The seller of 104 CryptoPunks Ethereum NFTs opted to keep the digital assets instead of selling them at a Sotheby’s auction.
Last Wednesday evening, the anonymous collector 0x650d tweeted, “nvm, chose to hodl.” The post emerged two weeks after an announcement about the sale from a famous auction house. The sale was expected to bring in $20 million to $30 million. The collector then shared a meme claiming that they were “rugging Sothebys to take punks mainstream.” Rugging is a swindle in which a developer abandons a project with the funds of investors. While no money was lost, the owner did pull the rug from under the bidders’ feet.
Sotheby’s had been marketing the “Punk It!” auction as “the first dedicated live evening auction for NFTs”
Despite the fact that this would be the first auction dedicated to NFTs, Sotheby’s has previously auctioned the digital artworks among other objects. In 2021, it reportedly sold $100 million in NFTs, with a sale of 101 Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs in September accounting for approximately a fifth of that total, well beyond Sotheby’s estimate of $15-18 million. As a result, today’s auction may have been one of the greatest NFT sales in history.
The collection’s removal underscores the Web3 world’s iconoclastic goals as it clashes with conventional institutions. It was a “sad day for digital art collectors,” according to Robert Leshner, author of the DeFi protocol Compound.
Later on Wednesday, the pseudonymous collector hinted that they might have backed out due to the auction house’s commission fees in a tweet.