Churi Labs, the company behind the successful Azuki non-fungible token (NFT) collection, has generated almost $40 million in 15 minutes thanks to the mint of its “Elementals” collection. However, the mint ran into several snags, which angered the community, who massively dumped the NFTs from the 2 collections.
Record revenue for Azuki NFT collection
Azuki, one of the leading non-fungible token (NFT) collections in the ecosystem, launched a new NFT drop for its community on Tuesday. For 2 Ethers (ETH), or $3,700 at the current price, holders of Azuki NFTs or the parallel Beanz collection had the opportunity to mint an “Azuki Elemental”.
These new avatars have the same features as the original Azuki, but with a few extra details symbolising 4 elements: water, earth, fire and lightning. The mint was a great success – at least for the team in charge of the project – generating $38 million in 15 minutes, exclusively through a private sale.
The $30 million mark for a mint was last reached when Yuga Labs, behind the famous Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collection, generated $319 million from the sale of its Otherdeed plots for Otherside.
However, beyond the financial success for Churi Labs (the company behind Azuki), the community was very unhappy with the mint.
The Azuki community is up in arms
Many members of the Azuki community have expressed their displeasure with the Azuki Elementals, particularly due to the extreme similarities between the original collection and this one.
Azuki vs Azuki Elementals
Thoughts? pic.twitter.com/o1GxItf80y
– Sibel (@sibeleth) June 27, 2023
Others have also pointed out the very short time available for mint, with Churi Labs having decided to leave only a 10-minute window for it. What’s more, this short time was accompanied by numerous bugs; one owner of around twenty Azuki NFTs complained that he hadn’t been able to mint a single Elemental. The project team finally admitted their mistakes:
“This time we missed the boat. We hear you – the mint process was hectic, the PFPs are similar and, worse still, dilutive compared to Azuki. […] Azuki’s vision is to build a decentralised brand. To achieve this, we need good communication and good execution, 2 elements that were lacking during the sale of Elementals. We know we’ve lost some trust today, but there’s no more incentive to put things right. “
As a result of these numerous setbacks, the floor price of the Azuki collection collapsed, losing 50% in the space of just a few days. The floor price of Azuki Elementals, meanwhile, has fallen from 4 to just 1.45 ETH.
Azuki collection floor price evolution over one month
In addition, some NFTs in the new collection are literally identical, which is thought to be due to a metadata bug. This should be fixed, according to a statement from the team behind Azuki.
In a tweet this lunchtime, Azuki explained, among other things, that the aim of the mint was to bring new users into its world. However, as Nansen pointed out, only 4,200 people would share the 40,000 or so NFTs.
