Twitter boss Jack Dorsey sold his first tweet as an non-fungible token (NFT) for nearly $3 million on Monday.
The chief executive officer of Malaysian blockchain service Bridge Oracle paid Twitter Inc’s co-founder $2.9 million to buy his first tweet.
Sina Estavi paid for the non-fungible token in cryptocurrency Ether, according to Cent, the operator of auction website Valuables where it was sold. Jack Dorsey, also Twitter’s CEO, announced the sale of the 15-year-old tweet — “just setting up my twttr” — on March 6.
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“This is not just a tweet!” Estavi tweeted after his purchase. “I think years later people will realize the true value of this tweet, like the Mona Lisa painting.”
NFT’s popularity has soared in 2021, kicking off a new digital sensation that replicates conventional art.
The function consists of digital art — anything from pictures to sports highlights, with a certificate of authenticity that runs on blockchain technology. Each NFT has its own blockchain-based digital signature, which serves as a public ledger, allowing anyone to verify the asset’s authenticity and ownership.
When a non-fungible token piece is sold, nothing about it changes in a traditional or digital sense. For instance, if a picture or a video clip is sold as an NFT, it doesn’t need to be moved from its original owner’s platform to indicate that it has been purchased. Instead, what changes is the certificate of ownership which is transferred from the original owner to the new owner using the blockchain ledger.
While blockchain keeps track of who has ownership of the file, the art, tweet video, song whatever the file contains would still be distributed digitally after it has been sold.
Dorsey had on March 9, said he would donate the proceeds of the NFT to GiveDirectly, a charity organization helping people impacted by COVID-19 in Africa. And tweeted he has done that after the auction.
The NFT was auctioned on the Valuable platform owned by the US-based company Cent. It was facilitated using the cryptocurrency Ether for 1630.5825601 units.
The NFT frenzy has caught up with the big guys in tech, from Elon Musk to Mark Cuban, and there have been big numbers coming from the auctions.
Beeple sold a piece of work for $69 million earlier in March, while auction house Sotheby’s said it would start a collaboration with digital artist Pak.
Musk’s partner and musician Grimes made around $6 million in a digital auction selling some of her original artwork as NTFs.
Dorsey’s NFT’s auction which started early March received many bids, but Estavi was on top of them with a $2.5 million first bid, which was Dorsey’s asking price, before he increased his bid to $2.9 million.
The NFT’s craze is baffling; economists are yet to unravel the push behind it. There is no consensus yet on whether the value of a commodity is tied to the labor required to produce it or to the degree it meets its purchaser’s needs.
However, the frenzy may be ushering in a revolution that will help creators to make more money from their works and protect ownership rights.