Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s first ever tweet has been sold for the equivalent of $2.9m (£2.1m) to the head of blockchain service CryptoLand and software firm Bridge Oracle Sina Estavi.
Dorsey’s first tweet, which reads, “just setting up my twttr,” was posted by Dorsey on March 21, 2006.
The tweet was sold as a non-fungible token (NFT) – a unique digital certificate that states who owns a photo, video or other form of online media.
Dorsey’s tweet was sold via an auction on an online platform called Valuables, which is owned by the US-based company Cent.
The Twitter co-founder will receive 95% of the proceeds of the primary sale, while Cent receives 5% according to the platform’s rules.
The post will remain publicly available on Twitter even after it has been auctioned off.
Estavi who bought the tweet compared the purchase to buying a Mona Lisa painting.
“This is not just a tweet,” Estavi, said on Twitter on Monday.
“I think years later people will realize the true value of this tweet, like the Mona Lisa painting.”
Estavi will receive a certificate, digitally signed and verified by Dorsey, as well as the metadata of the original tweet.
The data will include information such as the time the tweet was posted and its text contents.
Dorsey has converted the sale proceeds to Bitcoin – 50.8751669 BTC ($2,778,292.86) – and donated it to the GiveDirectly Africa fund.