The computer was displayed at Christie’s New York headquarters at Rockefeller Center, a strawberry-colored iMAC, “his personal computer, which he was using in development and research when the site launched on January 15, 2001,” the company wrote in a press release.

The second batch is NFT, a unique digital object certified using blockchain technology, “created by Jimmy Wales that shows what Wikipedia looked like when he installed it and launched his front page,” with the phrase “Hello world,” explained Peter Klarnet, a books and manuscripts specialist at Christie’s.

For his project WT.Social

The page, presented in a JPEG image format, will be interactive and the buyer can “edit” it in order to “recreate the Wikipedia building experience,” then “return to its initial state with a timer,” Christie’s writes.

In the statement, Jimmy Wales announced that a portion of the sale will fund his social enterprise WT, “a decentralized, non-commercial social network with no advertising, no tracking and data collection, and no misinformation,” he explains. On its homepage, WT.Social describes itself as a “non-toxic social network”.

Both pieces are on sale online through December 15, starting at $100 each. Christie hopes to sell it for “hundreds of thousands of dollars”.

ATS