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Summary
- One of YouTube’s most viewed videos – “Charlie Bit My Finger” – has sold at auction as an NFT for US$761,000.
- A Non-Fungible Token (NFT) is a digital asset that can hold valuables such as art and cryptocurrency.
- Upon the sale, the famous YouTube clip was subsequently deleted from the internet.
One of the internet’s first mega-viral videos has been sold as a non-fungible token for a nifty six-figure sum on Sunday.
The classic “Charlie Bit My Finger”, which first appeared on YouTube in 2007, sold at an auction for a whopping US$761,000.
© Akorcagin | Megapixl.com
The video – just shy of one minute in length – features English brothers, Charlie and Harry, both seated in the back seat of a car. The younger child, Charlie, sits on his brother’s lap and decides to take a chomp of the older sibling’s pointer finger and giggles in delight as Harry says, “Ow, Charlie! Charlie bit me!”.
Just what it was exactly about the 55-second clip that captured the world’s imagination is up for debate. The home video is one of the most popular in YouTube’s history, with 882 million views.
What Does This Mean?
The recent sale of “Charlie Bit My Finger” essentially means that the purchaser, who goes by the handle, ‘3fmusic’, now owns the rights to that video through something known as a ‘non-fungible token’ (NFT). An NFT is a digital asset that holds information, in this case, a 55-second video.
The purchaser is now the proud owner of the original clip, along with a certificate of authenticity.
Meanwhile, the popular YouTube clip has been deleted from YouTube immediately following the sale.
Sunday’s sale follows a recent trend over the past year where popular internet memes and artefacts have been sold to buyers, making them the exclusive owner of that particular piece.
In April 2021, the famous “Disaster Girl” meme, where a four-year-old girl is photographed smiling at the camera whilst a house in the background is engulfed in flames, sold for US$500,000.
ALSO READ: NFTs Explained: What is a non-fungible token and how does it work?
