The world's first-ever SMS was sold at the Aguttes auction house in Paris for 130,680 euros, Reuters reports.
The 15-character text message that says "Merry Christmas" was sold as an NFT, a non-fungible token that gives exclusive ownership of various digital objects. These two words were sent by Vodafone engineer Neil Papworth. On December 2, 1992, he sent the message from his computer to his colleague Richard Jarvis, who received the SMS on his Orbitel 901 phone.
The buyer, who wished to remain anonymous, received the replica of the original communication protocol through which the message was transmitted, as well as a digital frame with the image of the message.
Vodafone said it plans to donate the proceeds from the sale to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR).