Jack Dorsey, who is CEO of Twitter, had tweeted on 21 March 2006, announcing to the world “just setting up my twttr”, a tweet which was to make history 15 years later. The tweet has been monetised in the form of a non-fungible token (NFT) — a kind of unique digital asset that has caught the imagination of the financial world in 2021. Each NFT has a unique blockchain-based digital signature that serves as a public ledger, letting anyone to verify the asset’s authenticity and ownership.
The NFT was auctioned on a platform called Valuables that is owned by Cent, a US-based company. It was bought using the cryptocurrency ‘Ether’, for 1630.5825601 ETH, which translates into $2,915,835.47 at the time of sale, according to Cameron Hejazi, the CEO and Co-Founder.
Sina Estavi, who was the buyer, is based in Malaysia and is CEO of the blockchain company Bridge Oracle. Estavi was quoted as being “thankful” when asked for reactions about the historic purchase.
It was on March 6 that Dorsey, a bitcoin enthusiast, tweeted a link to the website where the NFT was put up for sale. In another tweet on March 9, he announced that he would convert the proceeds from the auction into bitcoin and donate them to people impacted by COVID-19 in Africa.
As per the terms of the deal, Dorsey receives 95 percent of the proceeds of the primary sale while Cent receives 5 percent. Cent CEO Hejazi said that his platform lets people to show support for a tweet that goes beyond options such as ‘like’, ‘comment’, and ‘retweet’.
“These assets might go up in value, they might go down in value, but what will stay is the ledger and the history of ‘I purchased this from you at this moment in time’ and that’s going to be in both the buyer, the seller and the public spectators’ memory,” Hejazi said.