Primordial NFT? Someone tried to sell a JPEG for BTC months before Bitcoin Pizza Day
Crypto Twitter was briefly set on fire on May 14 with a suggestion that the world’s first real purchase made of Bitcoin may have been for a JPEG, not pizza.
In a tweet from independent developer Udi Wertheimer, the Bitcoin advocate shared a screenshot showing what could have been the first ever purchase with Bitcoin – even before the infamous Bitcoin Pizza.
The screenshot posted is dated January 24, 2010, a full four months before Bitcoin Pizza Day – when Bitcoin developer Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000 Bitcoin for two pizzas in what is believed to be the first real-world purchase made with Bitcoin.
The screenshot shows a user called Sabunir trying to sell a photo for 500 Bitcoin – worth about $1 at the time – on the Bitcoin forum Bitcointalk.
It even highlighted that pseudonymous Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto was trying to get involved in helping the sale go through.
However, the claim has been cast in doubt, with a tweet from professional poker player turned crypto investor Mike McDonald pointing to a screenshot suggesting the Bitcoin transaction could have been a donation, meaning the JPEG was never actually “sold” .
In a subsequent tweet, Wertheimer admitted that his original tweet may have been inaccurate, saying that although Sabunir listed a JPEG for sale at the price of 500 BTC and they received the same amount at their address a month later, “it is possible that 500 BTC was sent as a donation for another interaction” and that the sale of the JPEG never actually took place.
Without personal confirmation from Sabunir, it remains unclear what the 500 BTC was transferred to, Wertheimer said.
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The rumor comes in the wake of the Bitcoin Ordinals phenomenon, which at the time of publication has seen more than 6.1 million images, videos and even tokens – using the BRC-20 token standard – minted on the Bitcoin blockchain.
Wertheimer has been a big proponent of Bitcoin NFTs since the Ordinals protocol was created by Casey Rodamor on January 21st of this year, allowing users to “write” new bits of data onto the Bitcoin blockchain.
Wertheimer has since worked to drive a new wave of NFT enthusiasts to Bitcoin using an Ordinals project called Taproot Wizards, which takes its namesake from the Taproot soft fork that enabled the creation of the Ordinals protocol in the first place.
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