After a day-long brainstorming session organised by the boards of Odeo, a podcasting company, Jack Dorsey, a young undergraduate at the New York University, began to have a loose idea on how to develop a Short Message System (SMS) that can be used to communicate with a small group. Jack would approach Odeo, which was interested in instant messaging, and in about two weeks, Jack and Biz Stone built a prototype of Twitter.

On March 21, 2006, Jack Dorsey might have been gazing at his computer screen for quite a while, wondering what he would punch to make his first tweet. At exactly 9:50 pm, Jack decided to tweet. He punched into his keyboards and these five words made up his first tweet…

“Just setting up my first twttr.”

What is the value of Jack’s tweet?

In 2006 nobody would ask such a question not to talk of bidding for a six-word sentence. Would anyone care to own Jack’s tweet, and did Jack know that he would come to sell his own tweet?

14 years later, In December 2020, Jack set up his first tweet for auction as an NFT.

What followed was a surprising bid. The bid went from $1 on December 15 to $3500 on December 20. But on March 6 2021, the bid went from $4500 to $2.5 million in a matter of four hours. Jack later sold the tweet to Sina Estavi, the CEO of Bridge Oracle(a cryptocurrency), for $2.9 million.

“Owner of the first-ever tweet,” Sina Estavi wrote on his Twitter bio after the transaction.

Jack’s first tweet is no longer his.

But what made Jack’s tweet so valuable that it is worth nearly 3 million dollars when 14 years earlier, one would hardly consider paying a dollar for it?

To understand why some NFTs are worth thousands of dollars and even millions of dollars, it is important to know what they are.

What is NFT?

In April 2019, Black Chalcedony Portrait of Antinous realised $2.1m when it was auctioned out. The Black Chalcedony Portrait of Antinous is a physical item sold to an unnamed buyer by Giorgio Sangiorgi, a Sicilian art collector and dealer. Whoever bought that piece of art would have it placed in any place he wants or can even decide to sell it out to another person.

If he decides to sell, there would be a transfer of ownership, perhaps a legal signed paper showing the new owner and the amount paid for the treasure.

Visualise an NFT as an artefact but a digital form of the item. They are digital objects which can be tangible or intangible.

Nebukeke Sunday, a crypto expert who has been trading both crypto and NFT for over three years, told Neusroom that “NFTs are basically digital assets that are interchangeable and encoded in the blockchain.”

A Non-fungible Token (NFT) is a non-interchangeable digital asset that is encrypted on a blockchain (a digital ledger) which can be sold and traded.

Virtually anything can be a digital asset—art, GIFs, Memes, designer sneakers, music, videos, avatar, tweets.

Just like the physical transfer of physical properties from one person to the other (like the Black Chalcedony Portrait of Antinous), NFT’s unique data in the blockchain allows for easy verification of ownership, making it possible for one person to own a particular NFT at a time.

Is NFT Different From Cryptocurrencies?

In 2009, Bitcoin, the first decentralised cryptocurrency, was created by presumably pseudonym developer Satoshi Nakamoto.

Cryptocurrencies are another ‘bubble’ that is taking the world in a frenzy. They are digital currencies that use a decentralised system rather than centralised (e.g. banks) to verify transactions. The acronym NFT is even more new. In May 2014, Kevin McCoy and Anil Dash created what is to be known as the first NFT Quantum consisting of a video clip made by Jennifer, McCoy’s wife.

Sunday told Neusroom that though both NFT and crypto are encrypted in the blockchain, they are not the same thing.

“There are digital assets like having land in Metaverse, you can’t call that cryptocurrency. NFTs are different from cryptocurrency because they (NFT) are digital assets; video, meme, arts etc. However, they could be acquired with cryptocurrency.”

So, just like cryptocurrencies, NFTs are built on blockchain technology, but that’s where the similarities between NFTs and Crypto ends.

The significant difference between NFT and Cryptocurrencies is that NFT is Non-fungible. Fungibility is the property of a commodity whose individual units can be interchanged. 1 BTC=1 BTC. This implies that if you decide to exchange your 1 BTC with someone else 1 BTC, the value is the same.

“NFTs are Non-fungible because no one NFT is the same. Each has its own unique un-interchangeable code,” Sunday said.

Gold, crude oil, N500 are fungible.

One note of N500 is the same in value as any other N500 and can be interchanged. One gram of gold in a molten form is the with one gram of gold in a crystal form.

How to create and sell NFTs

“You can own an NFT by minting (creating) one or by buying one from the secondary markets. There are lots of markets you can buy NFT from; Opensea, Nifty gateway, Mintable, Binance.

Sunday explained that to create, buy or sell NFTs, you need a digital wallet. A Digital wallet is a software program that allows you to make electronic transactions. NFTs are primarily purchased using cryptocurrencies, and some notable digital wallets that support the creation, selling or buying of NFTs include Metamask, Trust Wallet, Coinbase etc.

Here are five steps to create, sell or buy NFTs

1) Have a digital asset. This could be anything you made: a video, graphics, a song, an art.

2) Set up a digital wallet: NFTs are primarily bought using cryptocurrencies, and digital wallets allow you to own cryptocurrencies.

3) Choose a blockchain. Just like cryptocurrencies, NFTs are built into a blockchain. Ethereum blockchain, Binance blockchain are some of the popular blockchains that support NFTs.


4) Choose an NFT marketplace. NFT marketplace platforms allow the storage, trading, display of NFTs.

The Gain and Risks of owning an NFT

Since June 2017, a total of $16 billion has been spent on NFTs.

In February of 2017, Nyan Cat, a 2011-era of a cat with a pop-tart body, sold for nearly $600,000. EVERYDAYS: The First 5000 Days, a collection of 5000 drawings by Mike Winklemann(Beeple), sold at $69.3 million in February 2021. In December of the same year, Pak’s NFT project called ‘The Merge’ sold for a record-breaking of $91.8 million. Pak is one of the most prominent NFT artists(or group of NFT artists. The identity of Pak is unknown), that created 312,686 dots which, when joined, will form a circle(The Merge) and sold it to 28,983 collectors.

It is not only arts that are highly sought after in the world of NFT. Some Musicians have taken the opportunity NFT offers by selling their music as NFTs.

Snoop Dogg, the legendary American rapper and singer, has launched his own NFT collectables where he sells his digital assets, including his music, as NFT.

Music and arts are just a fraction of the creative industry that can benefit from the opportunities NFTs offer.

Kevin Roose, a columnist for the New York Times, auctioned out one of his articles as NFT in 2021.

What followed was a surprising bid, and within 24 hours, the bid had risen as high as $277,000. Kevin later sold his work to the highest bidder for 350 ether(Ethereum), equivalent to $560,000 at the time.

Though Kelvin joked that his boss told him that he wouldn’t receive a pay rise for it(the proceeds was given to charity), the realisation that a journalist’s work, which can be accessed anywhere from the world, downloaded, shared, and even copied illegally, can be sold for more than half a million dollars is quite interesting.

In Nigeria, where good journalism is often not appreciated and piracy is regrettably the norm, NFT offers two crucial opportunities.

First, Authenticity. Since dedicated works of Nigerian journalists and writers are often copied, pirated and twisted, it becomes hard sometimes to trace the original person who did the work. However, with the unique code of NFT, works that are encrypted in the blockchain can be verified years from now. The first person that did the work can always be traced in the blockchain.

Second, Value. Kevin’s work brought in $560,000. People are willing to pay for value if they know that their ownership is verifiable in the blockchain. Investigative journalism like unravelling murder cases, government impunity, election malpractices are some of the areas that Nigerian journalists can consider which will stand the taste of time, and even be worth a fortune.

There are, however, some risks of making a dive into the world of NFT.

Speaking on the risk of NFT, Sunday told Neusroom that NFT is a transfer of wealth.

“Well, in my own view, I think you should invest in NFTs because they can serve as a transfer of wealth. If someone who has nothing could buy NFT for $2 and sell it for over $500, it is a transfer of wealth, and everyone should align with it.”

But trading NFT can be extremely risky.

“NFT is a quick way to make money, and it is also a quick way to lose money. When you buy an NFT because of the hype, and the hype suddenly goes down, you’ll be forced to sell at a loss,” Sunday cautions.