Blue Chip NFTs 101 – Azuki, A New Kind Of Brand For The Future… And A Scandal

The concept behind Azuki is to combine NFT tradition with anime-style drawings, with a world neighborhood working collectively behind the scenes. Which is phenomenal. Azuki defines itself as a “decentralized model for the metaverse.” This model’s most important product is a set of 10K anime-style avatars in NFT kind. The gathering can be known as Azuki and at inception was one of many NFT house’s largest success tales… 

… till admissions and revelations by one of many challenge’s creators solid a shadow on Azuki as a complete. 

Let’s assessment the challenge’s historical past, its traits, and the revelations that modified all of it.

Azuki’s Origin Story

The challenge exists since January twelfth, 2022. The crew behind Azuki is Chiru Labs, their slogan is “Born in Los Angeles. Constructing for the metaverse.” Many of the members use pseudonyms and hold their identities personal. A number of use their actual identify, 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 sport developed and printed by Blizzard Leisure.”

The neighborhood behind it’s a key a part of the challenge. On Azuki’s website, they use slogans like “A brand new type of model that we construct collectively” and “A model for the metaverse. By the neighborhood.” Possession of one of many 10K Azuki NFTs offers the consumer entry to The Backyard. A digital place Azuki guarantees “begins with unique streetwear collabs, NFT drops, stay occasions, and rather more that can be revealed over time.”

Azuki is a digital model. A “decentralized model of the long run.”

At first, it appeared just like the NFT assortment was going to propel them to immediate basic standing. The preliminary success made their identify recognizable and despatched the gathering’s ground worth to double digits. At one level, it reached a most of twenty-two ETH. These days, the ground worth at Opensea is 7.4 ETH, what occurred? Regardless of the motive, the Azuki assortment will get round. It has moved a complete quantity of 260.2K ETH in transactions thus far.

We Want A Little… Controversy

The turning level for Azuki was a Twitter Area, of all issues. On Could tenth, crypto influencer Andrew Wang interviewed  Zagabond, one in all Azuki’s founders, who identical to that exposed that he was half of some NFT tasks that didn’t finish properly. It virtually appeared like they have been a rug pull, and other people freaked out accordingly. The gathering’s ground worth began falling and it hasn’t recovered but. 

It was a thriller at first, however in accordance to Cryptoslate, the tasks Zagabond was concerned with have been:

• CryptoPhunks, the unique CryptoPunk copycat assortment. The primary assortment to obtain a DMCA takedown from Larva Labs. Due to that, the CryptoPhunks have been delisted from OpenSea and Zagabond gave the challenge to all of the holders in July, 2021.
• Tendies, a challenge that didn’t seize the NFT tradition’s creativeness and shut down in the course of the minting course of. 
• CryptoZunks, a set that defines itself as “the primary Punks to be generated on-chain with randomized attributes. Every Zunk is assured to be distinctive from any Punk.” Apparently, it failed due to Ethereum’s costly fuel charges.

In keeping with Cryptoslate, “Like the primary two tasks, this failed one was additionally a lesson. Zagabond mentioned these three tasks taught him that “blindly following the NFT meta doesn’t get you far.” He claims that every one the teachings from these tasks are actually being utilized to make Azuki successful.” None of that helped and the gathering’s ground worth went downhill. 

The query right here is, have been these tasks rug pulls or easy failures with out unhealthy intentions? 

ETH worth chart for 09/08/2022 on Bitfinex | Supply: ETH/USD on TradingView.com

Azuki, Constructed For The Metaverse

The definition of metaverse in Azuki’s website is controversial, to say the least.

“The metaverse at present is the place we at present spend most of our time: Discord + Twitter. How will we amplify this expertise for Azuki members? How will we distribute the model to locations which have essentially the most consideration at present? Extra importantly, the place will the metaverse be one 12 months+ from now?”

Is easy social media a part of the metaverse? How does Azuki not know the place the metaverse can be one 12 months from now? Different blue-chip NFT collections are already constructing their model, laying their chips on the desk. Is Azuki too late? Or are Chiru Labs simply quietly growing? In keeping with the corporate, they’re exploring the opportunity of growing a sport. “Few groups have the expertise and background to construct a genuinely nice sport with mass market enchantment and scalability. Although the core crew has the expertise, it’s an enormous endeavor nonetheless.”

The Azuki assortment is down, however not out. The crew appears to have shaken the stink that Zagabond’s revelations introduced, however did so in the course of a bear market by which the entire NFT market is down. Azuki stopped the bleeding. The query is, can they reclaim and even surpass previous glories?

Featured Picture: Azuki banner from their site | Charts by TradingView