What crypto winter? It’s a conclusion that could be drawn from Sotheby’s second round of selling hundreds of NFTs collected by the defunct crypto hedge fund. Capital of the Three Arrows.
At least that’s the valuation the auction house can hope for. And not without reason. At the end of “Grails Part IIwhich took place both online and IRL in New York City on June 15, all 37 NFTs exceeded their lofty estimates, with the grand total dropping just under $11 million and bringing the total of $17 million series.
“A top-of-the-range auction”, rejoices Sotheby’s Twitter accompanied by a pair of cheering emojis.
More than 50% of the buyers present at the sale were under 40 and 61% were new to Sotheby’s. If one of Sotheby’s objectives full-bodied movement in the NFT space was to capture a different, younger customer base, it can work.
“The sale proved that works of exceptional quality continue to attract the attention of serious collectors,” said Michael Bouhanna, Head of Digital Art at Sotheby’s. “A lot [NFTs] setting important new benchmarks for artists since the peak of the market in 2021.”
Dmitri Cherniak, “Ringers #879 (The Goose)”, 2021. Image: courtesy Sotheby’s.
There are, however, caveats here. First, as suggested by the sale title, Three Arrows Capital was a selective, if voracious, collector, and Sotheby’s generative NFTs are what those with crypto to burn think are rare and will hold value. That is to say, it does not reflect the entire market.
Second, the result is heavily weighted by Dmitry ChernyakIt is Ringtones #879, which saw 10 minutes of frantic phone bidding and ultimately sold for $6.2 million, doubling its high presale estimate. It is now the second most expensive work of generative art after Ringtones #109. The buyer, the anonymous Punk 6529will also receive a print signed by the artist.
It is one of 1,000 works in which Cherniak experimented with the endless ways a string can move around the pegs with modifications of the pegs, size, winding pattern and coloring producing extremely different. The artwork was purchased by Three Arrows Capital in 2021 for $5.8 million and holds a special cachet within the digital art community for the fact that the algorithm miraculously created a goose-like artwork. . By comparison, the other three “Ringers” sold for a combined total of less than $500,000.
Snofro, “Chromie Squiggle, #1780” 2020, Image: courtesy Sotheby’s.
Punk 6529 expressed this feeling of admiration in a statement following their latest acquisition of Blue Chip NFT. “Once the algorithm is committed to the blockchain, no one knows what results it will produce. The Goose represents this more clearly than any generative NFT. We could have run the Ringers Mint thousands of times without producing something similar again.
Other notable sales were two of Tyler HobbsThe works of “Fidenza” create flow fields from various rectangles. #216 And Fidenza 479 both exceeded $600,000. One of by Snofro technicolor scribbles, Chromie Doodles #1780sold for $635,000, more than triple its high estimate.
More than 300 works from the Three Arrows Capital collection have been put up for sale and Sotheby’s has confirmed that further auctions will take place throughout the summer.
Tyler Hobbs, “Fidenza #479”, 2021. Image: courtesy Sotheby’s.
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