Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey speaks to students at 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, which was offered for sale as an invisible token, sold on Monday for 1,630.58 ether, a cryptocurrency. That equates to about $ 2.9 million based on the price of ether at the time of sale.
The tweet, which said “just set 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 bid was from Sina Estavi, CEO of Oracle Bridge. Estavi won the auction, although his bid was worth around $ 2.5 million was sent.
Ownership of these funds is registered on a blockchain – a digital ledger similar to those based on bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. But one cannot exchange one NFT for another as they would with dollars or other assets. Each NFT is unique and acts as a non-duplicable collection material, making them rare by design.
Dorsey said he will turn the money into bitcoin and donate that to the Africa Direct Response fund.
Jessica Bursztynsky from CNBC contributed to this report.