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Jack Dorsey Sells First Tweet As NFT For $2.9 Million (reuters.com) 67

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
phalse phace writes: Twitter boss Jack Dorsey sold his first tweet as an NFT for just over $2.9 million on Monday. The tweet -- "just setting up my twttr" -- was Dorsey's first tweet, made on March 21, 2006. The NFT was sold via auction on a platform called Valuables, which is owned by the U.S.-based company Cent. It was bought using the cryptocurrency Ether, for 1630.5825601 ETH, which was worth $2,915,835.47 at the time of sale, Cameron Hejazi, the CEO and co-founder of Cent confirmed. Cent confirmed the buyer is Sina Estavi. Estavi's Twitter profile, @sinaEstavi, says he is based in Malaysia and is CEO of the blockchain company Bridge Oracle. Estavi told Reuters he was "thankful" when asked for comment about the purchase.
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Jack Dorsey Sells First Tweet As NFT For $2.9 Million More

Jack Dorsey Sells First Tweet As NFT For $2.9 Million

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  • #tweetyourtulips (Score:5, Funny)

    by RightwingNutjob ( 1302813 ) on Monday March 22, 2021 @09:05PM (#61187574)

    One rich guy throws money at another rich guy for a bit of mathematics out there in the aether.

    Totally the economic engine or tomorrow.

    • Will get interesting if they can't keep the lights on...

      • It'll be the next big rich guy wellness trend: stumble around in the dark and try not to set your house on fire with an all natural beeswax candle laced with CBD and poison dart frog toxins.

        Gwyneth Paltrow will be out with a line of exclusive Goop blinders to allow you to replicate the experience during daylight hours.

        • I can only lament not thinking of it first... Gimme some time to get the Mona Lisa up, I'll only ask a cool mil

    • I suppose its no different than one asshat putting a bunch of Campbell Soup labels on a wall and calling it art. In any other universe he probably would have been a telephone sanitizer.

      • I suppose its no different than one asshat putting a bunch of Campbell Soup labels on a wall and calling it art.

        I dunno....at least with the Warhol stuff, you had something you could physically hang on the wall, and well, art is in the eye of the beholder.

        But with the NFT thing...I have a hard time figuring how some 1's and 0's are worth money at all, much less the vast amounts we're talking about???

        If the power goes out or data corruption, or some hack we've not thought of yet happens, *Poof*...you've l

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by e3m4n ( 947977 )
          I saw the Warhol soup thing at the MOMA in NY back in 1999. You'd need one hell of a wall to hang that monstrosity. I've always had this saying that "If I can do it, it's not art." Warhol wasn't the first schmuck to try sticking random shit on the wall and call it art. If Lebron James stood next to me, and we both flung paint from a brush at a piece of canvas, his canvas would be labeled art and draw in millions. Im not even sure its about art as much as hype. The following month he could turn around and

      • You mean the current generation in $current_year didn't invent stupidity, validity, and the conspicuous idle rich?

        Inconceivable.

    • Look what I can do, I'm sure you will not regret! we will fun together. My contacts ==>> http://gg.gg/o037y [gg.gg]

  • A fool and his money (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ClueHammer ( 6261830 ) on Monday March 22, 2021 @09:09PM (#61187584)
    Are soon parted...

    • Re:A fool and his money (Score:5, Insightful)

      by boudie2 ( 1134233 ) on Monday March 22, 2021 @10:04PM (#61187690)
      This NFT shit is starting to play itself out pretty fast. A week ago I'd never heard of it. Now I'm sick of it.

      • They've discovered another way to expand the blockchain hysteria into new markets. Now it's not just for get-rich-quick types, but "Look guys, I own Nyan Cat" and "Look guys, I own the first tweet" types.

        See my other post on this thread for details on who actually bid the price up to 1630.58 Ethereum (it was not bought with dollars.)

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by sound+vision ( 884283 )

      It's being reported that [benzinga.com] the winning bid was made in Etherium. By a guy who is the CEO of a "blockchain company."

      It also seems the price increased by an order of magnitude through a bidding war between the winner and another individual who runs a "blockchain company."

      I'm sure they look at it as advertising, then compute more crypto into existence to cover the "expense".

      Looks like a pyramid scheme, smells like a smegmatic circle jerk.

    • My father used to day.. A fool and his money were lucky to get together in the first place.
  • I think they are taking the piss on purpose to see who is stupid enough to buy this crap. good on them..

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Barny ( 103770 )

      Yeah, it seems like a bunch of wank that will all go tits up the moment two of these NFT registrars sell the rights to the same thing.

      Have they even been tested in court yet?

      • Anyone can make an NFT registrar. Funny enough, if any ol' non-celebrity starts one and auctions the NFTs for the Mona Lisa and Salvator Mundi, they'd be lucky to make ten bucks.

  • . . . but TAX these wasteful cunts. Tax 'em 'til they shriek and bleed.

    • . . . but TAX these wasteful cunts.

      What is being "wasted"? This is just some bits being transferred.

      I have a hard time imagining a way to spend $2.9M that is less wasteful.

      Would the world be a better place if the rich guy had bought a Ferrari or Learjet instead?

      • This is just some bits being transferred.

        If it's not being taxed, I'd like to know, because I could part out all my assets as purchases of my relatives' NFTs instead of letting the estate taxes do their thing. Or... someone that actually has assets could.

      • Considering that Ferrari and Learjet employ people to manufacture Ferraris and Learjets, yes the world would be an ever so slightly better place. That money would have gone to help several people pay for food, shelter, college education for their kids, some taxes, and maybe some restaurant revenue from a family meal out.

        Instead we get one rich asshole giving money to another rich asshole just so the first asshole can claim to "own" something that doesn't actually exist, and definitely something that nobody

        • The money is being transferred from one person to another.

          It is not being "used up".

          The recipient is presumably less rich than the buyer. So inequality is being reduced.

          The recipient can now spend the money to buy groceries, restaurant meals, or a Ferrari. So no fewer "real" jobs are created than if the buyer had spent the money directly.

          • Did you really just try to tell me that some rich asshole with a two-comma net worth buying an ostensibly useless bit of Internet ephemera for over $2M from an even richer asshole with a 3-comma net worth is reducing inequality?

            I don't think you understand the inequality problem.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by DarkOx ( 621550 )

          On the flip side these guys transferring all this FED QE2 funny money between themselves so they can jack off to "owning the nayn cat, the brooklynbridge, or the first tweet" keeps those dollars from competing with yours over something you'd actually like to buy.

          So if a bunch of rich guys want to set their private wealth on fire - I say let them.

      • If you're willing to throw away a few million dollars, why not do something useful instead, like fund a food bank, build a homeless shelter.

    • Behold the true nature of capitalism; our wealthy overlords spending more than a hard working person's lifetime earnings on pointless frivolities for shits n' giggles.

  • I really wonder if these people... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Lisandro ( 799651 ) on Monday March 22, 2021 @09:19PM (#61187602)

    ...have any idea what they're paying for.

    Very good read on the subject of NFTs: https://blog.erratasec.com/202... [erratasec.com]

    • These are the same people who inject themselves with poison dart frog toxins as a "wellness" exercise and drink "raw water" for the same reason.

      See the discussion a few stories ago about RMS and aspies wandering outside the narrow lane of their actual expertise.

    • It says he's the CEO of a "blockchain company", so you would hope so. But even assuming the company actually has a product, he could just be head hypelord. In which case he probably views this as $2.9 million spent on advertising. "Now your company, too, can sell digital memorabilia for 2.9 million."

    • Maybe they know very well what they are paying for.. and this is a way to obfuscate the real reason money is being transferred.
  • started grading video games years ago to drive up the prices. Same basic premise. The guy who "bought" (I use the term loosely) this is a crypto guy. He's buying it in the hopes of establishing a new market he can profit from. Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't. But it's not a bad gamble. If it works out he'll set up an exchange where people sell these things, take a 30% cut and make way more than the $3 million he just spent. In the meantime he'll use the press from this to flog his other wares.

    Aside from that it's money laundering. Again to liken it to video games, it's like when you see a copy of Madden '95 for $50 bucks. At first in the retro game community we just thought these were morons who read about Stadium Events and figured their box of Sega sports games meant they were sitting on a fortune. Or that poor slob with stacks of 90s comics who thought he would sell his collection and buy a house.

    The retro podcasts started covering them, but they kept coming, and pretty soon it was obvious that you weren't buying a $50 dollar copy of Madden '95, you were buying a $1 copy of Madden '95 and $49 dollars worth of drugs.
    • The people who want to buy drugs with cryptocurrency just go and buy drugs that are advertised as drugs. That was basically the entire purpose of the Silk Road and whatever has taken its place since it was shut down. Since BitCoin is ubiquitous enough, there's not even a need to launder it when you can just use it to pay for your expenses.

      It's the people who sold drugs in exchange for cash that need some way of legitimizing it because showing up with $50,000 in well worn, small denomination notes is goin
  • Walls are closing in, Jack Bin Laden.

  • The first buyer, Sina Estavi, probably bought the NFT as a "piece of internet art". Well no actually, probably to dodge taxes and prop his blockchain business. But let's be kind here and assume he bought a piece of art...

    The next buyer will buy two pieces of internet art: the original Jack Dorsey tweet, and the first proof of purchase from the first fool. Twice the art, double the value!

    And of course, they'll dodge even more taxes...

  • What happens if he deletes the tweet?

  • It'd be funny if someone hacked what the URL pointed to.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Alcari ( 1017246 )
      It's not even an URL. It's a piece of paper that I wrote the URL on and added my signature and the date. Anyone can send the URL to anyone else, and view the same thing, but you now own that very special piece of paper that I wrote the URL on at a certain date.

      Congratulations.
    • Give it time.

      • The NFT scheme was already attempted, by the same people, five years ago. It was forgotten...

        These people are trying this scheme again, because the DeFi scheme failed...

  • This sale was a way to raise money for charity. Ain't nothing wrong about that, is it?

    The article says: "[Dorsey tweeted 3 days after putting the tweet up for sale] that he would convert the proceeds from the auction into bitcoin and donate them to people impacted by COVID-19 in Africa".

    Not saying we should not discuss the concept of NFTs and whether it is the greatest thing since sliced bread, a hoax of epic proportions, or a giant nothing-burger. But this is the wrong sale to use as an example for either

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ecuador ( 740021 )

      Reminds me a bit of the largest Greek tobacco producer "Karelia Tobacco Company". It is illegal to advertise tobacco products in Greece, but every year, around Christmastime, Karelia gets two-page spreads on all newspapers and front page on online publications. How? They spend over 3 million Euro in bonuses to their workers, so they get these big "best employer" articles (supposedly not paid, but they come out all at once with huge coverage). That amount is under 1% of their revenue, which is nothing compar

    • Why not convert the proceeds from the auction into dollars or euros and donate them to people impacted by COVID-19 in Africa? Oh, I know why - because this is just a hypefest crypto handjob.

      I may be wrong, but wouldn't converting the Ethereum to Bitcoin, transferring the Bitcoin to someone else, and then having the Bitcoin cashed out in order to buy actual shit they need just result in a string of transaction fees that could have been avoided in order to send more value to the people who need it?

  • hype (Score:2)

    by Tom ( 822 )

    Something new that everyone wants to have a part of.

    If I cared, I'd got and track to see if these buyers unload their purchases to someone else or not. The smart ones probably will turn it around and sell it even more expensively. The dumb ones will hang on to it until the bubble bursts and your 2.9 mio. purchase now trades for $290 simply because someone thinks it'd be cute.

    The problem with NFTs is simple: Everyone can have a copy and there is no functional difference between digital copies. So the actual

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Alcari ( 1017246 )
      Nothing.

      Basically and NFT to a "work" is like if I made a statue and placed it in the forest. Anyone who knows where it is can go there and look at the statue. Someone who wanders through the forest can look at it if they come upon it.

      Now, I can wite down the coordinates to the statue, and sell those to you, but that's not an NFT. My neighbor can also walk to the statue, look at their GPS and text you those coordinates. My aunt can walk up to you, and point you to walk 10 minutes that-a-way and take t

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Tom ( 822 )

        Yes, the whole idea of this rests on the concept of "unique".

        But I can write a script and generate a million almost-certainly (by the powers of probability) random but unique text files - and I doubt anyone would pay something for them.

        So "unique" by itself isn't enough. It also has to be something recognizable. And that's where it all breaks down. The first Tweet EVER - that's something unique and recognizable. But is it something you can SELL in any meaningful way?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DarkOx ( 621550 )

        I have a text file of 50,000 GUIDS I am prepared to sell you for the low low pirce of $1 a per unit!

    • Also, this sounds like the music industry 20 years ago, trying to fight the inherent reproducibility of digital data. But it's all new this time because of <steve ballmer>Blockchain! Blockchain! Blockchain! Blockchain!</steve ballmer>

      I don't have anything against blockchain technology per se -- I think cryptocurrencies are great, as long as they are used for trading real-world goods or services. There could be uses for more general blockchain tokens in things like real estate or shares in a c

  • What you've just posted is one of the most insanely non-news things I have ever read.

    At no point in your empty, useless submision were you even close to anything that could be considered actual news.
    Everyone on this site is now dumber for having read it.

    I award you no points, and may CmdrTaco have mercy on your UID.

  • Myself, I'm intending to sell an NFT for pictures of my first dump of each day. Maybe I could even become an "influencer" and start a secondary market based on how much and what variety of residuals like corn are visually present.

  • If Tom Wolfe were alive today, he would have an absolute field day with NFTs and cryptocurrencies.

  • They sold a digitally signed JSON file that has a link to the tweet - which relies on Twitter being up and Dorsey not changing it, either of which could happen at any time.

    That's what was ACTUALLY sold.

  • Thank you for swindeling me! I have so much money I can throw millions away and it doesn't matter one bit!

  • Seriously. This is a stupid story. Absolute garbage.

  • Is it just one of those days, or is the entire internet trolling me? I seriously can't tell anymore.

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