Jack Dorsey selling his first tweet for charity

Jack Dorsey, who’s selling his first ever tweet as a non-fungible token, said Tuesday he’ll donate the profits to charity.

The Twitter CEO shared a link Friday afternoon to a platform called “Valuables,” where his March 21, 2006, tweet “just setting up my twttr” was up for bidding. As of Tuesday morning, the highest offer is from Sina Estavi, CEO of Bridge Oracle, for US$2.5 million, according to the website.

The auction will end March 21, when he will immediately convert the proceeds to bitcoin and donate that to Give Directly’s Africa Response fund, Dorsey said.

The tweet’s NFT auction comes amid a surge in popularity of crypto collectibles. Ownership of these assets is recorded on a blockchain — a digital ledger similar to the networks that underpin bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. But a person can’t exchange one NFT for another as they would with dollars or other assets. Each NFT is unique and acts as a collector’s item that can’t be duplicated, making them rare by design.