Tag: Ethereum

NFT Real Estate Explained (Read Before Buying)

Posted on by Anthony Georgiades

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have been used to disrupt several industries, starting with the art market and diversifying into music, communities, and real estate. 

While these rapidly changing markets have been easier to disrupt, real estate could pose a much more significant challenge being a slower market, taking an average of 8 weeks per sale compared to art, which typically takes no longer than a wire transfer. 

This article will look at how NFT real estate works, reasons to use NFTs in the real estate market, the top two NFT real estate projects, challenges real estate NFTs could face, and their future in the market. 

How Do Real Estate NFTs Work?

Real estate NFTs are similar to traditional NFTs; they can be purchased on cryptocurrency marketplaces such as OpenSea and  SolSea using Ethereum, Solana, or the cryptocurrency chosen by the seller. Each NFT is then held in a cryptocurrency wallet. 

Real estate NFTs can be used to generate a passive income by representing equity in a real-estate project. They can cover everything from property ownership to a share, in which the NFT holder will be paid much like a traditional dividend. For example, if the NFT owner represents a 15% share in a real estate project, the holder will earn 15% of the net profit. 

Due to their tokenized nature, most real estate NFTs can be sold at any time, provided there is a marketplace with sufficient liquidity for the asset. However, some real estate investments will require the owner to hold for an agreed period, which will be made clear before a purchase is made. 

Why Use Real Estate NFTs?

With NFTs still being a new technology, how practical are they compared to a system that’s been in place for decades? 

Being immutable, NFTs show absolute proof of ownership, improve credibility, and are fully transparent, without many of the complexities of the traditional real estate system, such as surveying and complex contracts. Here are two benefits that NFTs bring to real estate. 

NFTs can dramatically decrease the volume of paperwork required to purchase a property. Current real estate investments require copious amounts of paperwork as part of the ownership transfer, which can be overwhelming for all parties involved. 

Real estate NFTs help streamline this process, as much of the back-office paperwork can be automated with the NFT’s underlying smart contract. This, in theory, allows buyers and sellers to transfer ownership in a matter of minutes (after legal counsel has been consulted). 

Top NFT Real Estate Projects

Origin Story 

Origin Story has partnered with the real estate investment group Roofstock to bring real-world real estate properties to the NFT marketplace. Roofstock believes that this deal will help cut sellers’ fees by 50%, dramatically improving the profitability of selling property. 

Roofstock also believes that on-chain real estate transfers could increase transaction speeds, streamlining the buying process. Since 2015, Roofstock has facilitated over $5 billion in investment transactions and plans to implement NFT real estate investments in 2023. 

The Sandbox

The Sandbox is one of the largest Ethereum-based Metaverses in the DeFi market. Showcasing an entire world to explore, The Sandbox offers unique play-to-earn virtual reality gameplay in which players can buy land plots, buy and sell in-game assets, and complete tasks for rewards. 

The Sandbox first rose to fame in 2021, when it was endorsed by Deadmau5, Snoop Dogg, and Atari, all of which own land plots within the digital world. Land plots are valued based on the area they’re in, with land close to celebrities having a higher value. For example, the three plots around the Snoop Dogg Mansion sold for $1.23m, with one selling for $453,000. 

LoanSnap

LoanSnap launched the first seven mortgage NFTs in November 2021 in the form of home equity loans. These NFTs work like traditional mortgages, replacing mortgage notes with NFTs. 

The location and size of the NFT mortgages were not disclosed and have not yet been available to the general public or crypto investors. However, LoanSnap also plans to issue a stablecoin called bHome. bHome will represent fractional ownership in the NFT mortgage notes, which would allow investors to own a percentage of the mortgage. 

Challenges for NFTs in Real Estate

Much like any other new technology, real estate NFTs don’t come without their drawbacks. Firstly, only 12% of Americans understand the concept of NFTs, creating an educational divide. Although NFTs offer a wide array of benefits, the underlying technology could be too complex for everyday real estate workers and home buyers to fully utilize without the risk of hacks and scams, which have been used to steal $100m since July 2021.  

Secondly, regulation could make real estate NFTs more complex than first thought. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has ramped up its investigation into NFTs, stating that NFTs are being used to raise money, like traditional securities, rather than being sold as art. 

Real estate NFTs would undergo a Howey test before they’re accepted into the mainstream real estate market. Should they be considered a security, they will have to be registered with the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, file regular reports, and comply with Rule 505 of Regulation D.

Final Thoughts: Do NFTs Have A Place In The Future Of Real Estate?

In the future, real estate NFTs could be used to streamline both residential and commercial real estate transaction processes, and open the asset class to an international decentralized community of buyers and sellers.  

As the real estate market is already heavily regulated, current laws covering privacy and data protection will likely make it difficult to buy and sell real estate properties as NFTs. Property laws in the real estate’s location could also add additional complexity to the deal, with different states and countries having different rules regarding real estate ownership.  

That being said, real estate NFTs may begin to slowly influence the real world market, allowing individuals to hold mortgage debt, support new building projects and take part in group investments instead of outright buying and selling a whole property.

Why Are NFTs Valuable? Attempting to Explain Why Some Cost So Much

Posted on by Andrew Amarosa

If you’ve seen headlines of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) selling for millions of dollars then you may be asking yourself: why are NFTs so valuable?

The following dialogue might ensue: Is this just a really rich people thing? Are they laundering money? Is this just fake news biting on click-worthy headlines?

The answer most people will give you is that they’re pieces of art, making them intrinsically valuable. 

But, this doesn’t really give you the full picture of why someone would pay millions for essentially a .JPEG of a monkey. 

While some NFT art pieces like Pak’s ‘The Merge’ have sold for a shockingly high $91.8m, this doesn’t accurately explicate the value of collections like CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), both of which have sold for upwards of six figures since their initial release. 

With that in mind, here’s why NFTs cost so much. 

What Are NFTs?

A non-fungible token (NFT) is a digital image, video, or sound recorded on the blockchain and used to certify authenticity. These assets are 100% unique from one another and cannot be physically changed once minted. Ownership, however, can be seamlessly transferred when the token is sold. 

There are many types of NFTs, including profile picture NFTs, such as those used by Cryptopunks, music NFTs that show proof of ownership of a music piece, and NFTs used for play-to-earn (P2E) gaming, which can be used for trading, gameplay, and passive income.  

In 2022 over 101 million NFTs were sold on NFT marketplaces like OpenSea and Rarible, with collections covering a range of niches such as art, gaming, fashion, sports, music, domain names, and text-based NFT collections. 

Why Do NFTs Curate Value? 

NFTs can be both extremely valuable or completely worthless, with one in three collections “retiring”, with little to no trading activity. 

What makes an NFT valuable is its ability to introduce scarcity to the digital marketplace. When buying an NFT you’re not just overpaying for a digital image, you’re buying a digital token recorded on a public ledger, known as a blockchain. 

Ownership of the NFT is completely irrefutable, which limits the total supply and “inflates” its price, thus justifying its value. While this sounds like a great way to profit from what could essentially be digital junk, that’s not exactly how NFTs work. They need to have some kind of appeal to increase their value, which we’ll cover below. 

Artistic Value

NFTs started as digital art, with the first NFT art piece “Quantum” being created by digital artists Jennifer and Kevin McCoy in 2014. The value of NFT art is similar to that of traditional art, in which artists sell their pieces for millions at art auction houses like Christie’s. The concept of such art is often difficult for everyday people to get their head around, particularly when it comes to art pieces like the “Banana art” which sold for $120,000 only to be eaten by a “hungry artist.” 

Other pieces like the Untitled [Bolsena] collection by Cy Twombly, which sold for $38,685,000 in 2020, can also be a little difficult to process, considering it looks like a few scribbles on the page. 

Cy Twombly, Untitled [Bolsena], 1969. Courtesy of Christie’s Images Ltd. 2020.

What makes these particular pieces valuable is the fact that there is only one kind in existence and usually, the art piece has been created by one of the most artistic minds within a generation. 

This can explain why the majority of expensive NFT sales have been one-of-works. Similar to Untitled [Bolsena], they are the only kinds to exist. For example, Clock, which sold for $52.7 million in February 2022 is a truly unique piece. This is because it functions as a digital counter for the days Assange (the activist who founded WikiLeaks) has been in London’s Belmarsh Prison for espionage.

NFT Utility 

Another crucial factor that impacts the value of an NFT is its utility — essentially how beneficial or profitable it is. As NFTs develop, they’re being used to create new business models and revenue streams. 

For example, a musician can sell NFTs that represent a stake in their new record. This would allow a musician to increase their initial revenue, while the NFT holder receives royalty every time the record sells. The value of the NFT will therefore rise based on the number of sales a record makes or the fame level of the musician. This potentially allows the NFT holder to make passive profits on their initial purchase or sell it for one lump sum. 

The concept of utility is also important in the gaming space, in which play-to-earn gamers are using NFTs to generate passive income. 

Within the world of gaming, players can make in-game purchases for skins, emotes and other unique features, however they don’t actually own them. With NFTs, these in-game purchases can be owned, which gives them greater value and the option to be resold. Considering the in-game purchase market is set to surpass $74.4 billion by 2025, NFTs could disrupt the entire market, allowing players to generate from in-game items instead of them being a liability. 

Community 

Some NFTs grant users access to exclusive clubs, similar to real-world clubs like Soho House. Within these clubs NFT holders can network with like-minded investors, as well as celebrities and business owners. A great example of this is BAYC. BAYC hosts thousands of investors and celebrities such as Mark Cuban, Eminem, Shaquille O’Neal, Snoop Dogg, Justin Bieber, Madonna, and Jimmy Fallon, making it the most socially valuable NFT collection worldwide. 

What Is the Future of NFTs?

There’s no way of denying it, blockchain technology is changing the future of digital assets. What were once just pictures on the internet have become unique tangible assets with the potential to generate revenue and create entirely new business models. 

Early adopters of NFTs have slowly started to dabble in the technology, with Taco Bell selling an NFT collection in 2021, and Nike selling an NFT collection known as Cryptokicks in 2022. The NBA has also started to capitalize on NFTs to create a deeper fan connection with NBA Top Shot, which sold over $800 million in NFTs in 2021. 

As blockchain technology continues to grow and evolve, NFT assets will only become more valuable, with early stage assets being more valuable due to being created early on in a new trend. In the future, it’s more than possible that you could own an NFT for your favorite movie, record or clothing, all being just as (or more) valuable than the real-world assets you currently own. 

NFTs & Climate Change: How Do NFTs Impact the Environment?

Posted on by Anthony Georgiades

In 2022 the market for non-fungible tokens (NFTs)- tokenized images, music, and items, generated $24.7 billion. Just two years before, total sales were just $82.5 million.

This exponential market growth has led to discussions about whether NFTs harm the environment. Activists have expressed concerns about Proof-of-Work (PoW) blockchains like Ethereum, which have been linked to high carbon emissions. 

However, PoW NFTs don’t cover the entire market. Several NFT projects, such as Oceans and Us, are using blockchain technology to attempt to solve climate change. 

With this in mind, it’s important to consider a balance between environmental sustainability and technological advancements.

How do NFTs affect the environment?

The perception of cryptocurrency’s negative impact on the environment is primarily viewed through Proof-of-Work blockchains like Bitcoin, and specifically for NFTs, Ethereum, which covers 76% of all trading volume. Such networks rely on a process called “coin mining”, which is extremely resource intensive. 

During the coin mining process, computers on a network (also known as miners) race against one another to solve complex problems, with the “winner” receiving the right to confirm a block. Once a block has been confirmed, the miner that has claimed it can collect all gas fees and a reward. 

When the price of a cryptocurrency such as Ether increases, gas fees also rise, and the value of solving a problem is higher. This incentivizes miners to invest more computer power into solving a problem, consequently increasing the amount of power used (and wasted.) It’s estimated that Ethereum miners were using 44.49 TWh per year, or around the equivalent energy of running a house for 2.8 days per transaction. 

These numbers aren’t black and white. NFTs only represent a small portion of transactions on the Ethereum blockchain. Therefore it’s difficult to determine whether they’ve significantly impacted the amount of computer power needed to solve problems. While this doesn’t mean NFTs are carbon neutral, their environmental impact may not be as significant as some numbers make it about to be. 

Additionally, Ethereum has recently moved from a Proof-of-Work model to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) model, which we’ll cover in greater detail below. 

How Do NFTs’ Impact The Environment Compared to Physical Art

Although NFTs have been in the spotlight for their environmental damage, they may offer an eco-friendly alternative to traditional art. 

Traditional art requires resource-intensive processes, with a return flight from New York to London generating almost 1,000kg of CO2. With every tonne of CO2 released, around three square meters of Arctic ice will melt. 

Physical art also involves extensive production processes, often involving chemicals that can pollute over 10,000 liters of water. These chemicals usually aren’t picked up by treatment plants and can impact the drinking water in cities where a particular piece of art is exhibited. 

The exact numbers for the environmental impact of traditional art are too difficult to calculate, and therefore there are no specific data. That being said, if you look at the creation and distribution of traditional art alone, the carbon footprint is significantly higher than NFTs. 

Let’s consider transport, for example. When an NFT is minted, it can be sent to another individual for a small fee and an even smaller carbon footprint. Compared to this, a physical piece of art would use a cargo truck or aircraft. This doesn’t even include the delivery of materials, which adds even more to the environmental footprint of physical art. 

Proof-of-Stake Is Helping To Reduce NFT-Related Emissions

As mentioned earlier, Ethereum has moved from a Proof-of-Work model to a Proof-of-stake (PoS) model, but what does this mean for NFTs and climate change? 

PoS models use significantly less energy than their PoW counterparts as they don’t require miners to maintain their own mining equipment. With a PoS model, a limited number of powerful nodes run the network validating transactions once they’ve received a certain number of stakes from coin holders.

This prevents the need for large mining operations and lets nodes generate a passive income with staked tokens. Blockchains like Ethereum have now transitioned to a PoS model to reduce carbon emissions, which has made Ethereum 30,00 times more energy efficient. 

NFT Projects Supporting Environmental Change

Most mainstream headlines focus on the environmental damage of NFTs, overlooking projects that are designed to impact the environment positively. While many projects attempt to support the environment, two that have already achieved some success are Greenverse and Moss.Earth. 

Greenverse

Greenverse is a metaverse NFT project designed to help preserve underground resources. The project uses a preserve-to-earn model which tokenizes natural resources. With this model, real-world land is turned into blocks, and each block has an NFT priced on its natural minerals, biodiversity, and carbon emission potential. 

Owners will receive rewards for preserving these resources instead of developing the land. Benefits include biodiversity credits and non-production carbon credits. Greenverse was first pioneered in Jameson Land in Greenland, though it has since expanded to Suriname in South America. 

Moss.Earth 

Moss.Earth is a tech startup looking to help individuals and businesses offset their carbon footprint with tokenized carbon credits. First founded in 2020, Moss.Earth has sent over $30 million to Amazon preservation projects and has announced the release of Moss Amazon NFTs. 

Each NFT grants the owner a piece of land in the Amazon forest, which can be monitored using remote sensing tools created by Descartes Labs. 20% of each sale will be used to maintain the area’s security and provide satellite images. According to Moss.Earth, its NFT collection sold out in less than an hour. 

Final Thoughts: NFTs Need Time To Become Environmentally Friendly

While blockchain-based transactions used for NFTs do some environmental damage, projects are continuously looking for ways to mitigate their environmental impact. For projects like Ethereum, this means moving to a PoS model, while for projects like Greenverse and Moss.Earth, this means using NFT technology to preserve our natural environment. 

Regenerative Finance, or “ReFi,” is the niche cryptocurrency movement that uses the blockchain to solve a variety of climate and Earth-oriented issues. EcoSapiens, for example, is a metaverse enabling its community to combat climate change by tokenizing and creating a market for things such as carbon credits.

NFT’s potential to solve real-world problems is huge, however, as with all novel technology, NFTs must be given time to innovate. Technology we use daily, including smartphones, laptops, and TVs, all started with great environmental demands, but recent technological advancements have allowed us to limit their environmental impact. 

This could be a similar story for NFTs, which have already taken huge strides to limit their environmental impact in just two years since going mainstream. In just a few years, it’s possible that NFTs could not only become carbon neutral but could even help support our fight against climate change. 

Otherside NFTs Explained (Read Before Buying)

Posted on by Anthony Georgiades

Otherside is a metaverse world designed around the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT collection. 

“The Otherside” will offer a massive role-playing game where over 10,000 players can interact, complete missions, and voice chat simultaneously. 

The Otherside NFTs were originally sold to BAYC holders and went on public sale on April 30, 2022. 55,000 land parcels were sold for over $300 million, though not without controversy. Due to high network usage, transaction fees were extremely high, and some transactions failed altogether. 

In this article, we’ll look at what The Otherside is, how it works, its founders, how you can buy an Otherside NFT, and what happened during the land sale that caused a stir among Crypto Twitter. 

What Is The Otherside?

The Otherside is a 3D massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) focusing on the BAYC community. It’s designed to help expand the utility of the BAYC project, combining the benefits of BAYC with a range of other NFT projects.  

Like other Metaverse projects, players can explore an open world, venture out on quests, buy, own and sell land, and harvest resources to potentially generate passive income. 

There are four unique resources in the game: Anima, Root, Shard, and Ore. 

Players can also find and collect “artifacts,” rare in-game assets. 

The Otherside ecosystem consists of a marketplace for materials called The Agora, a unique arcade machine, and The Codex, which works much like a book telling the tales of The Otherside. In its basic form, The Codex describes the Metaverse. However, it continues to change and can be added by players describing their in-game experience. 

As of January 2023, The Otherside is only accessible to landholders who own Otherdeed NFTs. These can be purchased on OpenSea and have a floor price of around 1 ETH – 1.5 ETH. 

How Does The Otherside Work?

The Otherside operates using several components: 

  • Unique playable NFT characters
  • Otherside Land NFTs
  • Kodas

Here’s how each works. 

NFT Characters

To create diversity in The Otherside, a wide range of NFTs can be used as playable characters as long as the owner holds an Otherdeed NFT. This increases the number of players, as BAYC NFTs would price out many holders. 

Otherside Land NFTs

Otherside land NFTs, also known as Otherdeeds, come in a wide range of unique land types offering a diverse range of terrains for players to explore. Land types include castles surrounded by lava, bone-chilling glaciers, psychedelic realities, and thousands of other options. 

Each piece of land will have unique sediment, including rainbow atmos, biogenic swamps, chemical goo, cosmic dreams, and an infinite expanse. There are 200,000 land parcels, each of which will have one or more resources (Anima, Root, Shard, and Ore.)

Alongside its sediment, each Otherdeed land parcel will also have a range of unique traits, such as:

  • Environment
  • Resources
  • Artifacts
  • Sediment tier
  • Environment Tier
  • Kodas

This makes each plot unique, with resources determining the value and rarity of the land NFT. 

Kodas

Kodas are a new series of NFT characters and will play an important role in The Otherside Metaverse. Initially, there will be 10,000 Kodas for every 100,000 Otherside Land NFTs, meaning players will have a 10% chance of owning one. 

As of January 2023, Kodas remains somewhat of a mystery. There is currently no information on how players will interact with them, and their storyline remains a secret. Nonetheless, many investors believe the value of Kodas will surge in the future. 

Who Created The Otherside?

The pioneer of The Otherside is Yuga Labs, the company that created ApeCoin and BAYC. They are supported by three developers: Andreesen Horowitz, Animoca Brands, and Improbable. 

Andreesen Horowitz, also known as “a16z crypto,” is the venture-capital firm that led the first seed round for The Otherside. One of its partners, Chris Lyons, has since become part of Yuga Lab’s board for the project. 

Animoca Brands is a venture capital and gaming software company. It already has prior success in the Metaverse, having helped build The Sandbox, and is now working on the funding and technology for The Otherside. 

Improbable is a UK-based company pushing the boundaries of Metaverse technology. Using funding from Animoca, Improbable aims to create the largest, most secure, and most interactive platform across a range of virtual worlds. 

How To Buy An Otherside NFT

You can buy Otherside NFTs on OpenSea.

Begin by creating an OpenSea account and connecting your wallet– MetaMask is the best option.

Once connected, search for Otherdeed for Otherside, ensuring the collection has a blue verification tick. 

Search through NFTs based on traits and click “Buy Now” to make your purchase. 

Land Sale Disaster

Despite being a highly anticipated project from a well-known NFT project, the initial Otherdeed NFT drop was a disaster for many investors. Before release, the majority of the 200,000 land plots available were reserved for the BAYC community, which immediately monopolized the market. 

Only 55,000 land plots were sold publicly, with a mint value of over $300 million. This made the mint one of the most expensive of any Metaverse projects and immediately priced out many collectors. 

Before the Otherdeeds sale, Yuga Labs announced they wouldn’t rely on a dutch auction, which is known for creating “gas wars” where fees are driven up until only the richest investors can buy into a project. 

Instead, Yoga Labs planned to use a wave system to release their NFTs. Unfortunately, this was even less successful than a dutch auction. Upon release, thousands of investors swarmed the platform to buy an Otherdeed NFT. This resulted in extremely high minting fees, and several transactions failed as collectors couldn’t afford the gas fees. Consequently, investors who experienced failed transactions lost thousands of dollars.

By the end of the sale, only NFT investors with large amounts of capital could buy. Yoga Labs apologized for the incident and stated that in the future, they might need to move the BAYC ecosystem to another blockchain network to prevent similar problems. 

Final Thoughts: Exploring Otherside’s Potential 

The Otherside is an exciting spin-off of the BAYC brand and has the potential to take the community to new highs. 

With many exciting features, interactive gameplay, and a storyline that will continue to develop, The Otherside could change how we interact with blockchain gaming. 

However, despite its potential, The Otherside may be too expensive for everyday NFT gamers to get involved. 

The fact that almost 75% of the total supply went to BAYC holders and investors were priced out of the remaining supply during The Otherside auction means that only a select few collectors can participate. If the project wants to thrive, it needs to consider the wider NFT community and create new ways for collectors to enjoy the Metaverse without a large initial investment. 

Azuki NFTs Explained (Read Before Buying)

Posted on by Andrew Amarosa

Azuki is a collection of 10,000 avatar NFTs inspired by anime artwork. The collection works like most profile picture NFTs (PFP NFTs,) utilizing a randomized selection of traits to create each unique character. 

Released in January 2022, Azuki had one of the most successful NFT launches, selling out on OpenSea and LooksRare in just three minutes. During its release, Azuki generated an estimated $29 million and caught the attention of the entire NFT market. 

In this article, we’ll look at what Azuki is, how it works, what are Azuki’s Beanz, how to buy an Azuki NFT, Azuki Controversy, and the project’s future. 

What is Azuki?

Azuki is a PFP NFT project consisting of 10,000 generative anime-inspired avatars. Its unique aesthetic has been compared to a combination of the 3D game The World Ends with You and the skateboarding magazine Thrasher. 

Azuki was initially planned to be launched using a Dutch Auction (where a set starting price is made and decreases throughout the sale.) The dev team planned to set a starting price of 1 ETH for 8,700 NFTs (1300 were whitelisted) and decrease this by 0.05 ETH every 20 minutes until its price hit 0.15 ETH. However, as the collection sold out in three minutes, it never decreased in price. Instead, all NFTs were minted at 1 ETH- around $3246. 

Post-launch, the value of Azuki increased exponentially, with Azuki hitting almost $300 million in transaction volume across NFT marketplaces like OpenSea. Lower value NFTs were selling for around $36,000, while rare options sold for over half a million USD. Azuki had become the eighth-most traded NFT collection worldwide in just one month, competing with household names like Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks. 

How Does Azuki Work?

Alongside unique PFP NFTs, Azuki promised investors a long-term roadmap which helped attract the NFT community to the project. This roadmap included immersive 3D experiences, unique Azuki-themed merchandise, in-person exhibits for Azuki holders, and even a native currency called $BEAN.

Since its initial release, all holders have had access to The Garden. Within The Garden, holders can be the first to access collabs with other NFT projects, Azuki drops, clothing, tickets, live events, and more. 

However, this initial roadmap was disrupted in early May 2022 after Zegabond (an Azuki founder) published a blog that mentioned his previous three projects and how each had failed. Each had been a big hit at the time and experienced controversy in one way or another. This decreased the price of Azuki’s by over 45% and caused significant backlash throughout social media, which we’ll go into more detail below. 

As of January 2023, Azuki has continued to follow its roadmap, offering streetwear to members of The Garden, the creation of a Gallery Metaverse, and plans for Meta-games within the community. 

Who created Azuki?

Azuki was created by Churu Labs, a group of artists and developers located in Los Angeles. Each member has a background in technology, gaming, and crypto, using a pseudonymous name to stay anonymous. They go by the names of 2pm.flow, location tba, HoshiBoy, and Zagabond. 

Churu labs created Azuki to take PFP NFTs to the next level, aiming to impact the real world with in-person events, merchandise, and more. 

What are Azuki’s Beanz?

In April 2022, Azuki launched a second collection called Azuki Beanz. This collection was more affordable than the traditional Azukis and had rumors to be linked to Adidas and Supreme (though these turned out to be untrue.)

The collection consists of around 30,000 NFTs, and each Azuki holder was airdropped a mysterious box that contained a unique character from the Beanz collection.

Azuki Beanz holders receive access to an exclusive Discord channel, with merchandise and collectible drops being announced in the future. 

There are two BEANZ NFTs in total; one red and one blue, each with its own personality. Red BEANZ is a rule breaker, making his way from The Garden into the alley. Apparently, the Red BEANZ bites your Azuki if you tell him what to do. 

The second bean is a blue BEANS NFT. Blue BEANZ is constantly getting into trouble. They annoy Azuki’s and have a bad reputation. 

How To Buy An Azuki NFT

You can buy an Azuki NFT on LooksRare and OpenSea.

Start by setting up an account and collecting your wallet on either platform. MetaMask and Coinbase Wallet are good options for this. 

Once you’ve connected your wallet, search for Azuki in the search bar, ensuring the collection has a blue checkmark to avoid a rug pull. 

Find the NFT you want to buy and click “Buy Now” to complete the purchase. 

Azuki Controversy 

In May 2022, Zagabond announced he was behind three defunct projects; Tendies, CryptoZunks, and CryptoPhunks. CryptoPhunks, in particular, was seen as a huge issue amongst the Azuki community, as it was considered a rug pull after the dev team disappeared. Consequently, many investors started to question the legitimacy of Azuki. 

But the criticism didn’t stop there. After additional research, on-chain data discovered that the founder of CryptoPhunks completed a wash trade (when a buyer and seller collaborate to inflate the market.)This caused the Azuki floor price to plunge further, decreasing from 19 ETH ($ 45,410) to as low as 10.5 ETH ($25,095.)

To address the controversy, Zagabond held a Twitter space on May 10th, hosted by Andrew Wang, a popular cryptocurrency figure. Vagabond claimed that he handed off the communities, then tried to justify his actions by stating there’s no rulebook for creators to follow. 

However, developers who worked with Zagabond took to Twitter to share their experiences. In a detailed Twitter thread, “dvx,” a former CryptoZunks team leader, stated that Zagabond was consistently dishonest about his work, failed to communicate with his team, and abandoned the project despite a roadmap already being in place. Other developers stated that Zagabond was scamming from the start and had no intention for the projects to succeed. 

Despite this criticism, Azuki buyers actually increased by 1200%, with investors capitalizing on the lower floor price. 

Final Thoughts: Is Azuki Still Worth The Investment

Although Azuki experienced negative publicity in 2022, it remains a strong investment option with a floor price of 14 ETH as of January 2023. 

The dev team has successfully expanded the project with Azuki Beanz and continues to pursue the planned roadmap, providing value to holders in the process. This continuous investment shows that the dev team is invested in the long-term success of the project. 

Nonetheless, as with any investment, completing your due diligence is always important. Only invest what you can afford and ensure Azuki is the right project for you before making any decisions. 

Copyright © 2021 Pastel. All rights reserved