Source code by Tim Berner-Lee: Origin of the WWW auctioned for 4.5 million euros

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Was not auctioned, but has something to do with the WWW: Tim Berners-Lee's work computer, on which he wrote the source code

Photo: Philip Toscano / dpa

Tim Berners-Lee is considered one of the pioneers of the Internet.

On March 12, 1989, the scientist presented his proposal for an information management system from which the World Wide Web emerged.

At that time, Berners-Lee was working at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva.

Now the source code that he wrote at the time has been auctioned in the form of a so-called NFT and for the proud price of the equivalent of 4.5 million euros.

New York auction house Sotheby's organized the weeklong auction for the program, which paved the way for the Internet in its current form.

The digital work includes an animated version of Berners-Lee's nearly 10,000 line long code as well as a letter from the British-born computer scientist.

"Changed every aspect of life"

NFT stands for Non-Fungible Token - a virtual good that is unique and not exchangeable.

This is a kind of digital certificate of authenticity: there can be any number of identical copies of the item, but an NFT represents the original.

NFTs are currently experiencing a boom: a linked copy of a collage by digital artist Beeple was recently auctioned for a good $ 69.3 million.

Like cryptocurrencies, the system is based on blockchain technology.

In contrast to cryptocurrencies, a non-fungible token is unique and to a certain extent a virtual collector's item that can be sold or exchanged using a certificate.

"We wouldn't have been able to do this ten years ago," said Sotheby's Vice President Cassandra Hatton, referring to the recent hype surrounding NFTs.

The work is unique because of its importance for the development of the Internet.

"It changed every aspect of life," said Hatton.

Berners-Lee wants to donate his share of the sales proceeds to charity.

In 1989, the physicist and later computer scientist envisioned an information sharing system that would enable scientists to access data from anywhere in the world.

He called the new network the World Wide Web.

Between 1990 and 1991, Berners-Lee wrote the program that created the first Internet browser, thus creating the basis for today's Internet.

beb / afp