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Influential collector decides to hold his NFTs just before Sotheby’s auction; Here’s why
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Fine art and luxury goods auction house Sotheby’s enjoyed a record-breaking sales year in 2021. It was boosted by a younger, digital-savvy generation of collectors. In fact, the famed auction house reported over $100 million in NFT sales. Now, given the reputation, NFT enthusiasts and fine art collectors witnessed a weird scenario following this development on Twitter.
Wait for it
A much-anticipated auction of more than 100 CryptoPunk NFTs ended before it began late Wednesday, 24 February. Earlier this month, the auction house operator announced the auction, which would see 104 CryptoPunk sold in a single batch. The event, hosted by famous fine-goods auctioneer Sotheby’s, was on track to be one of the largest NFT auctions in history — up until the pseudonymous owner of the ‘Punk It!’ collection suddenly withdrew from the auction.
A Sotheby’s representative said that the seller decided to withdraw the lot. In a tweet after the initial publication of this article, the pseudonymous collector, who goes by ‘0x650d’ tweeted about this change, that read,
nvm, decided to hodl https://t.co/WdQ5H7I0fl
— 0x650d (@0x650d) February 24, 2022
The value of the lot was estimated between $20 million and $30 million, according to a statement from Sotheby’s at the time of its initial announcement. Sotheby’s had said that the planned sale represented “the highest valued estimate for an NFT or digital art ever offered at auction.”
Is this funny?
Needless to say, this delay stirred different reactions on Twitter. For instance, Robert Leshner, a famed executive at Compound Finance expressed concerns following this update.
The last-minute withdrawal of the Punk It auction unfortunately had the opposite effect. A sad day for digital art collectors. https://t.co/LXGjvBI2ok
— Robert Leshner (@rleshner) February 24, 2022
However, the pseudonymous collector was quick to acknowledge this note, even criticized it by asserting:
“Sad day? Amazing day. The seller realized just how valuable what he holds is… maybe he never understood Punks are the Warhol’s of the 21st century and the panel before the auction saved him from the biggest mistake of his life by letting them go….”
But this wasn’t it, the collector went on to post a meme, thereby adding some “rug pull” humor to the situation. Insinuated that they were “taking punks mainstream by ‘rugging’ Sothebys.” Obviously, this wasn’t the case here.
— 0x650d (@0x650d) February 24, 2022
