An NFT of the World Wide Web source code sold for $5.4 million: Report

The original source code for the World Wide Web sold at Sotheby’s on Wednesday for $5.4 million, up from a starting bid of just $1,000.

The code was sold by Tim Ber­ners-Lee, a computer scientist credited with writing the source code that forms the ba­s­is of the World Wide Web. Ber­n­­ers-Lee consigned the code for auction by attaching it to an NFT, a type of smart contract that uses blockchain tech.

“The process of bringing this NFT to auction has offered me the opportunity to look back in time to the moment I first sat down to write this code thirty years ago, and reflect on how far the web has come since then,” said Berners-Lee in a statement after the sale. “I am thrilled that the initiatives Ro­semary and I support will benefit from the sale of this NFT.”

The code was written in 1990 and 1991. For the auction, it was manifested as a salable collectible in four ways.