Like the creator of the web pages, Jimmy Wales has also decided to sell his creation as an NFT, for charity.
The NFT they are revolutionizing digital asset sales, which already have the same value and authenticity as physical objects.
A few weeks ago the creator of the web pages, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, sold the WWW code as an NFT, for $ 5.4 million.
Now Wikipedia creator Jimmy Wales sells the first entry, the first record in the world’s largest encyclopedia, also as an NFT. Here you can see it:
It is the first test that he carried out on January 15, 2001, and consisted of writing the famous phrase Hello, World! (Hello world!), A tradition among computer scientists when it comes to testing if something works for the first time.
Jimmy Wales is auctioning off this first Wikipedia entry in web page format, fully functional.
The buyer will be able to edit that website and do what they want with it, even create their own Wikipedia, or let others do it.
The auction will take place between December 3 and 15 through Christie’s auction house, as reported The Verge.
It will also be auctioned the computer where Wikipedia was created, a strawberry / pink 90s iMac.
All the money raised will go to charities and the social network WT.Social, which Jimmy Wales himself has created. An alternative to Facebook and the like where they are not allowed fake news nor science deniers.
A NFT It is a Non-Fungible Good. A digital asset that is unique.
Is about a simple computer file containing an image, a video, music, a document… any digital element can be converted to NFT.
How can a digital photo, for example, be unique if infinite identical copies can be made? Because it is associated with a unique key held within a cryptocurrency blockchain.
The chain of blocks or blockchain (normally that of the cryptocurrency Ethereum is used) grants a unique key to a digital file, and since that chain cannot be hacked or copied, that file becomes an NFT as unique and special as it can be to buy a Picasso painting on the physical market.
Taking into account the historical importance of the Wikipedia, one of the most important projects on the Internet, surely the NFT of the first Wikipedia entry It ends up selling for several million dollars.