The world of modern technologies never ceases to amaze – today, December 3, Jimmy Wales, one of the creators of the world-famous encyclopedia Wikipedia, announced his desire to sell a non-fungible token (NFT, recorded in the Ethereum blockchain) for the first revision during the auction, written on the now famous platform – this was announced by the information publication The Verge. This token is, in fact, a kind of key to the earliest version of Wikipedia, which was first launched in January 2001.
“What you see on the screen is exactly what the encyclopedia looked like when I first launched the software,” said Jimmy Wales.
After the sale of the NFT token, the original Wikipedia page from 2001 will be posted on the Internet and, like the entire encyclopedia, it will be possible to view and edit it – everyone will have access to these functions. However, unlike the current Wikipedia, the original 20-year-old site will revert to its original state five minutes after the changes are made, leaving only the words “Hello, World!” – this is, one might say, a classic phrase and a tribute to the traditions of programming. In this case, the future owner of the token can disable the editing function or completely close access to this page.
The auction house for such an unusual collectible will be held by the Christie auction house from December 3 to December 15. Together with the token for the first revision of Wikipedia, the iMac Wales computer, from which Jimmy Wales first launched the free encyclopedia on the network, was also put up for sale. The proceeds, which is quite expected, the founder of Wikipedia does not plan to keep for himself – all the proceeds will go to the WT.Social fund, which was founded by Wales himself and has been involved in charity work since 2019.
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