Many of you will know or have heard of 3AC already — the (failed) crypto hedge fund that went up belly up last July, and which many have labeled as the first crucial domino to fall before Luna, Celsius, and FTX.
On Wednesday this week, Teneo, the liquidators responsible for selling off 3AC’s assets, released a detailed list of 3AC’s NFTs that will soon be for sale.
— Cole (@cole0x) February 22, 2023
We dug into that list, and boy, is it interesting.
In Teneo’s document, they explain that, at this time, only a fraction of 3AC’s NFTs will be up for sale and that a large portion of 3AC’s NFT portfolio (specifically those assembled by anonymous collector Vincent Van Dough via the Starry Night Capital Fund) are “presently subject to an application before the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court in the High Court of Justice in the British Virgin Islands” – aka they’re stuck in bureacratic limbo.
Still, even with many of 3AC’s NFTs being frozen in ‘The Starry Night Application’, there’s a deluge of valuable NFTs about to hit the market.
Here’s one of the liquidation wallets if you’d like to dig around: Liquidation Wallet
Starting with what stands out: there’s hundreds of Art Blocks assets drawing from dozens of different generative collections – for example, 30 Fidenzas, 17 Ringers, 20 Apparitions, 19 Dreams, 16 AlgoRhythms.
Further down the line, generative art gives way to smaller purchases and a smattering of classic pfp collections: 11 CryptoPunks, 46 Wrapped Penguins, 48 Pudgy Presents, 1 CryptoDickButt, 1 Bored Ape Kennel Club, and so on.
As mentioned above, we know they had the help of anonymous collector Vincent Van Dough for some of their purchases . . . but one can’t help wondering what their buying strategy was for the rest?
Take the infamous Ringer #879 – we can’t know for sure what inspired them to spend 1800 ETH (over $5.6 million at the time) on this generative artwork, but we do know that shortly after purchasing it, Su Zhu, cofounder of 3AC, plainly tweeted out, “Thesis: we like the Goose”
Thesis: we like the Goose. pic.twitter.com/RBI9Axuvac
— 朱溯 🐂 (@zhusu) August 27, 2021
Maybe billionaire hedge funders aren't all that different from your average NFT degen.
One thing is for sure: the types of NFTs not listed for sale (under the Starry Night section) seem to be more carefully curated than those that are for sale – The Starry Night portfolio, in addition to containing a swath of generative art, has a lot more meme collections (fun fact: the word ‘Pepe’ appears 216 times in the Starry Night list as opposed to 4 times in the for sale list), and select 1/1s (including names like XCOPY).
Perhaps the most interesting question that remains is how all these assets end up getting priced, not just in terms of their collection and rarity, but with consideration for their provenance — as screwed up as it may be, artworks associated with criminals are known to grab high premiums — does owning an NFT that went down with 3AC justify a higher than usual price tag? Who knows, maybe it will provide a fresh injection of garage-sale-buying-pressure to many otherwise illiquid collections.
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