Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s first tweet earned nearly $2.9 million after it was auctioned off as an NFT.
On March 5, Dorsey posted a link to Twitter directing users to Valuables by Cent, or v.cent.co, a website for auctioning digital artwork or other online content. Dorsey offered his first tweet as an NFT, which stands for non-fungible token, or a unique form of digital asset that has boomed in popularity this year.
“Just setting up my twttr,” Dorsey typed on March 21, 2006. The auction for Dorsey’s first tweet closed on March 21, 2021, 15 years after his initial tweet was posted.
BIDS FOR JACK DORSEY’S FIRST TWEET AS A DIGITAL TOKEN REACH $2.5 MILLION
Each NFT exists on blockchain, or a digital record of transactions, and each transaction added to a blockchain is validated by multiple computers on the Internet. An NFT is backed by a proprietary digital signature, which serves as a public ledger, allowing anyone on the net to verify the asset’s authenticity and ownership.
“You can also think of it in a way like a signed baseball card,” Katie Geminder, co-founder and chief of strategy at Cent, told the Washington Examiner.
Like baseball cards, NFTs can appreciate in value depending on the circumstances surrounding the asset.
“When the player is a rookie [his baseball card] is not worth a whole lot in that moment in time, but when they break a record or hit 300 home runs, later in their career, owning a rookie card has a lot more value then,” Geminder said.
Cent confirmed the buyer of Dorsey’s NFT tweet is Sina Estavi, CEO of a blockchain company called Bridge Oracle in Malaysia. Estavi told Reuters he was “thankful” when asked for comment about the purchase.
The NFT was bought using the cryptocurrency Ethereum, for 1630.5825601 ETH, which was worth $2,915,835.47 at the time of sale, Geminder confirmed, adding this was the most expensive sale on the Cent platform thus far.
Geminder said Cent and other NFT auctioning platforms are backed by Ethereum, which is the most common form of digital currency used in NFT transactions.
She added Dorsey said he will convert the proceeds to bitcoin and donate them to Give Directly’s Africa Response fund to help people affected by COVID-19.
When asked why some buyers see any value attached to NFT artwork, Geminder told the Washington Examiner, “Art is subjective. So what you find to be beautiful art might be different than what I find to be beautiful art, and because our art is subjective, or our opinions about art [is subjective], so is the value.”
Subjectivity does factor into NFT market auctions. One NFT can go for small amounts of ETH on a separate NFT market such as OpenSea.io, or it can be auctioned off at a value the equivalent of $69 million.
The most expensive NFT auction took place earlier this month and was sold by the artist Beeple for $69 million.
Despite his success selling NFTs, Beeple, also known by his legal name Mike Winkelmann, questioned their staying power.
“I absolutely think [NFTs are] a bubble,” he told Fox News.
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Though the successful artist believes the NFT surge will collapse soon, it has not stopped other auctioneers from selling virtual works for massive amounts of dollars, such as the recently auctioned Dorsey tweet or NFTs by singer and music artist Grimes, who has made over $6 million in auctions from users bidding on her digital assets.
Representatives for Bridge Oracle and Beeple did not immediately reply to the Washington Examiner’s requests for comment.
