The very first Wikipedia page has been auctioned off at Christie’s. The strawberry-colored Mac computer on which Wikipedia was programmed in 2001 also went under the hammer.
The computer of co-founder Jimmy Wales brought in 166,000 euros and the digital certificate from the very first page four times as much: about 664,000 euros. The first Wikipedia page only had the text “Hello world”.
The sale of digital products is now possible thanks to blockchain technology. This allows someone to acquire ownership of a non-exchangeable characteristic, i.e. non-fungible token (NFT). Earlier, the first Twitter message was auctioned as NFT.
Project
Proceeds from the auction of the computer and Wikipedia page will go to fund a Wales project. That project is committed to websites without advertising, tracking and data collection.
The online encyclopedia Wikipedia has been around for over twenty years and is now available in 300 languages. The website attracts more than 15 billion visitors every month.
