UC Berkeley to auction NFTs of Nobel prize-winning documents
BERKELEY (BCN) — Imagine placing an image of Nobel prize-winning research on your wall. That's what science enthusiasts could do with a digital image of documents that will be put up for auction as soon as Wednesday by UC Berkeley.
The university will auction off an image showing the initial research findings of Jim Allison's work on cancer immunotherapy at UC Berkeley.
Allison's documents show what was "the very first step in the patenting process," said Rich Lyons, UC Berkeley's chief innovation and entrepreneurship officer.
The highest bidder will receive a nonfungible token, also known as an NFT, which represents ownership in a unique item, like research documents.
Lyons said the idea for selling the token for the research documents germinated two weeks ago. Recent UC Berkeley graduates were recruited to help with the process.
NFTs have been used to sell other things such as more traditional artwork as well as Edward Snowden's fundraiser for Freedom of the Press Foundation.
