The highest bidder would be buying a digital certificate of the tweet, which Dorsey himself has signed and certified. The tweet has been up for sale since December but gained popularity when Dorsey posted it on his account.
Co-founder and CEO of social network Twitter Jack Dorsey is auctioning off his first tweet in the form of a non-expendable token (NFT). It has been up for sale on the Ethereum-based platform created on social network Valuables by Cent.
In March 2006, the founder wrote on his Twitter account “just setting up my twttr”, the first of his tweets. Now that tweet is up for auction as a digital souvenir for anyone who buys it.
Valuables communicates on its website that “the tweet will continue to live on Twitter” as the bidding is for a digital certificate of it. The tweet is “unique” because its creator himself has signed and verified it.
At the time of writing this article, the maximum bid amount (in Ether) is around USD 2,000,000. Justin Sun, the creator of the Tron blockchain and owner of BitTorrent, was the one who made that offer.
Based on previous bids for the tweet, it has been up for sale since December last year. However, the list of items attracted more attention after Dorsey posted the auction link on his Twitter profile.
NTFs are tokenized versions of the real world whose peculiarity is that they are not interchangeable with each other. Furthermore, they can serve as proof of authenticity and ownership within a digital world.
The NTF of Dorsey’s First Tweet
When Dorsey was 15 years old, he wrote his first tweet, which became popular on the Ethereum platform. For that reason, this digital souvenir can lead bidders to pay a high price.
Valuables has been comparing the purchase of tweets to that of a signed baseball card since its launch in December. Regarding the NTF of Dorsey’s first tweet, there is only one signed copy, so it is a unique piece. If its creator agrees to sell it, “it can become the property of the buyer forever.”
Sale of Art through Tokens
In February 2021, Christie’s auctioned its first tokenized artwork on the Ethereum blockchain. The famous 250-year-old auction house offered for sale a non-fungible token (NFT). Artist Mike Winkelman, also known as Beeple, is the creator of that 5,000-piece collage.
The auction house has classified the work that the artist created exclusively for them as “a unique digital artwork.” They have brought together the images that Beeple created every day for 14 years from 2007 to 2021. It is now a unique piece that he called “Every Day: the First 5,000 Days”.
In November 2020, Twitter user @MaxStealth5 purchased a painting of Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin for USD 133,000. That artwork mutates based on changes in the price of Ether, fluctuations in gas rates, and Buterin’s birthday.
The digital platform AsyncArt created the non-expendable token “ETH Boy”, a unique and unrepeatable work of art. Besides, it is a programmable piece as it is capable of reflecting data and external stimuli in it. The painting of Buterin will be able to change its shape according to festive dates and the information that it receives from the network.
By Alexander Salazar
