Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s first ever tweet, which was first published on March 21, 2006, has been sold for the equivalent of a whopping $2.9m to a Malaysia-based businessman, Sina Estavi.
The tweet, which said “just setting up my twttr,” was auctioned by Dorsey for charity.
It was sold as a nonfungible token (NFT) to Estavi, the chief executive of block chain technology firm Bridge Oracle, through auction on a platform called Valuables, which is owned by the U.S.-based company Cent.
An NFT is a unique digital asset or certificate that states who owns a photo, video, or any other form of online or digital media. An NFT has its own blockchain-based digital signature, which works as a public ledger that permits anyone to verify the authenticity and ownership of the asset, acting as a collector’s item that cannot be duplicated.
The tweet was purchased by Estavi using cryptocurrency Ether for 1630.5825601 ETH, which was worth $2,915,835.47 at the time of sale.
Dorsey will receive 95% of the proceeds of the primary sale, while Cent will receive 5%. The Twitter boss confirmed that he would convert the proceeds of the auction to bitcoin and then donate them to the Give Directly’s Africa Response fund to fight the pandemic.
Estavi compared the tweet with the painting of Mona Lisa, saying that its true value will be realized only later.
This is not just a tweet!
I think years later people will realize the true value of this tweet, like the Mona Lisa painting https://t.co/vnA5pz3esQ
— Estavi (@sinaEstavi) March 22, 2021
Despite the auction, the tweet will still be available publicly on Twitter. Estavi will receive a certificate, digitally signed and verified by Dorsey, along with the metadata of the original tweet. The data will include information such as the time the tweet was posted and its text contents.
Do you think NFTs are the future of the world? Let us know what you think about this massive purchase in the comments section below.
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