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Internet inventor to auction code source for world wide web in token format — Sotheby’s

The sale titled This Changed Everything will be held online from June 23 to 30 with bidding starting at $1,000

LONDON, June 15. /TASS/. British computer scientists Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the World Wide Web technology (WWW), will auction code source for WWW in the format of a non-fungible token (NFT), Sotheby's announced on Tuesday.

According to the press release, this lot will become the first "digital-born artefact’ put on auction. The sale titled This Changed Everything will be held online from June 23 to 30 with bidding starting at $1,000.

"Three decades ago, I created something, which, with the subsequent help of a huge number of collaborators across the world, has been a powerful tool for humanity. For me, the best bit about the web has been the spirit of collaboration. While I do not make predictions about the future, I sincerely hope its use, knowledge and potential will remain open and available to us all to continue to innovate, create and initiate the next technological transformation, that we cannot yet imagine. NFTs, be they artworks or a digital artefact like this, are the latest playful creations in this realm, and the most appropriate means of ownership that exists. They are the ideal way to package the origins behind the web," Berners-Lee said as quoted by Sotheby's.

NFT is a digital certificate attached to a unique object. A non-fungible token is unique and cannot be faked or replaced with another. NFT technology was created in 2017 based on Ethereum smart contracts. During the existence of NFT, 5.35 million tokens were sold.

Creation of the Internet

Berners-Lee first came up with the idea of creating hyperlinked Internet pages with standard addresses in 1989. As an employee of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), he proposed using this technology for quick and convenient access to the documentation and research files of the center. Belgian Robert Cailliau took over the idea to develop organizational aspects of the new technology.

On November 12, 1990, Berners-Lee and Cailliau officially presented the project to the CERN leadership, for the first time calling their development the World Wide Web. The next month, the first site on the CERN intranet was launched, and on August 6, 1991, the technology became available to all Internet users.

To open web pages Berners-Lee created the first-ever browser - WorldWideWeb, later renamed Nexus. The addresses on the World Wide Web are known as the "unified resource locator" (URL). As conceived by the creators of the WWW, any resource should have its own unique URL.