Want to buy the first tweet ever? Now you can — but it’ll cost a pretty penny. That’s because Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey is now listing the first tweet — “just setting up my twttr,” sent on March 21, 2006 — for sale as a non-fungible token, or NFT.
Dorsey shared a link on Friday to a platform called “Valuables,” where the first tweet is being auctioned. Things quickly got expensive, with the highest bid, from Bridge Oracle CEO Sina Estavi, now standing at $2.5 million on early Monday. If you’d like to put in a bid, you can do so by clicking here.
NFTs are digital collectibles that can be transferred using blockchain, the same technology that’s at the foundation of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
The offering comes as NFTs are gaining popularity fast, but you might still be asking, what the hell even is an NFT? Business Insider had a good, quick explainer:
“NFTs, unlike other cryptocurrencies like bitcoin or ether, cannot be directly exchanged for equal value. They are unique, easily verifiable digital assets that represent a wave of digital goods such as an image, GIF, video, music album, artwork, or even a tweet. They are a form of digital asset whose ownership can be recorded on a blockchain. The market for NFTs is rapidly entering the public cultural web sphere as a digital collectible.”
It’s unclear what Dorsey will do with the cash once his tweet is officially auctioned off. Dorsey, who also runs Square, is worth $12.8 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index.