An NFT of Twitter’s very first tweet sold for nearly $3 million. Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter sold the NFT of his very first tweet for $2,915,835.47. The first tweet simply states, “just setting up my twttr.”

Dorsey Tweet Auction 

Dorsey put the first tweet up for auction on 5th March and received a $2.5 million bid the next day from the CEO of blockchain firm Bridge Oracle, Sina Estavi. The last date for the auction ends on 21st March, the 15th anniversary of the very first Twitter message. 

After his purchase, Estavi tweeted:

“This is not just a tweet! I think years later people will realize the true value of this tweet, like the 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

Estavi held the highest bid for over two weeks. He then inexplicably raised the value to a strangely specific price just before the closing of the auction.

Jack Dorsey Donated the Proceeds to Charity

Dorsey said he donated $2,915,835.47 from the sale to GiveDirectly, an organization sending cash to poor families in Africa impacted by Covid-19.

Sent to @GiveDirectly Africa fund 🌍Thank you, @sinaEstavi. pic.twitter.com/aEZu07auLV

— jack (@jack) March 22, 2021

On Monday, Estavi told Reuters he paid for the tweet with 1630.5825601 Ethereum, of which online auction house Cent took five percent. Dorsey converted the remainder to 50.8751669 Bitcoin and donated it to charity.

If you aren’t aware, NFT stands for non-fungible token. In a nutshell, an NFT is a digital token that establishes ownership of a digital good through a blockchain. 

NFTs are in popularity over the last few months, with everyone from Mark Cuban to Elon Musk getting in on the crypto frenzy. Non Fungible Token can be any type of one-of-a-kind digital asset. You can consider it as a piece of art or a video clip, where ownership of that asset is represented on a blockchain. The buyer of an NFT basically gets a crypto-backed digital receipt proving the NFT is authentic and that they hold the ownership.