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Vodafone to sell world’s first-ever SMS as NFT; funds to go to UNHCR
The winning bidder will receive tangible assets, which include a digital picture frame to display the SMS, news agency Deutsche Welle reported, along with a guarantee certificate signed by the Vodafone Group CEO Nick Read and a detailed replica of the original communication protocol.
Communications giant Vodafone will auction its first-ever short message service (SMS), sent three decades ago, as a non-fungible token (NFT).
The message, which is of 15 characters, said ‘Merry Christmas’ and changed the way the world communicated and soon after another telecommunications giant, Nokia followed suit by enabling customers to send SMS via their mobile phones. It was sent by engineer Neil Papworth to Richard Jarvis to his Orbitel 901 handset.
The winning bidder will receive tangible assets, which include a digital picture frame to display the SMS, news agency Deutsche Welle reported, along with a guarantee certificate signed by the Vodafone Group CEO Nick Read and a detailed replica of the original communication protocol.
The winning bidder will additionally receive sent and receipt documents of the message along with the PDF and TXT version of the first SMS ever sent. The guarantee certificate signed by Read will act as a confirmation of the digital collectible’s authenticity.
The winning bidder will have to make the payment via Ether, or Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin.
Vodafone has pledged the proceeds of the auction to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for providing aid to displaced communities.
“Technology has always had the power to innovate and change the world,” UNHCR’s private sector partnerships service head, Christian Schaake, was quoted as saying by Vodafone, according to Deutsche Welle.
“Through this combination of groundbreaking tech and movement for social good, UNHCR can continue helping refugees and people who've been forced from home, giving them an opportunity to transform their lives and build better futures for themselves, their loved ones and communities they're living in,” Schaake added.
The auction will be carried out by Aguttes auction house in Paris, which said the proceeds may range between $100,000 to $226,000.
NFTs, according to ethereum.org, are tokens that can be used to ‘represent ownership of unique items’. NFTs can only have one official owner at a time and it allows tokenisation of art, collectibles and anything digital. The NFTs are also secured by the Ethereum blockchain.
