Vodafone, the British telco giant, has planned to auction the world’s first Short Message Service (SMS) in the form of a nonfungible token (NFT) today.
It has been reported that the SMS, that reads “Merry Christmas,” was sent 29 years ago over the Vodafone network on Dec 3, 1992, and was received by Richard Jarvis, an employee at the time.
However, the historic 15 character-long SMS will be auctioned off as an NFT in a one-off sale conducted by the Aguttes Auction House in France. By auctioning off the world’s first SMS in the form of NFT, Vodafone intends to redirect the earnings to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (the UN Refugee Agency) for helping the forcibly displaced people.
The report said that the advertisement banner above translates to "Merry Christmas. The world's first SMS auctioned for charity as NFT." Vodafone’s SMS NFT is taking place today (December 21) via an online auction wherein the participants can place bids using Ethereum (ETH).
Likewise, the highest bidder will own exclusive ownership of the communication protocol that was used to transmit the world’s first SMS. Adding to the SMS’ glory, it took nine years for other networks to have Vodafone’s ability to transmit and receive SMS. This move of minting the world’s first SMS is another example of NFT’s ability to tokenize and digitally preserve history.
It is to be mentioned that the NFT ecosystem has catalyzed crypto’s mainstream adoption as corporations find its use cases within their existing business models. Just last week, sportswear manufacturer Adidas announced the launch of an “Into the Metaverse” NFT collection.
As reported, the Adidas Originals NFT sale will be hosted on the company’s official website on December 17 at a price of 0.2 ETH, approximately worth $810 as of December 18.
Thus, just days before Adidas’ entry, Nike too acquired a virtual sneakers and collectibles brand RTFKT, signaling a strong interest in the metaverse.
Source: Cointelegraph
Comments