"Merry Christmas" - First SMS sells for over 100,000 euros in Paris auction
World+Biz
The first text message ever sent, reading "Merry Christmas," was sold on Tuesday for 107,000 euros ($121,000) as a 'Non-Fungible Token' at a Paris auction house.
The text, which was sent on Dec. 3, 1992, was put up for auction by the British telecoms company Vodafone.
Vodafone engineer Neil Papworth sent the SMS from his computer to a manager in the United Kingdom, who received it on his 2-kg (4 lb) "Orbitel" telephone - similar to a desk phone but cordless and with a handle.
"They were in the middle of end-of-year events so he sent him the message 'Merry Christmas'," said Maximilien Aguttes, head of development for the Aguttes Auction House.
Non-Fungible Tokens, or NFTs, are a type of digital asset that has surged in popularity this year, with NFT artworks selling for millions of dollars.
Traded since around 2017, these digital objects, which encompass images, video, music and text, exist on blockchain, a record of transactions kept on networked computers. Each NFT has a unique digital signature.
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