Sotheby’s Auction of Seized NFT Artwork Surpasses $10.9 Million in Sales

The prestigious auction house Sotheby’s recently finished a live auction in New York containing non-fungible token (NFT) artwork that had been taken from the insolvent cryptocurrency hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC). The sale produced outstanding results, with total sales exceeding $10.9 million. This article examines the auction’s high points and the value of these NFT works within the context of digital art.

37 items from the “Grails” collection, including pieces by well-known generative artists including Dmitri Cherniak, Tyler Hobbs, Jeff Davis, and others, were up for auction. A standout was Dmitri Cherniak’s Ringers #879, also known as “The Goose.” Intense bidding raised the final auction price from the initial $2–3 million estimate to an astounding $6.2 million, making it the second-highest sale of all time for a piece of generative art. In this historic sale, prominent NFT investor 6529 purchased “The Goose”.

Significance of “The Goose” and the Generative Art Movement

Within the NFT community, “The Goose” is of utmost cultural importance. It was cited as an important piece from the generative art movement and a major highlight in Cherniak’s portfolio by Michael Bouhanna, head of digital art and NFTs at Sotheby’s. The artwork’s creative worth and its portrayal of the unpredictable nature of generative art were praised by NFT investor 6529. According to the investor, “The Goose” has begun a historic journey within the NFT community, while its full potential has not yet been completely appreciated.

The Goose has cultural importance within the NFT group, according to a statement from 6529. “On-chain long form generative art is an act of faith by the artist and the minter. Once the algorithm is committed to the blockchain, nobody knows what outputs 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 anything like it again. The Goose has had a historic journey so far through key moments in NFT history and I suspect its journey has just begun.”

Other significant transactions at the auction included the $622,300 sales of Tyler Hobbs’ Fidenza #479 and the $635,00 sales of Snowfro’s Chromie Squiggle #1780. Both Autoglyph #218 by Larva Labs and Archetype #397 by Kjetil Golid sold for $330,200 each. Surprisingly, the majority of the NFTs sold at the auction went over their projected sale prices, demonstrating considerable market interest and demand.

Sotheby’s Grails Collection Liquidation

This auction is a component of Sotheby’s multi-part sale of NFTs from the sizable collection assembled mostly in 2021 by Three Arrows Capital. In July, the Singapore-based hedge fund Three Arrows Capital declared bankruptcy. Teneo, the liquidator, plans to recoup money by selling the expensive NFTs. Due to its ground-breaking and culturally significant works, the Grails collection, one of the most important collections of digital art, has attracted a lot of attention.