Twitter's Dorsey auctions first ever tweet as digital memorabilia
I don&#x27;t understand why anyone would pay for this, under any circumstances. You&#x27;re not paying for exlusive access to the tweet, or even ownership in any meaningful context - you get a certificate of authenticity tied to a cryptographic signature. The tweet is still out there in the wild, and it&#x27;s not like you can delete it or transfer it to your handle or anything like that.<p>I truly, genuinely have no idea who&#x27;s bidding on this, or what their reasoning is. In fact, I&#x27;m not sure I understand the concept of NFTs at all. In the physical world, fine art holds its value because there is exactly one of each painting, and the human hoarding impulse nurtures a sense of reverence towards originality. However, art &quot;sold&quot; via NFT is still accessible and available for anyone to appreciate and download. I don&#x27;t have to ask for permission from the owner to look at the art, or even go to a specific location (like a gallery for a physical piece). I can just download the art to my computer and stare at it whenever I want.<p>The only argument I&#x27;ve seen for NFTs is that many famous artworks have prints made, that are cheap and available to everyone. The original painting is expensive and owned by a single person, but anyone can have an imitation hanging on their wall. I don&#x27;t know that I buy the translation of this concept to the digital world, because prints are very obviously not the actual piece (not least because they&#x27;re printed and not painted). If I download an image or video, or grab a link to @jack&#x27;s tweet, I have the exact same configuration of bytes that the &quot;owner&quot; has. In the case of a link, I&#x27;m staring at the exact same thing the &quot;owner&quot; is, and the fact that it&#x27;s on a reputable website means I&#x27;m not looking at a fake - thus providing the same guarantee as a certificate of authenticity. Hell, there&#x27;s even a cryptographic element, since the site will use TLS for encryption.<p>Am I missing the paradigm here? Or is this just the method by which crypto millionaires will become crypto penniless?