4 min read
Among the many questions still surrounding insolvent crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, one pertains to the fate of the firm’s lavish NFT collection. Answers could be on the horizon, however, because now the assets are being moved into a new wallet.
That’s according to a tweet from crypto analytics firm Nansen, which wrote that the NFTs belonging to Starry Night Capital—a fund established by Three Arrows Capital and pseudonymous collector Vincent Van Dough in 2021—are being moved into a new wallet—specifically a Gnosis Safe account.
A Gnosis Safe is an extra-secure Ethereum wallet that requires multiple signatures to approve transactions. All told, 383 Ethereum NFTs have been moved into the new wallet as of this writing, while the previous wallet still contains 80 NFTs. Most of the NFTs were moved last night.
Three Arrows and Vincent Van Dough announced the $100 million Starry Night fund in August 2021 and proceeded to go on a spending spree, acquiring an array of high-value Ethereum assets. The fund was announced to the world after it acquired an Art Blocks Ringers NFT from artist Dmitri Cherniak for $5.66 million worth of ETH.
Other notable NFTs collected by Starry Night Capital include artist Matt Furie’s Pepe the Frog Genesis NFT for $3.5 million worth of ETH, and a trio of NFTs from pseudonymous artist XCOPY that ranged in price from $1.4 million to $2.3 million worth of ETH. Starry Night also holds multiple CryptoPunks, Rare Pepes, and other notable collectibles.
It’s unclear whether Starry Night ultimately raised and spent the full $100 million intended for the fund. A dashboard on data platform Dune suggests that Starry Night spent about $35 million worth of ETH, but its list of tracked assets is incomplete—it’s missing the Pepe the Frog NFT, for example.
Furthermore, it’s difficult to peg a current value on some of the NFTs, as many are single-edition pieces of artwork or part of collections that have little liquidity. Nansen pegs the collective value of the more liquid assets at 625 ETH, or about $846,000 worth, but noted that over 89% of the NFTs have low liquidity. Many of the assets appear to have been given a very low valuation compared to their original respective purchase prices.
Overall, the NFT market has shed significant value since its heyday last fall. As the crypto market started crashing in May, the estimated price of many “blue chip” NFT assets fell sharply. Similarly, overall market trading volume has fallen significantly in recent months, although several million NFTs are still selling each month—albeit at oft-lower price points.
Three Arrows Capital was one of the best-known crypto hedge funds until it suddenly collapsed in May, following the rapid decline of Terra’s LUNA and UST tokens and the cascading effects upon the wider crypto ecosystem. Founders Su Zhu and Kyle Davies blamed exposure to Terra, staked Ethereum, and the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust for its troubles.
The firm filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy in June, and in July, creditors said that Three Arrows’ Singapore office had been abandoned and the founders were missing. The firm said that it owed $3.5 billion to creditors following its collapse, with Zhu reportedly holding a $1.4 billion stake in the offshore fund that held the company’s assets.
Singapore's high court approved a further inquiry into Three Arrows Capital in August.
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