Blue Chip NFTs 101 – Azuki, A New Kind Of Brand For The Future… And A Scandal
09 September 2022 - 04:55AM
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The idea behind Azuki is to mix NFT culture with anime-style
drawings, with a global community working together behind the
scenes. Which is phenomenal. Azuki defines itself as a
“decentralized brand for the metaverse.” This brand’s main product
is a collection of 10K anime-style avatars in NFT form. The
collection is also called Azuki and at inception was one of the NFT
space’s biggest success stories… … until admissions and
revelations by one of the project’s creators cast a shadow on Azuki
as a whole. Let’s review the project’s history, its
characteristics, and the revelations that changed it all. Azuki’s
Origin Story The project exists since January 12th, 2022. The team
behind Azuki is Chiru Labs, their slogan is “Born in Los Angeles.
Building for the metaverse.” Most of the members use pseudonyms and
keep their identities private. A few use their real name, like
Azuki’s co-creator and illustrator Arnold Tsang from Toronto,
Canada. He’s well-know for his participation in “Overwatch,” which
Wikipedia describes as “a 2016 team-based multiplayer first-person
shooter game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment.”
Related Reading: Blue Chip NFTs 101 – Down, Down, To Goblintown. An
Unlikely Success Story The community behind it is a key part of the
project. On Azuki’s website, they use slogans like “A new kind of
brand that we build together” and “A brand for the metaverse. By
the community.” Ownership of one of the 10K Azuki NFTs gives the
user access to The Garden. A virtual place Azuki promises “starts
with exclusive streetwear collabs, NFT drops, live events, and much
more that will be revealed over time.” Azuki is a digital brand. A
“decentralized brand of the future.” At first, it seemed like the
NFT collection was going to propel them to instant classic status.
The initial success made their name recognizable and sent the
collection’s floor price to double digits. At one point, it reached
a maximum of 22 ETH. Nowadays, the floor price at Opensea is 7.4
ETH, what happened? Whatever the reason, the Azuki collection gets
around. It has moved a total volume of 260.2K ETH in transactions
so far. We Need A Little… Controversy The turning point for Azuki
was a Twitter Space, of all things. On May 10th, crypto influencer
Andrew Wang interviewed Zagabond, one of Azuki’s founders,
who just like that revealed that he was part of a few NFT projects
that didn’t end well. It almost sounded like they were a rug pull,
and people freaked out accordingly. The collection’s floor price
started falling and it hasn’t recovered yet. It was a mystery
at first, but according to Cryptoslate, the projects Zagabond was
involved with were: CryptoPhunks, the original CryptoPunk copycat
collection. The first collection to receive a DMCA takedown from
Larva Labs. Because of that, the CryptoPhunks were delisted from
OpenSea and Zagabond gave the project to all the holders in July,
2021. Tendies, a project that failed to capture the NFT culture’s
imagination and shut down in the middle of the minting
process. CryptoZunks, a collection that defines itself as
“the first Punks to be generated on-chain with randomized
attributes. Each Zunk is guaranteed to be unique from any Punk.”
Apparently, it failed because of Ethereum’s expensive gas fees.
According to Cryptoslate, “Like the first two projects, this failed
one was also a lesson. Zagabond said these three projects taught
him that “blindly following the NFT meta doesn’t get you far.” He
claims that all the lessons from these projects are now being
applied to make Azuki a success.” None of that helped and the
collection’s floor price went downhill. The question here is,
were these projects rug pulls or simple failures without bad
intentions? ETH price chart for 09/08/2022 on Bitfinex |
Source: ETH/USD on TradingView.com Azuki, Built For The Metaverse
The definition of metaverse in Azuki’s site is controversial, to
say the least. “The metaverse today is where we currently spend
most of our time: Discord + Twitter. How do we amplify this
experience for Azuki members? How do we distribute the brand to
places that have the most attention today? More importantly, where
will the metaverse be one year+ from now?” Is simple social media
part of the metaverse? How does Azuki not know where the metaverse
will be one year from now? Other blue-chip NFT collections are
already building their version, laying their chips on the table. Is
Azuki too late? Or are Chiru Labs just quietly developing?
According to the company, they’re exploring the possibility of
developing a game. “Few teams have the experience and background to
build a genuinely great game with mass market appeal and
scalability. Though the core team has the experience, it’s a huge
endeavor nonetheless.” Related Reading: Blue Chip NFTs 101 – With
Mint Impending, Is y00ts A Blue Chip Lock? The Azuki collection is
down, but not out. The team seems to have shaken the stink that
Zagabond’s revelations brought, but did so in the middle of a bear
market in which the whole NFT market is down. Azuki stopped the
bleeding. The question is, can they reclaim and even surpass past
glories? Featured Image: Azuki banner from their site | Charts by
TradingView
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