NFT enthusiasts and art collectors have been left confused after an auction of a collection of 104 CryptoPunks estimated to be worth around $30 million was canceled at the last minute.
The event, organized by the famous auction house Sotheby’s, was on its way to becoming one of the largest NFT auctions in history, until the pseudo-owner of the collection “Punk It!” was suddenly withdrawn from the auction.
The reasons for the cryptopunk’s decision are unclear, but after the auction was cancelled, the anonymous owner, known as “0x650dOn Twitter, he sent a seemingly nonchalant tweet to his 12,000 followers saying “forget it, I’ve decided to hold.”
nvm, decided to hodl https://t.co/WdQ5H7I0fl
— 0x650d (@0x650d) February 24, 2022
forget it, I decided to do holding
The collector poked fun at the situation, posting a meme in which he hinted that he was “leading punks to popularity by doing a rug pull at Sothebys.”. While this was not an actual “rug pull” where investors are illegally stripped of their funds, it certainly left Sotheby’s and the community in the dark.
— 0x650d (@0x650d) February 24, 2022
Haralobos Voulgarisquantitative researcher for the Dallas Mavericks, he called the collector a “clown.”
“[0x650d] may have made his motivations for his decision to withdraw a little clearer, choosing to scoff at the high fees auction houses like Sotheby’s charge.”
Salty that you’re going to have to buy at retail now?
— 0x650d (@0x650d) February 24, 2022
Does it bother you that now you’re going to have to buy retail?
The NFT industry has witnessed almost exponential growth in 2021; CryptoPunkscreated by Larva Labs, has generated over $2 billion in sales volume since its inception.
Although this would have been Sotheby’s first event entirely focused on NFTs, the auction house has shown an aptitude for capitalizing on the lucrative NFT market, selling over $100 million worth of NFTs last year aloneUSD 24 million of which occurred in a single auction.
This recent confrontation shows the ideological abyss that exists between the maverick “cyberpunk” culture of Web 3 and the more serene and “educated” culture of traditional institutions.
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