n The online auction compares the value of Steve Jobs’ first job application with the value of a purely digital copy of the same letter, and ends in a decisive victory in the real world.
In this world’s first auction, the future Apple master’s printed paper documents were sold as digital versions at the same time, at the same starting price, and encoded deep on the Internet.
But a week later, 43 bids for the physical lot ended with a final price of $343,000-and its blockchain avatar attracted only 10 bidders and ended with 12 Ether-worth $27,460.
Jobs died of cancer in 2011 at the age of 56. He filled out an application for an unknown position in 1973. A year ago he joined the video game startup Atari, where he met Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.
Jobs listed his early interests and skills in the table, and pointed out his experience in computers, calculators, design and electronic technology.
He went on to say that, ironically, he did not have a phone, and-although he had a driver’s license-he was “possible, but unlikely” to use transportation.
Four months ago, young entrepreneur Olly Joshi and a group of like-minded colleagues bought the application form for £204,000 at an auction held in Chatfield.
He sold the form together with its non-fungible token (NFT). NFT is a unique digital asset that represents real-world objects cast on the blockchain and can guarantee its authenticity. The buyer owns the original digital asset, and its authenticity proof is built into the NFT code.
A large auction house first offered pure digital art with NFT in March, when Christie sold a work by digital artist Mike Winklemann (aka Beeple) for $70 million (£51 million). This is also the first time that cryptocurrency has been used to pay for artworks at a large auction.
Before the auction, Josh had stated that he hoped that this lot would “be a massive testament to the NFT and its role in culture”.
