The first Wikipedia edit 'Hello, World!' is being auctioned as an NFT

[jsilva]

What just happened? On January 15, 2001, Jimmy Wales made his first edit on Wikipedia, marking the launch of the most famous free online encyclopedia in the world. Now, Christie's will be auctioning this same edit as an NFT alongside the strawberry-colored iMac computer he used to create the site.

The auction titled "The Birth of Wikipedia" will run from December 3 to December 15. The highest bidder will be allowed to edit the work as they see fit. Wales said making the work modifiable seem like the right way "to express artistically what [he thinks] was meaningful about that moment of potential and excitement — that you might make something amazing, or you might make something that doesn't work at all."

Part of the proceeds from the sale of the NFT will support WT.Social, a social network project from Wales that aims to create a healthy and safe alternative to traditional social media platforms. This platform is ad-free and uses a donation-based model, so any extra money would be welcome to further develop the project.

The first edit on Wikipedia was made by co-founder Jimmy Wales on January 15, 2001: "Hello, World!"

"Wikipedia stands as the largest aggregation of human knowledge ever assembled," said Peter Klarnet, Christie's senior specialist for Americana, books and manuscripts. "It's a testament to the power of what crowd-sourcing can achieve: allowing billions of people access to a vast trove of information — and all of it free of charge."

NFTs have been making headlines lately, as some are willing to pay $650,000 for a yacht only available in the metaverse, buy the very first tweet ever made for $3 million, or even spend $5.4 million for the source code of the World Wide Web. The current record-holder for the most expensive NFT is a collage of digital art named "Everydays: The First 5000 Days," which sold for $69 million.

Images credit: Christie's

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https://www.techspot.com/news/92497-first-wikipedia-edit-hello-world-auctioned-nft.html

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Hundres fo thousands sold for a friggin JPEG. The state of clown world. That economic crash cant some soon enough.

"Part of the proceeds from the sale of the NFT will support WT.Social, a social network project from Wales that aims to create a healthy and safe alternative to traditional social media platforms."

So a safe space for the sensitive peter pans that are still triggered in the hyper sensitive world of modern safe spaces? Spending the money on tendies to drown their feelings in would be a more worthwhile effort.

 

[Geralt]

I will offer 3 dollars for it.

 

[Jpe1701]

I just right clicked it if anyone wants a copy. You'll have to live without the 20 year old pink imac though.

 

[Raytrace3D]

I'm still puzzled why in the world would anyone buy or be interested in buying an original digital anything... like who gives a care? Seriously?

If anyone is interested, I have some Hello World apps written in C back in the mid-90's if anyone wants them...