Azuki Elementals Have Sold Out in the Presale
The NFT market reached its peak in 2021. The growing hype around non-fungible assets undoubtedly diminished in the first quarter of 2022 when all the forces gathered together to tear the crypto market apart.
Although the NFT market has shrunk considerably, the recent Azuki drop shows that NFTs are still a desirable investment opportunity. In just under 15 minutes, the entire Elementals PFP NFT collection sold out and brought a considerable $38 million to the project founders.
Source: OpenSea
On June 27th, Azuki held a presale of its 10,000 Elementals digital collectibles, each starting at a price point of 2 ETH. The advantage was given to the Azuki and Beanz NFTs holders, who were each given a 10-minute opportunity to grab the newest pieces in the Azuki ecosystem.
The Elementals collection was supposed to be open to the public after Azuki and Beanz holders got their share, but all NFTs were sold out before the presale ended. It’s also worth noting that another 10,000 Elementals were airdropped to Azuki holders free of charge earlier that weekend.
All of this indicates that the Azuki Elementals collection is one of the hottest NFT drops in recent months. However, it didn’t take long for people to realize that minting Elementals might have been a mistake.
Are Holders Regretting Their Investments?
One of the first indicators that something was not quite right emerged when users began sharing their dissatisfaction with the minting experience. According to various tweets, some holders could not mint Elementals even though they were proud holders of Azuki or Beanz collectibles. Some blamed it on technical challenges such as contract issues, while others believe they weren’t lucky due to the short minting window.
Here’s another tweet displaying holders’ dissatisfaction:
And another one:
Still, as you can see from the tweets above, technical challenges and a short minting window weren’t the only issues. The art reveal occurred shortly after the minting was complete, and buyers weren’t happy. Many noticed that the art looked way too similar to the OG Azuki collection, and others even saw “duplicates” and imperfections artwork worth 2+ ETH shouldn’t display.
The Azuki team quickly addressed buyers’ dissatisfaction with the most recent Azuki drop.
We should have extended the duration to more than 10 minutes to allow a sufficient buffer in the case of any issues (of which there were). We were hoping for a smooth and streamlined experience from mint straight to reveal, but that didn’t happen.
One of the Azuki co-founders tweeted soon after the presale ended.
In the same Twitter thread, the co-founder confirmed that Azuki holders minted 7.6k Elementals while the Beanz owners took the rest.
The Elementals collection was a big miss, and the NFTs are already trading well under the mint price. In other words, people who have put their money into Elementals are now at least hundreds of dollars short. And while the team feels guilty for what has happened, that doesn’t really mean much when you’re on the verge of losing a big chunk of your investment.
