The popularity of Azuki seems to have passed for some time, and there have been fewer discussions recently, but it is undeniable that it has indeed created a "miracle" in the NFT world. It jumped to the top three of Opensea in the past 7 days in less than 6 days. For 11,670ETH, more than 38.6 million US dollars, why do you say it has created a miracle? What is the secret of his success? Let's review this project with the editor!
Introduction:
The word Azuki is a Japanese word meaning "red bean" or "red bean". This project is a series of NFTs containing a total of 10,000 anime-style character avatars. Each Azuki series avatar contains at most 12 different elements: Race (Type), Special Effects (Special), Clothing (Clothing), Equipment (Offhand), Hairstyle (Hair), Hat (Headgear), Face Makeup (Face), Neck Decoration (Neck), eyes (Eyes), mouth shape (Mouth), earrings (Ear), background (Background).
(Red bean also means lovesickness, so Azuki has become the classic avatar of many couples in the circle)
The artistic creation is a typical Japanese manga style, but each character shown has a strong American style of roughness, and the painting style cleverly combines Japanese culture and American culture to show it. It also seems to symbolize the fusion of Eastern and Western cultures. This kind of exquisite painting style, I think even outsiders can't refuse it.
According to Azuki, it is committed to becoming the largest decentralized brand established and owned by the community in the Metaverse world.
An excellent background team is indispensable for the presentation of exquisite painting style. Let the editor take you through the details of this successful project.
The team behind it. The start-up team behind Azuki, Chiru Labs, has extensive experience in the encryption field. It is said that the identities of the four founders of the team are anonymous. public.
team introduction
Founder of ZAGABOND (Chiru Labs is also the founder of Azuki); https://twitter.com/ZAGABOND
Is a DeFi maker. Worked in a former Silicon Valley technology company
Arnold Tsang Art Painter; https://twitter.com/steamboy33
He was the Art Director of Overwatch. "Overwatch" is a first-person shooter game published by Activision Blizzard, with a total of 60 million registered players.
Andrew Hou Art Painter; https://twitter.com/njoo
The creator of HJ-Story is a Korean freelance illustrator/concept artist who has worked on Street Fighter comics and Genghis Khan.
HOSHIBOY designer; https://twitter.com/hoshiboyzen
Has two Y-Combinator project incubation experiences; and is an avid comic fan.
LOCATION TBA engineer; https://twitter.com/locationtba
Worked as a software engineer at Facebook
2PM.FLOW engineer; https://twitter.com/2pmflow
Is a new rap artist and ex-Google/Y-Combinator.
Demna Products; https://twitter.com/DemnaAzuki
Is an ex-Google product manager. Strong point of view, but not stubborn.
Daph community operation; https://twitter.com/daphtheSHAFT
From e-sports to e-money.
Azuki's official website has members' Twitter information. Most of the team members have come into contact with NFT since NBA TopShot. Members' backgrounds and social accounts can be queried. (Interested partners can go back in detail)
It can be seen that behind Azuki is actually a mature and complete team. They have their own technology and rich experience in blockchain.
I will attach the official website information below. If you want to know the details, you can go deeper. After all, the editor believes that the future development space of this project is also very large. It is a very suitable project for research. From the fragmentation they recently launched From NFT BOBU, it can be seen that Azuki's future planning is a long-term plan.
Official link:
Twitter：https://twitter.com/AzukiZen
Opensea: https://opensea.io/collection/azuki
Discord: https://discord.gg/azuki
At this point, everyone should have understood the most basic situation of Azuki, so back to the beginning, what is the reason for Azuki's success? What are the "miracles" created?
Miracle 1: The first Chiru Labs innovative token standard - ERC721A.
Azuki adopts the method of batch casting, allowing users to pay a Gas fee to mint multiple NFTs. We all know that the gas fee on Ethereum is famously expensive, and many users feel a headache about it. This innovation of Azuki can be called a "miracle" in the NFT world. According to the official statement of ERC721A, the Gas Fee saved by the ERC721A standard is related to the number of NFTs minted at one time. The larger the number of minted at one time, the greater the savings in Gas Fee.
Miracle 2: A novel NFT sales method.
Azuki uses three stages of Dutch auction, whitelist casting and public sale to complete the NFT sale.
Dutch Auction : Starting at 10 am on 1.12, about 8,700 NFTs will be sold at a price of 1ETH, and the price will drop by 0.05ETH every 20 minutes until it finally drops to 0.15ETH. As a result, the unit price of 1ETH was sold out within 3 minutes, and a total of 8,700 NFTs were sold.
Whitelist Minting : From 10:00 am on 1.13, the minting price will be sold at 0.5ETH, which is half of the last Azuki selling price in the Dutch auction.
Public sale: Starting from 10:00 am on 1.15, the minting price will be the last Azuki selling price in the Dutch auction, and the remaining Azuki will be sold at this stage. In the end, because there were only 17 left, the public sale was canceled and they were distributed directly in the community lottery.
This novel sales model provides users with multiple price levels and plans to choose casting, which also provides more openness.
Miracle 3: Breaking the practice of falling immediately after opening the chart
Less than 6 days after its launch, Azuki jumped to the top three in Opensea's trading volume in the past 7 days, about 11,670ETH, exceeding US$38.6 million. Most projects are in the blind box stage. Generally, after the blind box is opened, due to the difference in the quality and rarity of NFT There will be a lot of users who choose to sell Azuki. After looking at the chart, there is a short-term selling pressure and then it rises rapidly. Before the chart is opened, it is basically around 3E, and after the chart is opened, it does not fall but rises to around 4E. It can be said that the floor model is good-looking, and the rare model is against the sky.
Miracle 4: Introducing the concept of NFT fragmentation
I believe that after the casting of Azuki, the appearance of Bobu confuses many people. What is Bobu? What is Fragmentation?
To put it simply, the development and fragmentation of the NFT of Azuki#40 into 50,000 fragments is called Bobu. Azuki wants to make him an IP image to govern the community. Among them, Bobu will release 20,000 fragments for users to mint, each fragment represents one $BOBU, and each address can only mint one $BOBU. Needless to say, the function of this token is mainly used to govern the community. The $BOBU you own is equivalent to having the governance power of the community, but it does not mean that you own Bobu. This also greatly responds to Azuki's goal of becoming the largest decentralized brand established and owned by the community in the Metaverse world.
Not only that, Azuki's official website can reveal a lot of information about future plans, and this long line is also what we look forward to.
For example, Azuki has a lot of exploration and development in the field of games. They consider deploying 3D scenes on Sandbox, Decentraland, Cryptovoxels and Somnium Space platforms, and are committed to providing users with immersive 3D experience and fun.
Chiru Labs will create an offline physical Azuki brand. At the end of February, the company will launch an Azuki clothing line starting with a red jacket, and community members will be able to enjoy exclusive offers. In addition, Azuki will launch related physical collectibles, toys, figurines, etc., and will also hold live events such as meet and greets, exhibitions, and music festivals. They also plan to establish an Azuki DAO organization and issue its platform tokens for governance.
Summarize
The value of Azuki as the first type of Japanese-style "blue chip" is also unanimously recognized inside and outside the NFT industry, but I think Azuki is a blue chip project underestimated by the public, whether it is in terms of style, team, or Both the community and the vision for the future belong to the best of the best, and this is the only top blue-chip project that is expected to surpass BAYC.