On Friday, May 19th, the bankrupt crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC) from Singapore auctioned seven NFTs at Sotheby’s, garnering $2.5 million in sales.
The move comes as 3AC begins to liquidate its extensive NFT collection to recuperate funds for creditors. On Friday, Sotheby’s New York curated a collection of digital artworks including a piece from Tyler Hobb’s Fidenza project, as well as CryptoPunk #1326, and Autoglyph #187.
Sotheby’s said the collection was a “fascinating exploration of the intersection of art and technology.” The most notable sale was ‘Fidenza #725,’ which fetched over $1 million, far beyond what it was expected to sell for. According to DappRadar, the NFT was purchased by 3AC for 135 ETH in 2021, or around $341,786 at the time.
3AC was the first major crypto company to fall in 2022, and its NFTs were seized and put up for auction by liquidators appointed by the court. At the time, the company estimated its assets at around $1 billion, with its NFT collection valued around $22 million. 3AC is reported to owe about $2.5 billion to its creditors.
The money from the NFT sales will be used to pay creditors, and Sotheby’s will continue to curate NFT auctions for Tenoe — one of 3AC’s court-appointed liquidators. 3AC is said to hold rare digital artworks from Dmitri Cherniak, Tyler Hobbs, Joshua Bagley, and several Bored Ape Yacht Club, CryptoKitty, and CryptoPunks NFTs.
Sotheby’s Is Bullish on Digital Art and Web3
A collapsed crypto hedge fund selling a piece of digital art for a million dollars at one of the most renowned auction houses in the world isn’t something you hear about every day. Unless you read and write about Web3 news as much as we do. Then you know Sotheby’s has been bullish on Web3 for some time now. Below are two of the recent moves from the auction house in Web3.
First, about three weeks ago, Sotheby’s announced a peer-to-peer NFT market that runs on the Ethereum and Polygon blockchains. The marketplaces will facilitate the sale of fine art curated by Sotheby’s digital art specialists.
Next, from March 17-24, Sotheby’s held an NFT auction based on a popular subreddit that focuses on “oddly satisfying” videos. The collection is called ‘Natively Digital: Oddly Satisfying,’ and features work from Web3 artists like Beeple, ARC, Clement Morin, and Ryan Talbot.
Sotheby’s first burst into Web3 in June 2021 when it auctioned ‘Quantum,’ the first NFT ever created. The piece sold for $1.47 million and Sotheby’s hasn’t looked back since. At Rarity Sniper, we’ll be following up on future auctions of 3AC’s digital assets at Sotheby’s as the hedge fund continues to liquidate its NFT collection and pay back what it owes.
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