Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s first-ever tweet sold as an NFT (nonfungible token) was put up for sale by the buyer for a whopping $48 million — and drew an astoundingly measly maximum offer of less than $280 by the deadline this week.
That’s when the seller reached out to wanna-be Twitter owner Elon Musk, urging him to bid — without success.
Granted, entrepreneur Sina Estavi, chief executive at Malaysian crypto project Bridge Oracle, was looking for a massive return. He purchased Dorsey’s message as an NFT — a unique crypto asset — for $2.9 million just over a year ago — then listed the NFT for sale at $48 million last week. He promised to give half of the proceeds to a charity.
The world’s first-ever tweet, by Dorsey (written on March 21, 2006), modestly declares: “just setting up my twttr.”
But offers for it ranged from nearly $6 to about $277 by Wednesday’s deadline, reported Coin Desk. After the deadline passed, the best offer by Thursday was reportedly up to $10,000.
Estavi urged Musk to bid on the NFT on Thursday. “It’s not good if the owner of the whole Twitter does not own the first tweet,” he cajoled.
So far, Musk hasn’t made an offer for the NFT — but he’s still angling to buy Twitter and take it private while the company’s board of directors brainstorms ways to thwart his plans.
As for the Dorsey NFT, Estavi doesn’t seem too worried about his prospects.
“The deadline I set [is] over, but if I get a good offer, I might accept it, I might never sell it,” he told CoinDesk in a video call.
He told Reuters: “My offer to sell was high and not everyone could afford it. It’s important to me who wants to buy it. I will not sell this NFT to anyone because I do not think everyone deserves this NFT.”
Estavi added: “This NFT is not just a tweet. This is the Mona Lisa of the digital world.”
