Spencer Ventures will acquire 144 Pudgy Penguin NFTs from the art collection of now-defunct crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital.
The institutionally backed venture capital fund struck a deal a few weeks ago priced in the mid-six figures with Sotheby’s, the art auction house responsible for selling 3AC’s NFT portfolio.
Spencer Ventures receives 48 Pudgy Penguin NFTs visible in Sotheby’s wallet. One of them has the ultra-rare Ice Crown, and the best offer for that collectible on OpenSea is 6.6 packed ether, or almost $10,500.
The purchase also includes 48 Pudgy Rods, a rod collection that debuted in August 2021 as a free-to-claim NFT, as well as an airdrop with an additional 48 Lil’ Pudgys.
Lil’ Pudgys are baby penguins with different outfits. When 3AC owned these specific NFTs, it never claimed them.
“We’re going to bring to life a subset of the collection that hasn’t been released before. So this is part of our love and care for the penguins that we buy,” Spencer Gordon-Sand told Blockworks in an interview on Monday.
He continued: “These penguins are now off the market… we have no plans to sell them anytime soon.”
Blockworks reported in September that physical penguin plushies are hitting the shelves of Walmart locations ahead of the 2023 holiday season. Pudgy Penguins generated approximately $500,000 in sales in the first few days it was available on Amazon.
Gordon-Sand told Blockworks that the company was attracted to the deal in part because of how the collection has maintained its value over time.
“Most CEOs in the NFT world have been CEO of their project while its price dropped by 95%. Chubby penguins are pretty close to their all-time high prices today, compared to most of the rest of the market,” Gordon-Sand said.
Data from CoinGecko shows that while the collection is below the all-time high price floor of around 7.1 ether (ETH), the floor price today is just under 5 ETH.
Gordon-Sand said he had been in contact with Sotheby representatives following the June 15 auction of 3AC’s assets, which raised $11 million for the collapsed crypto hedge fund’s creditors. Gordon-Sand attended that auction and inquired about the assets of 3AC’s Pudgy Penguins after they were not put up for sale at that event.
Read more: Sotheby’s auctions off 3AC’s NFT collection for $2.5 million
“We had some pretty intense negotiations that literally took several months,” he said, culminating in a signed agreement several weeks ago.
The transfer of Sotheby’s assets to Spencer Ventures will take place sometime Tuesday, according to Gordon-Sand.