Someone just created a smart contract on Ethereum with source codes in the shape of a monument to Dr. Li Wenliang, the whistleblower of the coronavirus outbreak in China, who died of the disease.
The source codes of the “Monument” contract, created around 2:30 UTC on Friday, he wrote Dr Li's biography in Chinese with a highlighted “RIP” and his contribution as a medical expert in alerting others to the danger of the virus as early as December 30 – only to be reprimanded by the local police subsequently.
The creation of the smart contract, which now becomes immutable and cannot be censored on a blockchain, comes at a time when Chinese internet users are expressing widespread sadness and fury on the messaging app WeChat and the social network Weibo.
The news of his death broken Thursday evening China time, which immediately rose to the top spot on Weibo's real-time hot topics list.
Within minutes, he was relegated to seventh position and is now no longer on the list, even though the hashtag #Dr. Li Wenliang died # has so far got one billion views and more than one million discussions on social media.
Meanwhile, another hashtag – #Wuhan government owes Dr. Li an apology# in Chinese – has been restricted. A search for this hashtag on Weibo now yields no results, even though it was accessible Thursday evening, immediately after Li's death.
Li, a doctor at a hospital in Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, was one of eight people who sent early warnings on WeChat to fellow doctors about the severity of the disease before local authorities inform the public that the disease is contagious. .
He was immediately silenced and reprimanded by local police for sending “false information.” But Li contracted the virus while treating patients at Wuhan Central Hospital and died of the disease after efforts to treat him failed.