Charlie bit my finger video taken off YouTube and sold as NFT for £500,000

One of the world's first viral videos has been taken off YouTube and sold as an NFT for $760,999 (£538,000).The much-loved clip of Charlie biting his older brother Harry's finger was auctioned by the Davies-Carr family.

Non-fungible tokens or NFTs are digital assets such as jpegs and video clips that hold value as a crypto token that are unique and can't be exchanged.

They are usually sold on cryptocurrency marketplaces with purchases often being made in currencies like Etherum.

Although the original video has been taken down, copies will still be available on YouTube.

The 2007 video of brothers Harry, then aged three, and Charlie, one, was initially intended to be seen by family and friends.

The 56-second video went viral after it was shared on a college networking site in the US and has gone on to be viewed hundreds of millions of times worldwide.

The Davis-Carr family, who owned the video, said in statement: "The iconic video will be removed from YouTube and one person will have the opportunity to own it in its new form as a 1/1 NFT, memorialising them in internet history forever.

"The NFT winner will also get the opportunity to create their own parody of the video featuring the original stars, Harry and Charlie."

The statement added: "Harry and Charlie, now 17 and 15, are soon entering adulthood and embarking on the next chapter of their lives, the perfect opportunity to embrace the next iteration of the internet.

"Charlie Bit My Finger has been a huge part of the Davies-Carr family's lives for the past 14 years, and they are excited to welcome others to become a part of their story.

"This is not the end of the beloved video, but rather a new beginning."

In March, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey sold his first-ever tweet as an NFT for more than 2.9 million US dollars (£2.09 million), donating the money to a charity battling coronavirus in Africa.

NFTs have become a huge success recently and have attracted artists from across the world who want to sell their work as a unique digital asset as opposed to the endless free circulation their content often gets online.