Azuki Elementals is a new collection introduced by the Chiru Labs development team. Immediately after launching Azuki Elementals brought a record of revenue up to $38M USD. However, behind this are community complaints about the quality of this newly launched Azuki Elementals collection. So, let’s find out with Weakhand what problems Azuki Elementals is facing in this article.
Before jumping into the article, everyone can refer to some of the following projects to better understand
- What is Azuki? Overview of the Azuki collection
- What is Beanz? Overview of the Beanz collection
- What are Azuki Elementals? Overview of the Azuki Elementals collection
- Azuki: Overcoming his dark past to become Supreme in the NFT market
What Are Azuki Elementals?
Some information revealed at the “Follow The Rabbit” event
Follow The Rabbit is an event organized by Azuki in Las Vegas on June 23, 2023. Some interesting information revealed during the event includes:
- Users will receive an airdrop of one Soul Bound Token (SBT). This could be a commemorative NFT that shows the user had Azuki or Beanz in their wallet during the Follow The Rabbit event.
- Each Azuki NFT owner gets an “Azuki Elemental Beans” Airdrop. Azuki Elemental Beans were revealed with a total supply of 20,000 NFTs that come with four different levels and rarities.
- Azuki and Beanz owners can participate in the Azuki Elementals presale on June 27, 2023.
Additionally, Azuki Elementals were also revealed at the end of the Follow The Rabbit video. This makes everyone think about the third collection introduced by Chiru Labs. Everything good about Azuki is spread everywhere on social media platforms especially on Twitter.
Introducing Azuki Elementals
Azuki Elementals is a collection of 20,000 anime-inspired NFTs with varying characteristics and rarities. Each NFT in the collection belongs to one of four elements including: Earth, fire, lightning and water.
Azuki Elementals applies the Dutch auction format with a starting price of 2 ETH. Every 5 minutes the price will decrease by 0.1 ETH until all NFTs in the collection are sold. Azuki Elementals are available for early sale to Azuki and Beanz holders. To participate in the minting process, each Azuki and Beanz owner needs to stake 2 ETH and the difference between the mint price and the market price after minting will be returned to the staking.
After just 16 minutes from the launch, all NFTs in the collection were sold out, generating $38M USD in revenue. The public sale round did not even take place and new users were not allowed to participate in this minting process. Through this opening sale, it shows that Azuki Elementals brings great attraction from the community and people are having great expectations for the appearance of Azuki Elementals this time.
Controversies that appeared after the opening date
Despite achieving a large amount of revenue after opening for sale, Azuki Elementals encountered major controversies from the community. Some issues surrounding the recent sale of Azuki Elementals include:
Mint time
According to some reviews from the community, the mint time of only 10 minutes is too short and causes the website to be overloaded due to large traffic from users. Some famous figures in the NFT market include: Levi or even one of the largest Azuki whales Jason also cannot participate in the mint process.
Additionally, one of the co-founders of Azuki is Location tba also issued an apology to the community via email Tweet segment on Twitter. This also did not calm a fierce objection from users in the Azuki community when they owned Azuki or Beanz NFTs but still could not participate in the minting process.
Art in Azuki Elementals
Images of characters in the Azuki Elementals collection are also a controversial issue among users in the community. Many of the Azuki Elementals look identical to the original Azuki collection.
Some NFTs in the Azuki Elementals collection have similarities to those in Azuki
This reduces the appeal of the original Azuki collection. Why spend 10 ETH to buy an NFT Azuki instead we just need to spend 2 ETH to buy Azuki Elementals with the same image quality. Some images in the Azuki Elementals collection are also considered unpolished. Here is an example:
Images lack precision in the Azuki Elementals collection
The character in this image has an incorrect hand position compared to the default sword holding position. This is a small mistake, but for a large project that values the artistic quality of each image like Azuki, this is a reprehensible mistake.
Mint prices are high
The mint price of up to 2 ETH for each NFT is relatively high, especially in times like the present. In addition, users have to spend up to 2 ETH to mint 1 NFT without any preview. This is also a point that I wonder about how Azuki operates in the launch of this new collection. If users see the images in this new collection, the question is how many people will spend 2 ETH to mint 1 NFT.
Beanz doesn’t get much benefit
Indeed, Beanz did not receive much benefit in this minting round because they had a very low minting chance. Did not receive the Airdrop and had to wait for their turn after the Azuki mint holders finished. This led to frustration and anger among Beanz NFT holders with protests appearing across Twitter platforms.
Consequences After the Launch of Azuki Elementals
Azuki and Beanz are dumped
Many members are not satisfied with all the events in the recent sale. Causing them to sell off their Azuki and Beanz. Some examples include Christine who decided to sell all her Azukis after the Azuki Elementals sale event.
Many people have sold all of their Azuki and Beanz
Statistics about Azuki:
- June 2023 ATH: 17.7 ETH
- Today: 8.5 ETH
- 7D Change: -47.9%
Statistics about Beanz:
- June 2023 ATH: 1.58 ETH
- Today: 0.55 ETH
- 7D Change: -59.56%
The community is divided
After Azuki Elementals launched, many mixed opinions from the community appeared, both supporting and opposing. And a proposal was made by NFT Azuki holders to hire a lawyer and help the community reclaim 20000 ETH from Zagabond, this is a proposal made by AzukiDAO. AzukiDAO was founded with the purpose of helping Azuki overcome difficulties, regain control from Zagabond and return governance rights to Azuki lovers.
However, some crypto enthusiasts on Twitter have questioned the authenticity of AzukiDAO and its purpose. According to a Tweet Nfty Finance founder Tytaninc said that “Most Azuki holders have never heard of this group and assume it is fake or a group with malicious intentions.” But in general, after launching the new collection, Azuki is facing criticism from the community. Most NFT collectors have expressed dissatisfaction about the new collection being far different from what they had expected, leading to the prices of Azuki and Beanz witnessing a heavy decline in recent times.
Azuki’s Answer
It didn’t take long for Azuki to respond to the naysayers and supporters of his new collection, the team published a apology thread on Twitter its official. In the Tweet, it is written about the goal of Azuki Elementals:
“Our goal for Elementals is to grow the Garden, welcome new members to the community, and most importantly, expand the Azuki universe and lay the foundation for a decentralized IP with deep lore . Something that allows us to create a new genre of anime is being donec production.”
In addition, the team also mentioned the minting process, as well as the topic surrounding the image of Azuki Elementals. However, the team still emphasizes that Azuki is the center of the universe and that Azuki Elementals was created to welcome new members and expand diversity in its ecosystem.
Personal Opinion
In my personal opinion, Azuki Elementals is a major step back in Azuki’s development. It seems like the development team was not really meticulous and attentive in this project. We see errors in image quality, mint timing or the plot for this project.
However, Azuki’s difference compared to other projects still lies in the community aspect. The community is probably a solid fulcrum to help Azuki overcome this storm. Many community members have sat down and shared with each other through chat or small meetings on Twitter with the sole goal of is to help Azuki get through this difficult period. This is one point that I think Azuki does very well compared to many other collections.
summary
Azuki Elementals may be a revenue success, but it’s a step backward in strengthening the community. The launch of Azuki Elementals also confused many people about the value of the original Azuki collection. However, as part of Azuki’s ecosystem, it is likely that Azuki Elementals will be integrated with other utilities to expand the diversity of the ecosystem.
