Viral homemade YouTube video, Charlie Bit My Finger, was on Sunday auctioned as a non-fungible token at a mouth-watering price of $760,999 or 313 million naira.

Marking its 14th anniversary, the viral sensation of the 2000s which showed baby Charlie nibbling at his elder brother Harry’s finger was decidedly auctioned by the Davies-Carr family on Sunday.

It appeared to be a regular sell out until the late bidding hours, when anonymous bidder, 3fmusic, beat competition from mememaster to own an opportunity in creating a modern take on the classic clip.

Rest in Peace, Charlie Bit My Finger. A piece of YouTube history will be gone forever as it is being auction as an NFT. pic.twitter.com/LJcM4ECIa7

— Crimson Mayhem (@Crimson_Mayhem_) May 21, 2021

Since it was uploaded to YouTube, the home video with little boy Harry and his little brother Charlie has amassed over 883 million views. The Davies-Carr family said they would remove it from the platform following Sunday’s auction, CNN reports.

What Are NFTs? 

NFTs are unique digital assets backed by blockchain technology which consist of identifying information stored in smart contracts that allows to verify its authenticity and ownership, the two main problems associated with digital works of art.

In lay man’s terms, a non-fungible token is a license, certificate or document that affirms and confirms someone as the owner of a digital work. Just as a piece of land in Nigeria needs a C of O to confirm ownership, so also a digital piece needs an NFT.

Whoever makes or “mints” an NFT can set both the price and the number of copies. Since NFTs cannot be replicated, the creator can perpetuate the scarcity or uniqueness of their asset and artificially increase its value. The application of copyright to NFT can be defined in two ways: one in which the buyer owns the copyright and the second in which the artist retains the copyright.

Recent Rise in Popularity

Even though they have been around in the crypto space since 2017, NFTs have made major news this year, surpassing a total of more than $325 million spent on sales completed in May. This represents a massive increase in popularity compared to NFT’s total volume of $250 million traded in all of 2020, which NonFungible data shows.

The internet and social media allowed artists to upload and share their digital works of art, but unfortunately, along with the ease of promotion, online piracy of these works emerged. This is where NFTs become invaluable, as they also empower artists to truly monetize their work.

Grimes, Johnny Depp and even Twitter founder Jack Dorsey have all sold NFTs of their work for large sums.