'Baduk' final between Lee brothers to be sold as NFT

A historic "Baduk" or Go battle between two siblings, Lee Se-dol, 17, and Lee Sang-hun, 25, which took place in 2000 will be sold as Non-Fungible Tokens by the Kyrgyzstan-based virtual assets producer C-cash.

The South Korean retail and finance company TGS Group, operator of C-cash, announced on Monday that it successfully converted the Go match manual into NFTs and planned to sell the virtual asset from May 10.

C-cash’s NFT game manual introduces interactive NFT functions and allows users to place the Go stones themselves, said TGS Group, a key point of difference when compared to other NFT Go manuals.

Korean Go master Lee Se-dol, who is now 40 years old, is known for his match with Google’s artificial intelligence program AlphaGo in 2016. He lost four of the five games in the match, which attracted global attention. But his single victory over the artificial intelligence program impressed spectators.

The 2000 match between him and his brother was the first official championship match between siblings in Korea, as Go communities traditionally limit matches between family members. The match was sponsored by SK Gas.

Lee Se-dol was beaten 2:1 by his older brother, who had also been a professional Go player since his teenage years. His brother was the manager of a Go team based in Sinan, South Jeolla Province, and the champion of Korea’s national league in 2013.