Charlie Bit My Finger, one of YouTube's first viral videos, was auctioned off as a Non-Fungible Token (NFT) on May 22 for over $700,000 and will be removed from YouTube on May 23. The video, originally posted on May 22, 2007, has accumulated over 883 billion views over its fourteen years of public availability.
A NFT is a cryptocurrency-adjacent "token" that represents some tangible object, physical or digital. As large companies such as SEGA break into the NFT market, the concept has come under fire for not inherently being linked to the object in question, and the Charlie Bit My Finger NFT is no exception. YouTube downloaders are available that could circumvent the entire point of the auction.
The HDCYT YouTube channel that hosts the original clip is now owned by Harry and Charlie Davies-Carr, the subjects of the video. To become part of what they call the "next exciting thing," Harry and Charlie launched a website to auction off the NFT before Charlie Bit My Finger's removal, supposedly giving the sender of the $760,999 winning bid ownership of the video. The winner of the auction will not only win the NFT, but the opportunity to re-create the video with the original stars as well.
NFTs themselves are currently at the center of a large controversy, as the amount of NFTs being minted use enough electricity to cause measurable environmental harm, as well as contributing to the graphics card shortage that began when Bitcoin hit it big. This graphics card shortage has become so significant in recent years that NVIDIA is implementing custom drivers to limit cryptocurrency mining and NFT minting. Naturally, cryptocurrency is required to bid on the Charlie Bit My Finger NFT.
Harry and Charlie cashing in on NFTs will undoubtedly net them a significant amount of money from the highest bidder, but there is no telling how reliable the NFT will be. NFTs are essentially URLs pointing to a resource, stored on the servers of the company that manages them, and if those servers ever shut down the NFT is gone forever. Cryptocurrency mining has had a complicated past, and the similar blockchain-based technology employed in NFT minting are already stirring up controversy.
While NFTs may not be all they're cracked up to be, that hasn't stopped iconic companies like Atari from getting in on them. Regardless of the harm they cause, NFTs are the current digital market trend as seen by this push by a viral YouTube video, and they may stay that way for a while.
Source: Charlie Bit Me NFT, YouTube