Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) Chief Jack Dorsey stated that he would sell the first ever tweet as a NFT, or non-fungible token, and donate the proceeds to charity in the form of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. The auction will run until March 21, with the tweet currently bidding for $2.5 million, or 1,630 ether.
A NFT can either be unique or a replica of another piece of a digital art or file, such as drawings, animated GIFs, songs, or parts of video games. NFTs are bought and sold through digital currencies, with all transactions documented through blockchain.
Dorsey's famous first tweet NFT reads: "just setting up my twttr," and was tweeted on March 21, 2006.
Dorsey intends to donate the collected bitcoin to Give Directly, which is a nonprofit organization that allows donors to send money to those who are living in poverty. The money will also go to Give Directly's Africa Response fund for COVID-19 relief.
Dorsey's NFT is hosted on the new platform Valuables by Cent, which allows Twitter users to buy and bid on tweets that have been converted into NFTs. In order to make purchases through Valuables, users are required to download a browser extension in order to exchange cryptocurrency. Transactions on the platform may be in U.S. dollars, but the actual money that is being counted is in Ethereum cryptocurrency. Once a tweet NFT is purchased on Valuables, it can be resold, and a portion of the money will go back to the owner.
The winner of the auction, who will receive a digital certificate of the tweet, will also have the tweet available for viewing on the Internet for free of charge.
Although the hot new trend of NFT Tweets may be surprising and a bit confusing, Jack Dorsey plans to use to popular momentum to raise money for charity, so it is for a good cause.