Christie’s is handling the auction, which runs from December
3 to the 15. Wales said he plans to use the money to develop an advertiser-free
social network.
Almost all of us go to Wikipedia, an online repository of
information and data created and edited by volunteers around the world. But not
many would know what was the first edit ever made to a Wikipedia page.
Thanks to blockchain technology and the rising craze for
non-fungible tokens, the creator of Wikipedia is auctioning a newly minted NFT
of the first edit made to a Wiki page. Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of
Wikipedia, launched this open-source project on January 15, 2001, and then
published “Hello World!” on it.
The NFT that Wales is selling is more than a JPEG capture of
the website. It will offer an interactive experience with a dedicated webpage.
Whoever is able to buy the NFT will be able to edit the “Hello World!” Wiki
page in whichever way they want and can also put the page back to its previous
state.
Wales is auctioning off another piece of Internet history.
His Strawberry iMac, which he used to develop the Wikipedia page. British
auction house Christie's is handling the auction, which will remain open until
December 15.
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey had minted his first tweet as
an NFT and sold it for $2.9 million in cryptocurrency.
Wales said he plans to use the money he raises via the
auction on developing an advertiser-free social network, according to a report
in Vice.
You can also see the Wiki page for yourself.
But what does Wales thinks about those who dislike NFTs and
cryptocurrency because of multiple reasons, which include areas like trust.
Wales said he understands there's a speculative bubble
around NFTs right now, but he's bullish on the technology in general.
“There's going to be a lot of stupid stuff and lots of bad
stuff,” he said. “But there is something quite interesting in all of it as
well.”