Tor Project to Auction First .onion Domain as NFT

The Tor Project, a nonprofit behind the Tor network, will put up for NFT auction the access key to the first onion service, Dusk.

Minted now, @withFND. We collaborated with @ix_shells to create a one-of-a-kind NFT: a generative art piece derived using the first onion service’s private key. https://t.co/9HhqPCPCHm

— The Tor Project (@torproject) May 12, 2021

The lot includes the private cryptographic key RSA-1024 and a piece of art created using it, titled Dreaming at Dusk.

The auction will take place on Foundation. The Tor Project team will announce the start of bidding separately.

The cryptographic key will be delivered to the auction winner on November 1, 2021, by any convenient method: as an encrypted message, via blockchain, on a USB drive, or on a DVD.

By that date, Tor will have completed migrating onion services from version 2 to version 3. This means the winner cannot use the Dusk private key to host services and it will be purely a historical artifact.

In April, former National Security Agency and CIA contractor Edward Snowden sold his first NFT “Stay Free” for 2224 ETH (about $5.4 million at the time of the sale). The token depicts an encrypted portrait of Snowden in excerpts from documents from a lawsuit alleging NSA violations of U.S. law.

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