Morgan Chittum

<div id="highlights-block_61bbbe2fe4678" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Santos additionally bought the Strawberry iMAC Wikipedia co-founder used while developing the website</li>
 <li>PleasrDAO’s NFT collection consists of the popular Doge meme, Edward Snowden court documents and more</li>
 </ul>
 
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An NFT of Jimmy Wales saying “Hello world” on Wikipedia sold for $750,000 at <a href="https://www.christies.com/features/First-Wikipedia-edit-to-be-sold-as-NFT-11983-1.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Christie’s</a> auction house on Wednesday. Prominent Web3 investor Santiago Santos purchased the NFT for PleasrDAO, a decentralized autonomous organization most commonly known for buying the one-of-kind <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/20/arts/music/wu-tang-clan-once-upon-a-time-in-shaolin.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">WuTang album</a>, Blockworks has exclusively learned. 



“I bought it because I think it&#8217;s priceless,” Santos said.



The bidder, who was initially anonymous, told Blockworks that he spent almost $1 million on the collectible because it was “emblematic of Web3.”



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“Wikipedia also open-sourced knowledge,” Santos said, adding that the website has also gone through similar stages as cryptocurrency. “There&#8217;s a lot of parallels. We&#8217;ve [also] gone through this phase of [people seeing] crypto as a scam.”</blockquote>



The non-fungible token (NFT), which displays co-founder Wales’ first-ever edit in 2002, was auctioned off alongside the Strawberry iMAC Wales used while developing the website. Santos purchased this at auction as well on Wednesday.&nbsp;



“What you see displayed is what Wikipedia looked like at the moment that I set up the software,” Wales previously told “<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/3/22808679/jimmy-wales-nft-first-wikipedia-edit-imac-christies-auction" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Verge</a>,” adding that proceeds from the auction will go toward charities like WT.Social, a donation-backed social network that he founded three years ago.



The ultimate buyer of the NFT will now be able to edit the post — and change it back to its original appearance — whenever they want, according to a statement from Christie&#8217;s.&nbsp;



Santos said that he was “shocked” at paying just $750,000 for the NFT and “thought it was going to go for way more.” He said that he was prepared to bid a maximum of “$2.5 million or more.”



“I think a lot of times when you&#8217;re collecting, you have to ask yourself, ‘Does this endure the test of time?’” Santos said. “There&#8217;s already so much emotional and historical attachment attached to Wikipedia.”



The NFT will be placed in PleasrDAO’s collection, which consists of tokenized <a href="https://foundation.app/@Snowden/~/24437" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Edward Snowden</a> court documents, the popular <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/original-4m-doge-nft-meme-auctioned-off-in-17-billion-pieces" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Doge meme</a> and more, according to Santos, who was a founding member of the organization.



This is not the first time a prominent auction house has associated itself with a DAO.



The winning bid for the Wikipedia NFT follows the explosive efforts around <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/constitutiondao-shutting-down-after-raising-49m/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ConstitutionDAO</a>, a group of more than 17,000 crypto investors who raised roughly $48.9 million to buy a copy of the US Constitution at Sotheby&#8217;s in November.&nbsp;



“It’s really exciting to see these auction houses get so embedded in NFTs,” Santos said. “It speaks to where the space is going and how mainstream NFTs have become.”



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Exclusive: Why One Investor Bought an NFT of Wikipedia’s First Edit for $750K

Casey Wagner

<div id="highlights-block_6182d8091c279" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Wiki founder Jimmy Wales talked about the future of social media and the impact of blockchain technology at the NFT NYC event </li>
 <li>Wiki’s business model is fundamentally at odds with most of the internet </li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



NFT NYC — Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has considered several pitches for implementing blockchain technology into the online encyclopedia. The problem? Most ideas are fundamentally at odds with Wiki’s business model.&nbsp;



“There were a lot of ideas that people have and a lot of them are really bad,” he said during a keynote discussion at the NFT NYC event in Times Square Wednesday.&nbsp;



It’s a bold statement to make to the self-proclaimed “crypto bull” crowd. The scoffs were audible, but Wales was unphased.&nbsp;



“One of the first things that pops into your mind with cryptocurrency is smart contracts, maybe we could do something where the contributors to Wikipedia could get paid,” Wales said. “Then people could bid on the best version of the article, and whoever writes the best one will get paid. Superficially, this sounds like a great idea.”



The issue is that what is true is not always the same as what readers are willing to pay for, Wales said. Wiki already faces challenges with contributors that are looking to paint a more positive narrative to benefit a company or interest, and paying writers would only exacerbate the issue.&nbsp;



Another idea? Using the blockchain to store all of Wiki’s data and make it immutable.&nbsp;



“Guess what? Immutability actually is really bad,” Wales said. “Sometimes people put stuff into Wikipedia that&#8217;s quite vicious, quite horrible. Like a celebrity&#8217;s home phone number or revenge porn, that sort of thing needs to go away.”



These examples, Wales said, prove that crypto has not yet been able to serve Wikipedia, but that’s not to say that there will never be applicable use cases.&nbsp;



“In terms of the fundamentals of Wikipedia, I don&#8217;t think crypto is going to affect us, but I do think that depends on the past,” he said.&nbsp;



The decentralization of finance may significantly impact how Wiki, a donation-funded charity, operates. Right now, the site’s finances are handled in a traditional manner, but if major disruption were to occur, there would have to be a shift, Wales said.&nbsp;



Wikipedia is also fundamentally different from many of the big players in the digital space today. It is not in the encyclopedia’s best interest to drive engagement the way that social media sites do.&nbsp;



“Advertising-based social media is largely toxic,” Wales said. “Engagement measured by number of comments means that people who offend people and stir up trouble get the most attention, and so being outrageous is a great way to get a huge following on social media. It’s not really healthy for discourse and dialogue.”&nbsp;



Creators would also suffer, which Wales pointed out is something the NFT community should keep in mind as it continues to involve artists and makers.&nbsp;



“What we have today, I would call it in a mild sort of way, is a ‘master-serf’ model for creators,” Wales said. “You go into big platforms and the ‘masters’ run those plantations, and you get a little bit of the percentage of the revenue and so forth, and if they don&#8217;t like what you&#8217;re doing, you get kicked off.”



Most platforms do not give creators genuine control over their work, but NFTs can potentially start to shift the narrative. Regardless of the use cases, or lack thereof, for Wiki, Wales said he is excited about watching the space grow.&nbsp;



“For me, that&#8217;s one of the most exciting things about the NFT space — this opportunity to move on from that in a real decentralized model for artists and creators,” he said. “I don&#8217;t have all the answers, I don’t know how that would work. That&#8217;s your job. Let&#8217;s figure it out.”