Vodafone auctioned its first short message service (SMS), sent three decades ago, as a non-fungible token (NFT). The 15-character message, which read ‘Merry Christmas,’ revolutionized the way the world communicated, and shortly after, another telecoms behemoth, Nokia, followed suit by allowing users to send SMS via their mobile phones. It was sent to Richard Jarvis’ Orbitel 901 cellphone by engineer Neil Papworth.
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It was sold on Tuesday for 107,000 euros ($121,000) as a ‘Non-Fungible Token’ at a Paris auction house.
According to news agency Deutsche Welle, the successful bidder will receive tangible assets such as a digital image frame to show the SMS, as well as a guarantee certificate signed by Vodafone Group CEO Nick Read and a detailed replica of the original communication protocol.
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The winning bidder will also obtain the message’s sent and received documents, as well as the PDF and TXT versions of the first SMS ever sent. Read’s signature on the guarantee certificate will serve as an assurance of the digital collectible’s authenticity.
Vodafone will donate all proceeds from the auction to UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, to support the 82.4 million people who have been forced to flee their homes due to conflict and persecution.
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“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.
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NFT stands for a non-fungible token, which implies non-replaceable, and is essentially a digital collectible. Unlike cash or bitcoin, which are fungible assets that may be exchanged for something of equivalent value, such as other currencies, an NFT is a one-of-a-kind item that cannot be traded. They are digital assets with no physical form that may be purchased and traded. While digital media files (‘jpeg’ photographs or animated ‘gifs’) may be stored and reproduced indefinitely, purchasing an NFT ensures that you possess the original artwork.