AB5D

zeneca

The trader who became a collector in public.

Zeneca came to Art Blocks to make money and wrote, in his own newsletter, about the moment that changed. He then minted every Curated drop. His wallets still hold 722 AB[500] works across 182 series.

Collector
Zeneca · @Zeneca
Writing
Letters from a Zeneca · zeneca33.substack.com
Holdings
722 AB[500] works · 182 series · 6 wallets
abTDH
113,700,396 · · method
722
AB[500] works
182
Series
296
Minted directly
113,700,396
abTDH

Entry into blockchain and crypto art

A professional poker player for some fifteen years, Zeneca entered crypto in 2017 and moved into NFTs in 2021.1 He has been unusually candid about why: "I would be lying if I said I first got into Art Blocks for the art. I did not. Aka, I came for the money."2 A friend tipped him to mint and flip; his first mints did not sell.2

Something shifted. "One of my first ever NFT purchases was a piece of Art Blocks art," he wrote in June 2021, and of the work: "This art brings me joy. I don't get that from the art of my apes, or the art of my cats."3 By September he had a new description of himself: "I became an art collector."2

Zeneca across the AB[500]

Art Blocks holdings

"I have minted every (Curated) drop since," he wrote in 2021,2 and the record agrees: 296 of the works still held were minted directly into his six wallets, and the earliest still held arrived on 21 March 2021. The largest positions are later and less obvious than the canon: 36 Daisies, 30 Asemica, 27 Transitions, 23 Two Mathematicians, 17 Polychrome Music and 16 Para Bellum.

The canon is present in single works chosen with care: Archetype #48, Gazers #377, Subscapes #432, four Meridian including #536, and Chromie Squiggles #5846, #6223 and #9328. Fidenza #291, which he once showed as his own,3 is no longer in these wallets. He has admitted the weakness: "At a high level, I still have not gotten great at selling."1

Associated holdings

Beyond Art Blocks he held Bored Apes and Cool Cats, and founded the education project ZenAcademy and The 333 Club in November 2021, winding both back in 2023.1 His daily threads of Art Blocks updates in 2021 made his collecting a public education.4 On generative art his position has not moved: "I'm very bullish on generative art as a whole."5

Notes

  1. Greg Oakford, "Zeneca's portfolio peaked at $20M in 2021," Cointelegraph Magazine, 23 May 2024. cointelegraph.com ↩ ↩ ↩
  2. Zeneca, "Letter 19: Art Blocks (2)," Letters from a Zeneca, 20 September 2021. zeneca33.substack.com ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩
  3. Zeneca, "Letter 10: Art Blocks," Letters from a Zeneca, 30 June 2021. zeneca33.substack.com ↩ ↩
  4. Zeneca, "ART. BLOCKS. UPDATE." thread on X, 1 August 2021. x.com ↩
  5. Bankless podcast, "Zeneca_33: Overpriced JPEGs," 18 November 2021, transcript. podscripts.co ↩