Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey addresses students during a town hall at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in New Delhi, India, November 12, 2018.
Anushree Fadnavis | Reuters
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s first tweet, offered for sale as a nonfungible token, was sold on Monday for 1,630.58 ether, a cryptocurrency. That’s equivalent to about $2.9 million based on ether’s price at the time of sale.
The tweet, which said “just setting up my twttr,” was first published on March 21, 2006. It was listed for sale as an NFT on March 6. By March 9, the highest offer was from Sina Estavi, CEO of Bridge Oracle. Estavi won the auction, though his bid was worth about $2.5 million it was placed.
Ownership of these assets is recorded on a blockchain — a digital ledger similar to those that underpin bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. But a person can’t exchange one NFT for another as they would with dollars or other assets. Each NFT is unique and acts as a collector’s item that can’t be duplicated, making them rare by design.
Dorsey said he will convert the proceeds to bitcoin and will then donate that to Give Directly’s Africa Response fund.
CNBC’s Jessica Bursztynsky contributed to this report.
