The wallet address of the bankrupt cryptocurrency hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC) managed to buy the NFT on Friday morning thanks to a bid from nearly three years ago that the liquidator apparently missed.
According to NFT marketplace SuperRare, the 3AC wallet placed a bid of 20 ETH ($58,800) for the “Neon Village” NFT from artist SeerLight’s “Ninja Village” collection on August 21, 2021. This was less than a year before the former hedge fund filed for bankruptcy.
The bid was accepted on Friday by the previous owner, “@anonymoux,” who originally purchased the address in October 2021 for 100 ETH ($348,700), according to SuperRare data, confirmed by Ethereum blockchain explorer Etherscan. On-chain analytics platform Arkham flagged the address as belonging to 3AC, and was first mentioned by community member “@0xBriann.”
Teneo, which manages the liquidation of 3AC’s assets, appears to have been excluded from the bid, which resulted in the bid being accepted despite the company being in bankruptcy proceedings.
“(3AC) made an offer to SuperRare and the ETH was escrowed in a smart contract, so it was not considered a recoverable asset during the liquidation process,” said Jean-Michel Pailhon, CIO of Grail Capital and former Ledger executive.
In March, Mechanism Capital co-founder Andrew Kang purchased the original Pepe the Frog NFT from the 3AC estate for an undisclosed sum. Auction house Sotheby’s then held a private sale as part of liquidating 3AC’s remaining NFTs.
The block reached out to Teneo for comment.
3AC explosion
3AC, once a prominent hedge fund manager who managed over $3 billion in assets in the cryptocurrency space, filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy in July 2022 after facing liquidity issues following the collapse of the Terra ecosystem in May of that year.
Co-founders Kyle Davis and Sue Zhu launched OPNX (Open Exchange), a cryptocurrency derivatives and bond trading platform, in April 2023. However, the platform was later shut down in February.
While Zhu was arrested in Singapore last September and jailed until December for failing to cooperate with investigations into the liquidation of 3AC, Davis remains outside the city-state and has not been arrested. In a podcast interview earlier this year, Davis said he would actively avoid returning to Singapore to avoid jail.
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