NFT Neon Village gets 20 ETH from Three Arrows Capital wallet in a 2021 bid

The 2021 NFT craze apparently had some after-effects, as an old image was finally sold automatically for 20 ETH. The NFT was offered at an auction, before the final sale was approved through a smart contract. 

An NFT that held peak valuations in 2021 finally sold for 20 ETH. A wallet had posted enough funds to wait for the bid to be filled during the most competitive time of NFT trading. 

Read: NFT sales record a 5% increase in the past 7 days amid market recovery

What is more curious, the wallet that bought the NFT may be linked to Three Arrows Capital. The crypto investment firm participated in some of the hottest trends before crashing along with the FTX exchange. 

The purchase of the NFT followed a trend, and even the FTX team admitted to buying all tokens and NFTs, hoping to score a winner. 

Neon Night NFT previously sold for 100 ETH

The NFT had sold for around $31 at an earlier auction, through the SuperRare platform interface. The entire Ninja Village collection has seen its floor go to zero. The Neon Village NFT is an ERC-271 token, generated by artist Seerlight. The NFT was minted on July 24, 2021, and received initial bids of 0.07 ETH and 7 ETH. 

The biggest resale success for this particular NFT was the purchase by @anonymoux for 100 ETH, back when ETH was also trading close to $3,800. It was @anonymoux that finally accepted the dormant bid.

Blockchain data confirms that the buyer placed an offer of 20 ETH for token ID # 26497 (Neon Village) on Aug. 21, 2021, nearly two years and 11 months before it was accepted by the seller.

On the Arkham Intelligence platform, the buyer account sent 2,615.65 ETH (worth $7.8 million at the time) to Three Arrows Capital on Aug. 1, 2021, which implies that the account is either owned by the hedge fund or is one of its creditors or debtors.

The artist who created the NFT, @seerlight, was last active in 2022, right before one of the biggest disasters wiped out the NFT market and other crypto projects. The NFT created by @seerlight relied on exclusive images that took weeks to complete. 

On the SuperRare platform, SeerLight has 22 creations, the highest successful sale of which was 150 ETH, resold on August 2, 2023. 

The next bid from August 2021 was placed in escrow, while all other funds belonging to 3AC are now in conservation after the 2022 bankruptcy. 

The bid record on the Ethereum blockchain reveals the wallet address. Arkham has identified that same address as a known entity. It is one of the wallets of 3AC, which is now down to $23.98. The wallet’s biggest holding is 8.8M CIA tokens, with a value of around $21.

All other 3AC funds were moved to the Teneo conservatorship wallet, which now holds more than $229M. 

The 3AC fund was no stranger to hot NFT collections. One of its most notable hauls was Pudgy Penguins. This collection hinged on a simple set of images that nevertheless went on to appreciate and trade with significant activity. Pudgy Penguins is also in the top 3 collections with a floor price above 10 ETH. 

3AC forced to liquidate its NFT collection to pay out creditors

Unfortunately, 3AC’s early-bird bid did not pay out. The defunct fund was used to liquidate the NFT at a lower price. 3AC reportedly owned 100 Pudgy Penguins and sold them just before their valuation peaked at 50 ETH for some of the most valuable images.

Reportedly, 3AC was deep into NFT, also owning the obligatory blue chips, Cryptopunks and BAYC. Since the NFT themselves held no utility, 3AC looked for ways to use the items as collateral and find liquidity in decentralized products. 

Also read: Three Arrows Capital (3AC) co-founder navigates legal battles amid global fallout

Some of the 3AC NFT may still be held by counterparties like Nexo, which at one point negotiated to use the valuable NFT as collateral. For 3AC, perhaps the riskiest move was to borrow crypto and use it to buy any emerging collection that minted during the 2021 boom. 

The entire 3AC crypto collection was resold by Sotheby’s, with some Punks going as high as $6.2M and still used as an avatar on active crypto social media accounts. Nansen estimated the whole liquidation of the NFT collection at around $10.3M, with some items carrying the bulk of the value.

Cryptopolitan reporting by Hristina Vasileva