Tim Berners-Lee Auctions World Wide Web Source Code as NFT Through Sotheby's

Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, is auctioning the original source code from 1989 as an NFT through Sotheby's with a starting price of £1,000. The NFT includes time-stamped files containing 9,555 lines of code written by Berners-Lee, an animated visualization, and a digital poster featuring his signature. This code established HTML, HTTP, and URIs—foundational technologies that power the web today. Berners-Lee published the first website on 20 December 1990, which explained how to use browsers and set up web servers. Proceeds from the sale will support his charitable initiatives. In a letter to the winning bidder, Berners-Lee reflects on the collaborative growth of the web and notes that work continues to improve it. He described creating the web by connecting hypertext with existing protocols like TCP and DNS, calling it a process of generalization and abstraction.