The very first tweet is being auctioned off; the current top bid is $2.5 million

How would you like to “own” a piece of tech history? Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey is auctioning off the very first tweet ever to appear on Twitter. Dated March 21st, 2006, the Tweet, from Dorsey’s @jack personal Twitter account, reads, “just setting up my twttr.” It is available from the Valuables platform where auctions can be held on tweets that are “autographed” by their creator.

The tweets are auctioned off as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) which are digital tokens that can verify ownership and the authenticity of a tweet. Using the blockchain storage system developed for bitcoin transactions, the NFTs are encrypted with the creator’s signature using the blockchain. With NFTs, you can buy or sell ownership of anything digital including animation, GIFs, songs, etc. An NFT can be a one of a kind unique item such as Dorsey’s tweet, or it could be one single copy out of many, such as a signed baseball card.

Comparing the purchase of a tweet to buying an autographed baseball card, Valuables says, “There is only one unique signed version of the tweet, and if the creator agrees to sell, you can own it forever.” While the tweet won at auction will continue to remain on the Twitter site, the auction winner will receive an autographed digital certificate that includes metadata of the original tweet.

Keep in mind that the tweet sent by Dorsey predates the Twitter mobile app. Originally, those wanting to use Twitter on the go used the Tweetie client that ran on the iPhone, iPad touch and the iPad. On April 9th, 2010, Twitter, purchased Tweetie as there was no official mobile application for Twitter. Tweetie founder Loren Brichter joined Twitter’s mobile division and helped launch Twitter’s iPad app. On May 19th, 2010, the official Twitter app for the iPhone was first released.