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image captionTwitter chief executive Jack Dorsey

Twitter founder Jack Dorsey's first ever tweet has been sold for the equivalent of $2.9m (£2.1m) to a Malaysia-based businessman.

The tweet, which said "just setting up my twttr," was first published on March 21, 2006 and was auctioned off by Mr Dorsey for charity.

The Malaysia-based buyer Sina Estavi compared the purchase to buying a Mona Lisa painting.

The tweet was bought using the ether cryptocurrency, a rival to bitcoin.

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What are NFTs and why are some worth millions?

It was sold as a nonfungible token (NFT) on Monday to Mr Estavi, the chief executive of technology firm Bridge Oracle.

An NFT is a unique digital certificate that states who owns a photo, video or other form of online media. Each NFT is unique and acts as a collector's item that can't be duplicated, making them rare by design.

NFTs have become hugely popular this year, with expensive digital artwork also being sold this way.