Twitter Inc. founder Jack Dorsey’s first tweet was converted into a non-fungible token last year and sold for $2.9 million. Now, it can be sold for less than $14,000, which is a reflection of a mature NFT market.
Sina Estavi, chief executive of Malaysia-based blockchain company Bridge Oracle, paid $2.9 million last March for NFTs, a digital certificate she says is the owner of Mr. Dorsey’s tweet that read “Just setting up my Twitter “
NFTs exist on the blockchain as well as cryptocurrencies and serve as a certificate of authentication for those who purchase the original digital goods.
At the time of his purchase, Mr. Estavi tweeted: “This is not just a tweet! I think years later people will realize the true value of this tweet, like a Monalisa painting.”
About a year later, Mr. Estavi put the NFT up for auction. He didn’t say why.
Mr. Estavi listed it on an NFT marketplace called OpenC last week, hoping it would sell for at least $50 million. He pledged to donate at least 50% of the proceeds to a charity called GiveDirectly, which allows people to send money directly to people without any condition on how the money should be spent.
However, as of 5:45 p.m. ET Friday, a day after Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk offered to buy Twitter for $43 billion, the highest bid was only $13,940, according to OpenSee. Mr Estavi said he is now reconsidering the sale.
The low bids come as the NFT market has slowed down in recent months. Last August, global monthly sales of NFTs stood at about $5 billion, according to NFT data gathering site CryptoSlam Inc. Sales fell to $2.4 billion in March.
“I don’t think it’s surprising that we’re cooling off a little bit like we’re seeing in other markets as well,” said Jonathan Victor, NFT and gaming lead at Protocol Labs Inc., an open source research and development project. He added that 2021 was a successful year for NFTs, which led to higher valuations. The NFT initially allowed artists and other creatives to be compensated for their work.
Now the market is broadening, more traditional companies are joining in, and the focus is on the usefulness that NFTs can provide – including serving as tickets in particular locations – to enable more digital certificates to be obtained. There are ones that don’t come with a hefty price tag. , said Mr Victor.
He compared some NFTs to seven-dollar-figures for works sold in the high-end art market. “There’s no clear formula to say ‘how much this should cost,'” he said.
In the NFT example from Mr. Dorsey’s earlier tweet, Mr. Victor said it was hard to price.
“You have a price that is set by a person who thought it was a fair price,” he said. Sometimes, other people don’t agree.
Mr Estavi, reached by WhatsApp on Wednesday night, is reconsidering whether he wants to sell NFTs given the low bids. He said if he didn’t get enough offer he wouldn’t sell it.
“It is important to me who buys this NFT,” he said, “because I think the value of this NFT is much more than you can imagine and anyone who wants to buy it should qualify.”
Mr Estavi put the NFTs up for sale after spending nine months in prison in Iran for allegedly disrupting the country’s economic system, he said. He reiterated that if he sells the digital certificates, he will donate the proceeds.
After Mr Dorsey sold the digital rights to the tweet last year, he posted tweets showing the proceeds being converted into the cryptocurrency bitcoin and then to provide cash to families in Kenya, Rwanda, Liberia and Malawi. Submitted to GiveDirectly’s Africa Response Project.