A digital copy of the first-ever tweet — by Twitter Inc. co-founder Jack Dorsey — has been offered for almost US$48 million on non-fungible token marketplace OpenSea, 16 times what the owner paid for it a year ago.

Sina Estavi, the chief executive officer of Malaysian blockchain service Bridge Oracle, announced on Twitter that he’d put the NFT version of the March 21, 2006 tweet saying “just setting up my twttr” up for sale for 14,969 Ether. He paid US$2.9 million for it in March last year.

After his initial tweet announcing the sale, Estavi followed up with another promising to donate 50 per cent of the proceeds to the charity GiveDirectly, which gives cash to people living in poverty, and which Dorsey had said he’d supported after the first sale of the NFT.

Dorsey responded on Twitter: “why not 99% of it?” He directed his response to Estavi, GiveDirectly and Tesla Inc. founder (and recent Twitter board member) Elon Musk.