By
Bhushan Akolkar
March 22nd, 2024
Last year, the tweet was sold for $2.9 million (or 1630.5 ETH at that time) to Sina Estavi, Malaysia-based CEO of the blockchain company Bridge Oracle, through an auction on a platform called Valuables.
Twitter Inc (NYSE: TWTR) co-founder Jack Dorsey’s first-ever posted tweet is now selling as a non-fungible token (NFT) for as much as $48 million on the NFT marketplace OpenSea. The price is 16 times higher than the $2.9 million that the current owner paid for it last March.
Jack Dorsey’s tweet created back on March 21, 2006, says “just setting up my twttr.”
just setting up my twttr
— jack (@jack) March 21, 2006
Last year, the tweet was sold for $2.9 million (or 1630.5 ETH at that time) to Sina Estavi, Malaysia-based CEO of the blockchain company Bridge Oracle, through an auction on a platform called Valuables. Notably, there was a bidding war over the NFT. The founder of the crypto platform TRON and BitTorrent CEO Justin Sun and Bridge Oracle CEO Sina Estavi were arguing over the purchase. But ultimately, Estavi’s bid of over $2.9 million won.
After the sale, the tweet is still live on Twitter. However, Estavi owns the NFT that was signed and verified by the creator. Following the sale, Dorsey said that he wanted all proceeds from the transaction to be converted to Bitcoin (BTC) and donated to GiveDirectly, a charity giving cash to people living in poverty.
Now, Estavi is selling the tweet. He shared the information on his Twitter, saying that half of the auction earnings will be donated to charity. However, Dorsey appeared to show that the donation should be 99% of the money.
why not 99% of it?
— jack (@jack) April 7, 2022
Currently, Jack Dorsey’s 2006 tweet is worth around $48 million on the main OpenSea NFT market.
Dorsey’s Crypto Activity
Last November, Jack Dorsey stepped down as CEO of Twitter in order to focus on his cryptocurrency ambitions. He has been a blockchain supporter for a long time. As Dorsey explained, Twitter was ready to move on from its founders. The chief technology officer (CTO) Parag Agrawal took after Dorsey to be in charge of the company.
Currently, Jack Dorsey is focusing on cryptocurrencies and mining activity. Last year, during the Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami, he said that crypto “changes everything” for him:
“I don’t think there’s anything more important in my lifetime to work on, and I don’t think there’s anything more enabling for people around the world.”
His Block (formerly Square) company, where Dorsey remains CEO, has invested heavily in Bitcoin. As of October 2021, the company held nearly 8,027 Bitcoins.
Notably, following the billionaire’s departure, Twitter has become more open to adopting alternative cryptocurrencies. In February, Twitter allowed users to tip creators with Ethereum shortly after adding support for hex NFT avatars.