A non-fungible token (NFT) of former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s first tweet is seeing very few takers. The NFT of Dorsey’s first tweet ‘Just setting up my twttr’, which was last year sold for USD 2.9 million (over Rs 20 crore), has been put up for resale and the response is so tepid that it has received just USD 6,800 (about Rs 5.2 lakh) as the highest bid so far.
The seller, crypto entrepreneur Sina Estavi, asked for USD 48 million for the NFT. The auction, which is expiring in one day, saw bids with amounts ranging from just 0.0019 Ether to 2.2 ETH, or about USD 6 to about USD 6,800. Estavi in March 2021 had paid USD 2.9 million for the NFT of Dorsey’s first tweet.
A non-fungible token (NFT) is a non-interchangeable unit of data stored on a blockchain, a form of digital ledger, that can be sold and traded. All kinds of digital objects — images, videos, music, text and even tweets — can be turned into an NFT. Digital art has seen some high-profile sales, while in sports, fans can collect and trade NFTs relating to a particular player or team.
“My offer to sell was high and not everyone could afford it,” Reuters said in a report quoting Estavi, adding that he was no longer sure if he would sell the NFT. “It’s important to me who wants to buy it, I will not sell this NFT to anyone because I do not think everyone deserves this NFT.”
Estavi compared the NFT with the Mona Lisa painting. “This NFT is not just a tweet, this is the Mona Lisa of the digital world.”
Social media consultant and industry analyst Matt Navarra said, “Jack Dorsey’s First Tweet NFT: March 2021- Bought for USD 2.9 million. April 2022- Re-listed for Sale at USD 48 million. Today, Current Best Offer- USD 6,222.36.”
Dorsey had converted the entire amount from the sale of his NFT into Bitcoin and donated It to GiveDirectly, a charitable organisation, for its Africa Response Programme.
On April 7, Estavi said in a tweet, “I decided to sell this NFT (the world’s first-ever tweet) and donate 50 per cent of the proceeds (USD 25 million or more) to the charity @GiveDirectly.”
“Last year, when I paid for this NFT, very few people even heard the name NFT. Now I say this NFT is the Mona Lisa of the digital world. There is only one of that and it will never be the same,” BBC in its report quoted Estavi as saying.
Dorsey’s brief tweet was sold to Estavi in March 2022 in an auction on an online platform called Valuables, which is owned by the US-based company Cent.
Read all the Latest News , Breaking News and IPL 2022 Live Updates here.