Existing Azuki holders disgruntled after Elementals collection floor price crash.
NFT project Azuki has been mired in controversy. Since its launch, holders have lost around $21,500 per NFT.
The floor price of the NFT project has crashed close to a point where holders seem to be left holding the bag.
Azuki loses value
Blue-chip NFT brand Azuki released its “Elementals” collection on Tuesday, June 27th. The project sold out within 15 minutes and raked in $38M.
However, since the launch, the price of the project has kept falling.
At launch, the project sold for a floor price at around 17 ETH (or $33,300). But according to data from OpenSea, the price has crashed to 6.9 ETH (or $12,845).
Source: OpenSea
The Elementals collection which was only sold to Azuki NFT holders has been faring badly. The holders have lost about 11 ETH since the launch of the collection. As expected, the community is frustrated.
“The whales and OG made their disappointment very clear to the team, just not going public to vent their frustration. Lots of these convo happen in private DM,” said DeFiance Capital founder Arthur Cheong on Twitter. “Lots of whales made it clear that this is the last chance they have to make it right.”
The sale of the Elemental collection seemed to have pushed the trading volume of Azuki on the chain. On June 27, there were 1,335 NFT transactions, resulting in $29M in trading volume, according to Nansen.
Read more: Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT prices plunged over the weekend – here’s why
Controversy after launch
The Azuki NFT collection, a subsidiary of the Los Angeles-based startup Chiru Labs, launched in January 2021. The controversy began after its Elemental collection launch.
On June 23, a tiny portion of the 20,000 NFTs were airdropped to a select group of Azuki holders during an Azuki-branded event held in Las Vegas as the first hint at the Elementals project.
On June 27, the last of the NFTs went on sale. Azuki NFT holders and owners of “BEANZ” (another derivative project) were allowed a 20-minute presale window.
The entire collection was purchased in less than 15 minutes in private sales, hence the sale was never made public. The Azuki team received $38 million overall from the launch.
Widespread complaints followed, including ones about the new NFTs similarities with the old collections, the short presale window, mint failures caused by a busy website, and more.
The project’s team has acknowledged that they “missed the mark” and vowed to improve on its communication to regain the trust of the community.
But the community isn’t having it.
Azuki DAO to sue founder and recoup funds
A group of Azuki enthusiasts have launched a new decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) with the hope to recoup 20,000 ETH from Zagabond, the founder of the Azuki brand.
The DAO, which was initiated on July 2, said that it will hire a lawyer to take legal action against Alex Xu (Aka Zagabond) for allegedly “rugging” multiple projects. The proposal outlines that the DAO seeks to get back $39M worth of ETH earned during the launch of Azuki’s Elementals.
The recovered funds will be put back into the DAO to “promote the growth of the entire Azuki community.”
At the time of report, 88.35% of the DAO community have voted in support of the proposal, while 11.65% voted against. No one abstained from voting.
Others in the Azuki community have showed scepticism to the DAO, saying that the DAO was a small group of collectors who do not represent the whole community.
What’s left of the community is the glimmer of hope that the Azuki founding team does not drop the ball and move to regain its community trust.
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