Through the looking glass: Non-fungible tokens are all the rage with the rich kids these days. Everything digital, from videos to legitimate artwork, seems to be up for sale with NFTs attached. Many are paying ridiculous sums for these intangible items. Whether this is just a fad or something that is here to stay remains to be seen.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey sold an NFT of his very first tweet for $2,915,835.47. Dorsey put the tweet up for auction on March 5 and received a $2.5 million bid the next day from Sina Estavi, CEO of blockchain firm Bridge Oracle. Dorsey set his auction to end on March 21, the 15th anniversary of the very first Twitter message. Although Estavi held the highest bid for over two weeks, he inexplicably raised it to the strangely specific price just before the auction closed.
Dorsey’s tweet was nothing profound, simply stating, “just setting up my twttr.”
just setting up my twttr
— jack (@jack) March 21, 2006
It hardly seems worth nearly $3 million dollars. However, one could say the same about most NFT transactions, such as the Beeple collage that fetched more than $60 million just over a week ago, or the 10-second clip of LeBron James dunking a basketball that sold for over $208,000.
Sent to @GiveDirectly Africa fund 🌍Thank you, @sinaEstavi. pic.twitter.com/aEZu07auLV
— jack (@jack) March 22, 2021
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. The whole thing feels faddish and scammy to me, but what do I know? Check out our NFT explainer if you want the full lowdown.
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.
Image credit: Sattalat Phukkum