It had to be a simple family scene.

But the innocent sequence shot in 2007 and uploaded to YouTube has become cult.

Entitled "Charlie Bitten My Finger!"

This video between brothers is now one of the most watched on the internet and was snatched for nearly $ 761,000 from collectors of "NFT".

Viewed 883 million times on YouTube, it was sold by the Davies-Carr family on Sunday, during an auction destined for the NFT or “non-fungible tokens” market.

"Ouch Charlie"

These non-fungible tokens allow a certificate of authenticity to be associated with any virtual object, whether it is an image, photo, animation, video, piece of music or even a press article.

This certificate is theoretically inviolable and cannot be duplicated.

It is designed using so-called “blockchain” technology, which serves as the basis for cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin.

In this 55-second long video, a young British child named Harry can be seen holding his little brother Charlie.

The scene turns - relatively - to the drama when the first puts his index finger in the baby's mouth, and to his surprise, said Charlie abruptly closes his jaw.

Harry then released the two lines that made Internet users happy: "ouch Charlie" and "Charlie, that really hurt me".

Even though this 2000s internet masterpiece is one of the most popular videos in YouTube history, it will soon be removed from the platform.

The Davies-Carrs had indeed announced that they would remove it after Sunday's sale, declaring that the winner of the auction would become "the sole owner of this adorable slice of internet history", although the video did of course been copied, shared, and reposted many times on the web over the years.

Two particularly interested users

At the auction, 11 accounts placed a bid but two users in particular passed the buck, “mememaster” and “3fmusic”, the latter winning with a bid of $ 760,999.

Collecting NFTs is a trend that has exploded in popularity over the past year, with $ 2 billion changing hands in this market in the first quarter of 2021 alone, according to specialist site NonFungible.com.

The most viral videos, memes, GIFs, and photos from the early days of the mass internet are especially in demand.

In March, Twitter boss and founder Jack Dorsey sold his first tweet from 2006 for $ 2.9 million to a Malaysian-based businessman.

The previous month, “Nyan Cat,” an animated video of a rainbow-bodied cat flying to a heady music background, had been sold for $ 590,000 to an anonymous buyer.

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