Twitter Rewind: When Jack Dorsey ‘Auctioned’ The First-Ever Tweet?

At a time where there are commonly two kinds of news out there- one belonging to the world still grappling with the COVID 19 pandemic and the other- more often than not, dealing with economic strife that’s gripped the world in its wake- perhaps it makes sense to rewind to the events of 2006.

Remember that time when a rather unusual piece of update emerged, one belonging to the realm of social media?

But here’s a question first up.

Did you ever, in your whole life, ever since the famous micro-blogging platform came to life, hear of something like auctioning a tweet? Now, you may have asked whether this sort of thing was even real in the first place?

How could one actually auction a tweet?

How could someone actually put a tweet up for sale; since when was this possible?

Wasn’t the world of hashtags and 120 character-long messaging just confined to brief, meticulous sharing of information? This is precisely when one got struck by a storm of a news emerging from the Twitter stratosphere.

So what made dollops of headlines all around the world over the Internet was the fact that the Twitter-man-in-command Jack Dorsey had, in 2006, auctioned a tweet for the very first time.

He would, in relation to the above, put up a message on his page that read:

“Just setting up my twttr” and is being sold as a unique digital signature on a website that sells Tweets as “non-fungible tokens” (NFTs).”

This precise, very call-to-action Tweet from the man who, to this day, spearheads Twitter, found in uncertain terms- massive response. So what did this lead to?

Firstly, the Tweet was emerged during the month of March, in 2006. And soon after the Tweet was posted, Reuters would report that the St. Louis, Missouri-born tech entrepreneur would begin to receive offers as high as a sum of USD 88,888.88. This happened within minutes of Dorsey’s maiden tweet on the platform.

Now that’s not all; what would transpire years later after that memorable moment in the history of Twitter is what’s making news to this day.

It’s being said that based on the old offers that were already existing (basis that tweet), many are of the view that that particular Tweet was put on sale in December 2020.

That being said, here’s what news platform WION in India reported on the dramatic storyline:

NFTs are digital files that basically serve as digital signatures to ascertain ownership of pictures, videos, and other media on the web. The 15-year-old tweet by Dorsey is one of the platform’s most famous tweets ever, and could attract high prices by bidders. On Saturday, the highest bid stood at $100,000.

Valuables by Cent was launched three months ago and compares buying tweets to buying an autographed baseball card.

“There is only one unique signed version of the tweet, and if the creator agrees to sell, you can own it forever”, the company was cited as saying by Reuters.

Furthermore, how one acquires a tweet involves the usage of Cryptocurrency.

After one buys a tweet, the bidder receives an autographed version of the digital certificate. This digital certificate is signed using the method of cryptography, and it also contains what’s known as the metadata of the original tweet.

In the end, however, it doesn’t matter who buys the tweet, for it will continue to appear on the site.