PARIS: The first SMS ever sent over a mobile phone in 1992 was sold Tuesday as an NFT at auction for 107,000 euros ($120,600), the Aguttes auction house said.
The buyer, whose identity was not disclosed but is a Canadian involved in the tech sector, is now the owner of a unique digital replica of the first SMS message in the form of a Non-Fungible Token, or NFT.
The first SMS was a 15-character message sent to Vodafone employee Richard Jarvis wishing him “Merry Christmas”.
NFTs are digital items that can be bought and sold using blockchain technology. They have become immensely popular for collectors, including artwork which sold for nearly $70 million at auction earlier this year.
Among those in the auction hall was 18-year-old blockchain entrepreneur Luigi Caradonna, who bowed out of bidding when the price rose above 75,000 euros.
“I thought it would be interesting to have this piece of history to hold it as an asset until next year and to sell it next Christmas,” he told AFP.
Mobile network operator Vodafone has said it plans to donate its proceeds from the sale to the UN’s refugee agency.
What are NFTs?
NFTs, a type of digital asset, have exploded in popularity this year, with NFT artworks selling for millions of dollars.
The trend is perplexing those who might wonder why so much money is being spent on items that only exist in digital form and can be viewed by anyone for free.
But supporters view NFTs as the next phase in art collection.
Simply put, an NFT is a digital asset that exists on a blockchain, a record of transactions kept on networked computers. The blockchain serves as a public ledger, allowing anyone to verify the NFT's authenticity and who owns it.
So unlike most digital items which can be endlessly reproduced, each NFT has a unique digital signature, meaning it is one of a kind.
NFTs are usually bought with cryptocurrencies or in dollars and the blockchain keeps a record of transactions. While anyone can view the NFT, only the buyer has the status of being the official owner - a kind of digital bragging rights.
Buying an NFT of an image or video does not normally mean the buyer gets the copyright of the underlying item.
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