Cryptocurrencies

Nobel-Prize-Winning Data Is Focus of Berkeley NFT Contest

  • Alumni from blockchain hub formed group on winning bid
  • Auction was first of its kind for university research
Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
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A group of University of California at Berkeley alumni exploring the use of blockchain technology to promote research were the winning bidders in a first-of-its kind auction of digital data related to Nobel-Prize-winning work on groundbreaking cancer treatments.

Some 30 graduates, many from the university’s Blockchain at Berkeley, formed a venture capital-like group known as a decentralized autonomous organization, and outbid three anonymous bidders. Last-minute bidding drove the price up to 22 ethereum, equal to a little more than $55,000, for the non-fungible token of the digitized documents.