

The World Wide Web Is Now an NFT

The source code for the World Wide Web is being turned into an NFT.  Created by World Wide Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the NFT is composed of four elements: the time-stamped files containing the source code, a moving visualization of the code, a letter written by Berners-Lee reflecting on the code’s creation, and a…

By: Dan Kahan Loading...

The source code for the World Wide Web is being turned into an NFT.

Created by World Wide Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the NFT is composed of four elements: the time-stamped files containing the source code, a moving visualization of the code, a letter written by Berners-Lee reflecting on the code’s creation, and a digital poster of the full code created from the original files using Python.

The NFT, called “This Changed Everything,” will be auctioned off on June 23 by Sotheby’s, the art auction house that’s been dabbling in NFT artwork recently. The auction will run through June 30, with proceeds benefiting initiatives supported by Berners-Lee and his wife.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the first hypermedia browser, the “WorldWideWeb” application, in 1989. Allowing users to create and navigate links between files across a network of computers, the invention paved the way for the modern internet.

Now, the commemorative NFT project gives collectors the opportunity to own the source code as a one-of-one art piece.
“This Changed Everything” is the latest in a recent trend of NFTs that transform historical events into avant-garde collectibles. On June 8, UC Berkeley sold the first-ever NFT based on a Nobel Prize ̶a digital collage of 10 pages of details and research commemorating James Allison’s breakthrough research into cancer immunotherapy. The Nobel Prize NFT, titled “The Fourth Pillar,” sold for $55k on Foundation, with UC Berkeley ear-marking the proceeds for education and research.

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