3AC fire sale: Spencer Ventures to buy 144 Pudgy Penguins

Spencer Ventures is set to acquire 144 NFTs in the Pudgy Penguins family from the art collection of the 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 off 3AC’s NFT portfolio.

Spencer Ventures will receive 48 Pudgy Penguin NFTs, visible in the Sotheby’s wallet. One of them has the ultra-rare ice crown, and the best offer for that collectible on OpenSea is 6.6 ether, or nearly $10,500.

Also included in the purchase are 48 Pudgy Rods, a fishing rod collection that debuted in August 2021 as a free-to-claim NFT, as well as an airdrop containing an additional 48 Lil’ Pudgys.

Lil’ Pudgys are baby penguins with a variety of different outfits. When 3AC owned these particular NFTs, it never claimed them.

“We’re going to get to bring life to a subset of the collection that’s been previously unminted. So this is part of our love and taking care of the penguins that we’re buying,” Spencer Gordon-Sand told Blockworks in a Monday interview.

He continued, “These penguins are now off the market…we don’t plan on selling them anytime soon.”

Blockworks reported in September that physical penguin plushy toys are hitting the shelves of Walmart locations ahead of the 2023 holiday season. Pudgy Penguins drew some $500,000 worth of sales in their first few days of being available on Amazon.

Gordon-Sand told Blockworks that the firm was drawn to the deal in part because of how the collection has maintained its value over time.

“Most of the CEOs in the NFT space have been CEO of their project while it went down 95% in price. Pudgy Penguins today are pretty close to their all-time high price, conversely to most of the rest of the market,” Gordon-Sand said.

CoinGecko data shows that while the collection is below its all-time high floor price of around 7.1 ether (ETH), its floor price is just under 5 ETH today.

Gordon-Sand said he connected with Sotheby’s representatives after the June 15 auction of 3AC’s assets, which netted $11 million for the creditors of the collapsed crypto hedge fund. Gordon-Sand attended that auction and inquired about 3AC’s Pudgy Penguins holdings after they weren’t put up for sale during that event.

“We had a pretty intense negotiation that literally took several months,” he said, which culminated in a signed agreement several weeks ago.

The transfer of the assets from Sotheby’s to Spencer Ventures is set to occur at some point Tuesday, according to Gordon-Sand.

Updated Dec. 4, 2023 at 1:58 pm ET: The headline of this report has been edited for clarity.

Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

The Breakdown: Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily.
Empire: Crypto news and analysis to start your day.
Forward Guidance: The intersection of crypto, macro and policy.
0xResearch: Alpha directly in your inbox.
Lightspeed: All things Solana.
The Drop: Apps, games, memes and more.
Supply Shock: Bitcoin, bitcoin, bitcoin.