Ruhi Gilder
Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, and the founder and CEO of Square, is selling his first tweet. The tweet is being sold as a non-fungible token, or NFT, and the bidding war has reached $2.5 million (at the time of publishing).
just setting up my twttr
— jack (@jack) March 21, 2006
For those wondering what exactly an NFT is, and why someone would pay almost Rs. 18 crores for it, here is your answer.
Non-fungible stands for something that is unique, and cannot be replaced, money is fungible (you can exchange two 50s for a 100), but the Mona Lisa painting is definitely non-fungible. An NFT, can be any digital asset, a meme, animation, GIFs, music or even a game. It is a verifiable digital certificate for intellectual property and is stored on blockchain technology.
Coming back to Dorsey’s NFT, the tweet has been up for sale since December on ‘Valuable by Cents’. On Friday the multi-millionaire tweeted about it, drawing attention to the unique auction item. The buyer for Dorsey’s tweet will receive a certificate that will be digitally signed and verified by the Twitter CEO and includes information such as the text contents, and timestamp.
Take a look at other popular NFTs that have been raking in the dollars and breaking all records.
Everydays: The First 5000 Days
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In a first, Christie’s is auctioning an NFT-based work of art called “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” by Mike Winkelmann, also known as Beeple. The work is a digital collage of 5,000 futuristic images made by the artist every day for 13-and-a-half years starting on May 1, 2007 to January 7, 2021. This will be the first time that a global auction house has auctioned off an entirely digital artwork with no physical component, and is also accepting cryptocurrency, Ether as payment. The NFT was sold for whopping $69 million dollars!
Crossroads
The record holder for most expensive NFT, is popular digital artist Beeple. His ‘Crossroad’ has been resold for $6.6 million in February 2021. It depicts former President Trump lying in a heap after losing the 2020 presidential election. The Crossroads NFT was designed to change based on the outcome of the US 2020 election. If Trump had won, a ripped version of him wearing a crown would have been walking through flames victoriously.
Nyan Cat
Just opened up the flood gates to the future of meme economy in the Crypto universe, no big deal~
But seriously, thanks for believing in Nyan Cat all these years. I hope this inspires future artists to get into #NFT universe so they can get proper recognition for their work! pic.twitter.com/JX7UU9VSPb
— ☆Chris☆ (@PRguitarman) February 19, 2021
On its 10-year-anniversary, Internet favourite GIF, the Nyan Cat sold online for roughly $560,000 or 300ETH (Ether), which is a blockchain currency like bitcoin. The sale was hosted by the new NFT marketplace Foundation. The three-minute-plus video uploaded to YouTube by artist Chris Torres in 2011 spawned dozens of memes becoming an online sensation.
Ultraviolet
Musician Justin Blau, aka 3LAU, sold a NFT collection for $11.6 million via an online auction in February 2021. 33 non-fungible tokens were on sale, marking the three-year anniversary of his Ultraviolet album. $3.6 million paid for the lot’s most expensive token takes the prize as the priciest NFT ever sold in an initial offering.
Burning Banksy
Full HD videohttps://t.co/sKAu2AERmJ
— Burnt Banksy (@BurntBanksy) March 3, 2021
In an act that will probably shock most traditional art lovers around the world, a blockchain company, Injective Protocol bought a $95,000 Banksy artwork and… burnt it. The buyers bought the screen print ‘Morons (White)’ from New York’s Taglialatella Gallery. On March 4 they live-streamed the burning on an Twitter account BurntBanksy and sold it as a piece of blockchain art for a whopping $380,000.
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