Twitter boss Jack Dorsey’s first tweet auctioned for $2.9 mn

NEW DELHI: Priceless paintings, coveted jewels, hallowed memorabilia have come under the hammer often enough to become passe. It would seem that it’s the intangible things that hold value – a tweet, for example. But it’s no ordinary tweet.

Twitter founder & CEO Jack Dorsey’s first ever tweet has been sold for upwards of $2.9 million. The virtual missive, which said "just setting up my twttr," was first published on 21 March 2006 and was auctioned off by Dorsey for charity.

Sold to technology firm Bridge Oracle chief executive Sina Estavi, it was delivered to him as a non-fungible token, or NFT — a digital certificate of authenticity that confirms an item is real and one of a kind by recording the details on a blockchain digital ledger. Malaysia-based Estavi compared the purchase of the digital version of the tweet to buying a Mona Lisa painting.

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

The Twitter boss tweeted the Bitcoin receipt of the proceeds from the auction on Monday, and said the funds were sent to the charity, Give Directly's Africa Response fund.

According to Valuables, 95 per cent of the proceeds from the sale price go to the tweet's original creator while five per cent go to the platform.

NFTs have recently swept the online collecting world. A digital artwork by artist Beeple sold for $69.4 million in an online auction by a British auction house earlier this month, with an NFT as a guarantee of its authenticity.