Author丨Morii
Editor丨Marco
Techub News original (ID: TechubNews)
How Azuki, a first-line blue chip, ruined a good hand.
The Azuki community is experiencing an existential moment.
At 0:00 Beijing time on June 28, Azuki Chinese community holders were chatting in the Twitter space while waiting to buy the official new NFT Azuki Elementals (hereinafter referred to as Elementals), but gradually no one spoke.
Azuki Chinese community leader @Christine later tweeted that she refreshed the screen 200 times before she finally minted it; Twitter user @Vis.eth also said that her page kept reporting errors. Almost everyone who participated in the pre-sale encountered the same problem. Some attributed it to a technical failure, while others believed that the team deliberately limited the pre-sale window to 10 minutes, in fact, to get everyone to buy in. Once a technical failure occurs, 10 minutes will not solve any problem at all.
This was just the beginning of the disaster.
At 9:15 Pacific Time, Elementals, which had three rounds of sales prepared, sold out within 15 minutes, earning the team $38 million.
However, as the NFT art image of Elementals was revealed, buyers discovered that it was highly similar to the Azuki series, causing an uproar in the community. The floor price of the Elementals series quickly dropped from the initial 2ETH to a minimum of 1.32ETH; the Azuki series was also affected, causing prices to fall.
On June 29, on-chain analysts detected that Azuki had transferred 20,000 ETH (about $37 million) from the sale of the Elementals series to Coinbase Prime.
@Christine tweeted that she cleared all Azuki.
@Christian2022.mid, the tycoon who owns more than 40 Azuki and 470 Beanz, said it was unwise to destroy a billion-dollar project to make a profit of $38 million. He also joked that he would buy the entire company for $40 million.
Why is this happening?
Take a look at the art comparison between Azuki and Elementals and you might understand what they are talking about.
The first group is Azuki, and the second group is Elementals. The two groups have exactly the same art style, and at first glance they look like the same series. If you like this kind of art style, mint one and set it as your social profile picture, and others can't tell whether you hold Azuki or Elementals. Their prices are completely different. The floor price of the former was 17ETH before the pre-sale, and the initial floor price of the latter was 2ETH. This greatly diluted the value of Azuki, and the moment Elementals appeared, it triggered a sell-off and a price plunge. This then caused the trust of holders in the community to collapse.
KOL @0xSun said that if there was only this picture and no other actions, he would feel cheated.
KOL @Xin.Sats provided crisis public relations tips to the Azuki team in a joking tone.
But the launch of Elementals was originally something that NFT players were looking forward to during the bear market.
1. Azuki, a first-tier blue chip
Azuki is a Japanese avatar NFT project launched by developer Chiru Labs in 2022. Due to its artistic style with oriental aesthetics, it was sold out in just minutes after its launch, raising more than US$29 million in funds, becoming the NFT project with the largest transaction volume since Bored Ape Yacht.
In April 2022, following the first-generation NFT series Azuki, Chiru Labs launched Beanz NFT, which was given the character of "Azuki's partner". The total issuance of this series is 20,000, of which 10,000 will be airdropped to Azuki NFT holders.
Before the launch of Elementals, Azuki and Beanz were the two main brands of Chiru Labs. Chiru Labs mainly expanded the community influence by cooperating with these two brands through IP and holding offline art experience and other marketing activities.
On April 12, Azuki announced a strategic partnership with IPX, the parent company of Line Friends, a well-known Korean IP company, to jointly create the Beanz NFT IP. The floor prices of Azuki and Beanz NFT rose sharply before and after this.
In January this year, Azuki announced the launch of the virtual city "Hilumia" built by the community, where holders can explore and interact in this virtual space. The scenes in the virtual city include the toy store Slowpoke's Toy Haven, the design platform Ember Square, the skateboard enthusiast community Golden Skate Park, and the opinion collection box Garden Express. As soon as the news came out, the floor price of BeanzNFT rose by 69% in 24 hours.
Its diverse marketing, community cohesion, and ambition to create an immersive gaming metaverse have made Azuki one of the few phenomenal NFTs that is still growing in the sluggish crypto market. Therefore, the launch of Elementals was once highly anticipated by the market.
Elementals are inspired by the four elements of Azuki, earth, fire, lightning and water. They are divided into four levels of rarity and sold randomly. The total circulation is 20,000, of which 10,000 will be airdropped to Azuki holders, and the remaining 10,000 will be pre-sold on the 27th.
According to the pre-sale rules, holders of the initial NFT series Azuki will participate in the pre-sale starting at 9:00 Pacific Time on June 27, and holders of the derivative NFT series Beanz will participate in the pre-sale starting at 9:10 and enter the public sale at 9:20.
The sales method follows the Dutch auction model, starting at 2 ETH, and the price will drop by 0.1 ETH every five minutes until 10,000 NFTs are sold out.
Participants in the pre-sale must pledge 2 ETH before minting, and if the minting fee is less than 2 ETH, the difference will be refunded. In the first and second stages of the pre-sale, Azuki and Beanz holders can mint one corresponding Elementals for each Azuki or Beanz without limit, but in the public sale stage, each wallet can only mint up to 3 Elementals.
Ahead of the presale, Azuki co-founder Zagabond told the media: “This is our most ambitious artistic endeavor to date, and we are excited to tell the next chapter of Azuki’s story using art and technology.”
Last Friday, Zagabond's avatar appeared on screen at the "Follow the Rabbit" event in Las Vegas, accompanied by dynamic background music, and asked Azuki holders to check their wallets, causing cheers and screams from the audience.
Holder @Charlie G who participated in the live event said on Twitter that after Zagabond finished shouting, he checked his wallet and found two things in it, one was Elementals Bean (Elementals whose artistic image has not yet been revealed, similar to opening a blind box), and the other was Elementals Chip, a soul-bound token used to commemorate this event.
Charlie said that the quality of the trailer launched by Elementals at the Las Vegas event was not seen in other NFT projects, and its ability to attract attention was also ahead of its time.
However, everyone discovered that the final product had little to do with the trailer.
@0xSun believes that if this set of reproductions of the first-generation graphics is really all the content of Elementals, and nothing is done or supported in the follow-up, then this release can be said to be a naked harvest.
@ Xin.Sats said that he actually sold all the Azuki and Beanz before the pre-sale. The logic is that the release of Elementals is actually a re-harvest of old fans, and it did not break the circle and introduce new players and users.
"I prefer Pudge Penguin's approach in this regard, selling toys on Amazon to expand users outside the circle. Although the amount of money raised is certainly not comparable to Azuki, one is to make money from the circle, and the other is to expand customers outside the circle. In terms of business logic and emotion, I support the latter more. By the way, the price collapse of BAYC is also the result of excessive harvesting of fans. Count how many different series of Yuga NFT and Token have been sold. You must know that these are assets that attract money rather than generate cash flow." Xin.Sats wrote.
2. Division, revelry and speculation
The holders of foreign communities are basically in a state of division, with positive and negative views fighting back and forth.
@spiritdao is one of the well-known derivative communities in the Azuki ecosystem. It has gathered a group of Holy Grail (extremely rare) holders. When the Azuki official team remained silent, it responded in a very high-profile manner: "We have always been here and we are not going anywhere. TTP (Trust the process). Let TTP become a new MEME among Azuki believers."
Of course, some people object: because you have no other choice.
Some holders said that everyone should take a long-term view, Elementals will not replace OG Azuki, and it is not time to sell (OG). The community has done so much and made some mistakes in the process of exploring Elementals, and they should believe that they can solve this problem.
Another group of holders objected, saying that groping is one thing, but they have already screwed up. This is clearly a cash grab, and if OGs just support lazy solutions to protect their own interests, this community will be doomed sooner or later.
One thing is for sure, say naysayers, Azuki has a hell of a community that always doubles down on making excuses for the team's lack of preparation, good execution, and vision.
There are also some holders who are only obsessed with aesthetics and craftsmanship. They don’t care whether the NFT in their hands is depreciating. What they care most about is the details of the artwork and the emotional value it brings to them.
As a watch collector, @AZhangerator immediately took to Twitter to express his thoughts on the new artwork after purchasing the Elementals at the auction.
He analyzed the possibility of Elementals collaborating with lifestyle brands. He hoped that the Azuki team would boldly use the money they had just raised. If they could cooperate with luxury brands like luxury, it might bring new growth to the community and thus turn the tide.
Some people even started a "crushing" party after getting a new NFT, that is, they "crushed" the Elementals Beans they minted but didn't know the artistic image of, and then got an Elemental, which was similar to the experience of opening a blind box, and actually caused a small carnival on Twitter.
Some people also speculate decisively in times of crisis. According to reports, NFT collector Huang Licheng spent nearly 1,000 ETH to buy the bottom when the Azuki ecosystem NFT fell across the board. He bought 394 Azuki Elemental Beans at an average price of 1.72 ETH and sold them all at a price of more than 1.98 ETH. At the same time, he bought 18 Azuki at an average price of 8.7 ETH and sold them all at a price of more than 9.48 ETH.
3. Late response from the project owner
At 6 pm on June 28, Azuki's official Twitter account finally spoke out. The tweet explained why Elemental was designed this way, such as wanting to maintain consistency with Azuki's style while expanding the Azuki universe. They admitted that this was a failed exploration, so they launched another new NFT, Green Bean.
Holders who have already lost trust in the community are not buying it.
@kalr94: First you copied elementals from Azuki, now you're copying red bean and just giving it a different color. Wow, you really put that $38 million to good use!
@Gee__Gazza: It's not time to be mysterious anymore, you've said nothing. You haven't solved the problem of replicating art, nor how Azuki can still be a collectible, while the value of everyone's assets is decreasing... Please be frank!
@DaybedNFT: Azuki’s next response was to issue another 20,000 horizontally flipped elementals.
Of course, believers are still queuing up to reply TTP under the green bean's GIF.
On June 29, according to the monitoring of on-chain analyst Ember, Azuki transferred 20,000 ETH (about 37 million US dollars) from the sale of his Elementals series to Coinbase Prime about 8 hours ago. It is reported that Coinbase Prime is a prime brokerage platform under Coinbase, providing cryptocurrency prime brokerage services to institutional clients.
Proponents and opponents also fought back and forth under this message:
Opposing side: I want them to enjoy the yacht, I paid the bill for them.
Proponent: They will always convert the minting income into US dollars. Gambling on the price fluctuations of the crypto market is not an option for a serious project. And they have a company and need to pay their employees.