Azuki is among a few projects that have enjoyed such popularity and infamy. A PFP Project is featuring 10,000 anime-inspired NFTs. Azuki's prominence has been marked by unrivalled hype and in-depth lore.
Azuki made waves on the NFT stage in January 2022. With a complex roadmap and a high mint cost, Azuki quickly gained attention from many influential people who considered it a hot product.
The creators of the project had an ambitious vision. They wanted to create the largest, most decentralized metaverse brand. This would be one that the holders owned.
Azuki became one of NFT's most popular and fastest-growing projects after months of steady growth. But, Azuki fell on hard times when its creator was found to be involved with several other failed and controversial NFT programs.
Azuki didn't lose its momentum despite a scandal involving its founder. Azuki even managed to find a foothold amid the NFT and cryptocurrency markets. What is the secret of Azuki? Let's find out more about the NFT project Azuki.
What is the Azuki FT project?
Azuki is an ensemble of 10,000 generative avatars NFTs, launched on January 12, 2022. As with other PFP NFT projects, the Azuki tokens result from a random selection of traits. Azuki has anime-inspired artwork and is described as a mixture of the 3D action-role-playing game The World Ends at You and the stylistic sensibilities found in the iconic skateboarding magazine Trasher.
Azuki was initially to be launched via Dutch Auction. A Dutch Auction is an NFT drop style where a sale starts at one amount and then falls over time to the final amount. Azuki's original mint price was 1. ETH. This price would decrease by 0.05 ETH per 20 minutes until it reached 0.15 ETH. But Azuki never reached 0.15. It was only able to reach the first price decrease, and the entire supply of Azuki sold out in less than three minutes at the 1ETH price.
The rapid sell-out of this project was probably the result of hype and influencer support. The success of the project was undoubtedly due in part to its ambitious project roadmap (described next). However, as with all roadmap promises, collectors should not take them too seriously. It was likely that the community support and the capital raised during this primary sale convinced them of the endless possibilities for Azuki.
Azuki made 8,700 NFTs available for public sale. It was priced at 1 ETH ($3,400). The founders took home around 8,700ETH on the day of the sale, which amounts to upwards of $29million. A day later, the private Whitelist Sale began. Unspecified numbers of Azuki FFT were minted at 0.50 ETH each, which generated around $2 million additional for the team.
The Azuki collection would see a $300 million increase in secondary sales volume over many NFT marketplaces within the week following its launch. Because success breeds success, we've learned that success is a prerequisite for success in NFT. As a result, Azuki's early achievements quickly brought the project to the ETH floor double digits and sent its popularity skyrocketing.
Who made Azuki?
Chiru Labs created Azuki. This group comprises artists and developers based in Los Angeles with gaming, technology and crypto backgrounds. The group comprises pseudonymous members at 2 pm—flow, location and HoshiBoy. Zagabond, an ex-big tech entrepreneur, heads it. Azuki aims to be more than just a PFP project. There will be many sectors to be developed under the Azuki brand.
How did Azuki achieve such popularity?
As I mentioned earlier, success in NFT is proven to lead to more success. Azuki, like any other project, is more popular than before. As long as the hype surrounding the project continues, it is likely that its value will remain high. Azuki seemed to capitalize on this rule of NFT since Chiru could generate millions more through reselling NFTs. A five per cent royalty fee was in place for each resale.
However, sales volumes aside, the Azuki universe's grandeur may have been the real inspiration for the wider NFT community. The Chiru team had large plans in place for the future. This included exhibits, merchandise, a native currency called $BEAN, immersive 3D experiences and many other things.
These new facets of The Brand would be available to The Garden members -- which is the name given to Azuki collectors. The Garden includes members who are a. Azuki NFT owners get access to all Azuki drops, streetwear collabs, and live events.
Azuki's popularity is also due to the timing of its release. A few anime-themed projects were already rising through the NFT market ranks in 2022. 0N1 Force was one of the most popular NFT projects, having taken the NFT world by storm just a few short months before Azuki. However, it appeared to have eaten more than it can chew and has fallen in popularity, leaving a gap in PFP.
Azuki's momentum was at risk of stalling in May 2022 after Zagabond published a blog explaining how the three NFT projects he had left before Azuki ended. These weren't any projects. It was a small group of NFT projects that were once prominent and were abandoned by the original founding teams.
Azuki NFTs and the controversy
Vagabond was a driving force behind the defunct projects Tendies (now CryptoZunks) and CryptoPhunks. In this case, Azuki founder, especially CryptoPhunks, was considered rug pulling by the NFT Community. This led to many collectors feeling that he wasn't just guilty of hiding the information from his NFT community and one of the worst NFT faux pas.
However, the accusations didn't stop there. Some pointed to on-chain data to explain how CryptoPhunks created a wash trade. This raised concerns about Zagabond's sharing of information about his "failed programs". Azuki dropped in community sentiment, which led to a drop in the Azuki price.
This all came to an abrupt halt when Zagabond took to the Twitter space hosted on May 10 by Andrew Wang to address further allegations. During the space, Zagabond claimed he passed some of his projects on to collector communities. After that, he justified his actions by observing that there was no standard for creators.
Some developers that worked on Zagabond's previous projects shared very different experiences. A few said they were less of a failure than apparent scams. A discussion thread by dxv in which former CryptoZunks team head dxv accuses Zagabond, saying that he was dishonest and didn't properly communicate the project's progress. The thread also mentions that Zagabond had many events on the roadmap.
Although members of NFT were extremely unhappy with Zagabond's handling of the allegations they received, he finally issued an Official Apology via Twitter.
What's the next step for Azuki
Azuki unveiled its most significant expansion ever in April 2022. It was the Azuki Beanz. Azuki's original Azuki NFT holders were granted these NFTs as an airdrop sidekick. Azuki capitalized on the need to grow the brand without diluting its original 10,000-supply stock, much like Bored Apes did when they had mutant Apes.
Beanz has a collection of over 20,000 NFTs and helped lower barriers to entry into Azuki's ecosyecosystemthe brand grows; the future utility will be available to Azuki collectors. Beanz holders received access to the Azuki Discord channel for holders only and are eligible for future Azuki products.
Beanz will likely be an integral part of the Azuki eco-ecosystem "red Bean" -- undoubtedly a tribute to the Matrix "red Pill" -- continues to be a staple in the Azuki community. Azuki is striving to be an influential player both on-chain and off-chain, as evidenced by the expansion of its ecosyecosystemuki plans to create its metaverse via the on-chain.
The metaverse will contain interactive multimedia experiences, games, and community incentives. Comics and animation may also be included. But, Chiru's most important initiative seems to be the "bridge between" metaverse and real-life activation.
Azuki presented a large-scale satellite event at The 2022 NFT. NYC conference that gave us a glimpse of how this bridge might look. The Azuki event featured brightly lit Japanese-inspired scenery. "Enter the Alley", as it was known, featured art installations with live music, food stalls, tattoo shops, food stands, and other elements that reflected the all-encompassing brand Azuki wanted to be.
Azuki appears to be in line with companies such as Yuga Labs, Doodles, and others, laying the groundwork for what a Web3 branding might look like. Azuki and the Chiru team are among the most well-known and successful NFT entities. In the coming years, they will likely be deploying capital to bridge the gap between its existence as an NFT community and a comprehensive consumer brand.
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