Latest Azuki News
The Museum of Dope Art is now open inside Azuki's Hilumia, according to a tweet from the project.
🧐Wait, What?
Earlier this year, Azuki released Hilumia - an interactive online world that shows off community initiatives and ongoing brand projects. At launch, some of Hilumia's highlights were the Golden Skate Park and Slowpoke's Toy Haven.
The Deets
The Museum of Dope Art will feature art from Azuki community members. Community members who are featured on Azuki's official instagram page will receive a MODA Exhibitor Community Badge which will also be showcased inside their Azuki Collector's Profile.
🎬 Take Action
Check Out the Museum of Dope Art and Explore Hilumia
🧠 Learn More
Azuki introduced two new BEANZ characters named Jay & Jelly in a tweet this morning, encouraging Azuki fans to follow these characters at @BEANZOfficial.
❗Why It Matters
Though the @BEANZOfficial Twitter account was registered in September, 2022, the account has only 690 followers at the time of writing. Could Azuki be ramping up its social media efforts for the BEANZ brand using Jay & Jelly?
🔍 The Deets
- There was also a short video posted by @BEANZOfficial that introduced Jay & Jelly.
- In the tweet, the BEANZ are described as mischevious and adventurous. The tweet also notes that while Jay & Jelly like to squabble, they are also inseparable.
- In the video, Jay falls out of the sky, and Jelly comes over to see what happened, looking agitated.
🎤 Community Feedback
wooah, the potential for this is huge. it seems like they might be taking inspiration from @LucaNetz's @PudgyPenguins on getting a following on bigger platforms.@heycape_
Chiru Labs, the creators of the Azuki NFT collection, have filed two U.S. trademark applications for Hilumia and 9 Lives Arcade, as reported by Twitter user @NeerMcD this morning.
❗ Why it Matters
The two applications provide a look into the project's future plans,
🧐 Wait, What?
- Hilumia is the recently announced metaverse city built by the Azuki community.
- Not much is known about the 9 Lives Arcade yet, other than it "bridges fans of old classics and enthusiasts of modern gaming."
🔍 The Deets
The applications contain a lot of overlap, with each application referencing the following items:
- Downloadable game software, computer software for electronic transfer of digital tokens
- Merch including beanies, cardigans, hats, hoodies, pants, shirts, etc.
- Providing online non-downloadable computer software for use as a digital token wallet
🕳️ Go Deeper
Azuki has partnered with Bilibili International to explore anime and general web3 content innovations, according to a tweet from the project.
Why It Matters: Azuki has already established itself as the leading anime NFT project, and the continued exploration and formal partnership with a major media platform provides ample opportunity for brand growth and expansion. Bilibili, an online media organization, reported more than 332 million monthly active users in Q3 of 2022, according to Statista.
What Happens Next: To celebrate the partnership, Azuki and Bilibili are offering a few perks to Azuki ecosystem holders.
- Bilibili International users can acquire a unique in-app badge by verifying their ownership of an Azuki, BEANZ, or Cheers Up NFT.
- A new partnership badge has been added to the Azuki Collector's Profile.
- An emoji pack is being released for use in the Bilibili app and Discord.
Community Thoughts:
By The Numbers:
The Azuki trading volumes have fallen significantly in the last week (down 61% on OpenSea) but the floor price has held quite steady, down one percent but holding a floor of 15.78 ETH. BEANZ have fallen eight percent during the same timeframe (1.78 ETH), but the collection still boasts an 83 percent gain over the last month.
Go Deeper:
On the one-year anniversary of its launch, Azuki announced the release of Hilumia, a metaverse city built by the community that houses the past, present, and future of Azuki.
Why It Matters: Azuki holders or community participants can now physically explore the expansionary efforts of the Azuki brand, in many instances led by the community. Though not a formal roadmap, many may see this as an immersive version of the Azuki Mindmap.
Action Items: Explore Hilumia!
What's Inside:
- Slowpoke's Toy Haven: A high-quality toy store, albeit one moving slowly in production.
- Ember Square: A place to keep up with all the new designs.
- Golden Skate Park: A home for those illustrious skate decks.
- Garden Express: A suggestion box for brand initiatives.
Food For Thought: Many had speculated that a major Azuki announcement was coming on its birthday, and speculators were rewarded with the official release of Hilumia. Hilumia, much like Azuki's initial Mindmap (roadmap), is an innovative way to engage community whilst providing glimpses of what's to come while building on the success of previous initiatives.
By The Numbers: The Azuki floor price has rebounded 31 percent over the last 30 days and rests at 16.99 ETH on OpenSea. Similarly, the companion collection BEANZ has jumped 102 percent to 1.89 ETH over the same time frame.
What They're Saying: "It's giving zelda/pokemon. This is better than the Google slide recap I predicted," said Keeks on Twitter.
Go Deeper:
Blur's newest bid feature has seemingly caused a roller coaster weekend in the NFT market, with several notable collections seeing 10-20 percent swings in both directions.
The weekend started with a bang, as yesterday's market was full of green. Several collections saw significant gains in their floor prices, including:
- Pudgy Penguins (+22% to 4.94 ETH)
- Azukis (+15% to 13.9 ETH)
- Otherdeeds (+15% to 1.36 ETH)
- Clone X (+10% to 7.4 ETH)
- MAYC (+5% to 14.8 ETH)
Several notable community members and traders noticed the price action and connected it to the new Blur "bid walls" on Twitter this weekend. As a part of their new Bid feature rollout, Blur has included new analytics allowing traders to see exactly where the bids are coming, by who, and in what amounts.
Infamous BAYC trader Franklin had this to say:
There are thousands of ETH available in bids for bored apes at around the 64 ETH range on Blur...it looks like people want in. 😆 pic.twitter.com/znF84ohh3i
— Franklin has 59 apes (@franklinisbored) December 9, 2022
Another notable NFT trader, Cirrus, noted:
The buy-side liquidity on blur is unlike anything we've seen in NFTs before
— Cirrus (@CirrusNFT) December 10, 2022
You can accept 169 bids on mutants right now and the top bid would move 0.4%
Treating NFTs more like shitcoins was actually the best possible outcome pic.twitter.com/9Xm9LF10sh
The increase in bid activity spiked volume in the market to levels not seen since May 2021, as reported on by NFT Statistics (@punk9059). Of the 30,000 ETH volume, 70 percent was recorded on Blur with a large contribution from Blur airdrop 3 farmers.
Regarding the "farming,", this was the typical mechanic spotted in the Blur market on Saturday:
1) Farmers submitted bids at or near the floor for top-volume NFT collections like Azuki and MAYC, 2) bought NFT(s) via those bids, 3) immediately sold the NFTs to the highest bid on Blur, and 4) then rinsed and repeated.
This farming temporarily spiked floor prices for those collections, but those bid walls have since fallen and most gains have been erased.
Here are today's numbers, for those same collections (using floor prices on Blur):
- Pudgy Penguins (-25% to 4 ETH)
- Azukis (-20% to 11.4 ETH)
- Otherdeeds (-19% to 1.1 ETH)
- Clone X (-15% to 6.45 ETH)
- MAYC (-8% to 13.6 ETH)
Let's take a look at Pudgy Penguins, for example. The current "bid wall" is now 1,038 ETH at the 3.75 ETH level. Compare this to Friday, when there was over 2,000 ETH of bid pressure on the Pudgy Penguins collection, and one will notice a significant reduction in liquidity and buy levels. It is a similar story for each of the collections noted here.
With bidding still earning rewards through the rest of the month, it will be interesting to see how this NFT market continues to react to this latest incentive.
Earlier this morning, OpenSea user GRAILdotETH swept eight Azuki NFTs for a total price of 114 ETH ($140,000) according to etherscan.
The wallet was already holding a handful of Azuki NFTs prior to this sweep, including four golden hoodie Azukis as well as three Spirit Azukis, a trait with a current floor price of 160 ETH on OpenSea.
GRAILdotETH also holds premium ENS names such as dubai.eth and grail.eth.
Two major sales took place in the Clone X and Azuki ecosystems in the past 24 hours, at prices over 10x their respective floors.
Last night, a Murakami DNA Clone X sold for 69.42 ETH ($85,081) on OpenSea, while the overall Clone X floor sits at 6.6 ETH. The buyer "ROYALOAK77" has several rare Clone X in their wallet, with this latest buy bringing them to a total of 12 Clone X NFTs held. The sale brings the floor for the rare Murakami DNA trait to 79.9 ETH.
Then just an hour ago, a rare Spirit Azuki sold for 150 ETH ($184,473) to mosu.eth on the X2Y2 marketplace. The sale brings the Spirit Azuki floor to 160 ETH and reinforces its status as one of the highest sought-after and most liquid grails of any PFP collection. The buy comes while Azuki is riding high, holding a 13 ETH floor which is its highest sustained level since the Zagabond fallout.
Azuki announced the addition of rarity to the project's recent drop of hoodies, utilizing Chiru Labs' Physical Backed Token (PBT) technology to gamify the merchandise experience.
Introducing PBT Rarity ✨
— Azuki (@AzukiOfficial) December 5, 2022
Scan-to-own your Azuki x AMBUSH® hoodie to claim the Physical Backed Token (PBT) and reveal rarity.
Common: 🔴🔵
Rare: 🌊🔥🪨⚡️
Epic: ✨
Legendary: 👻
What did you pull? pic.twitter.com/0RX7kUiBY3
Holders of the physical hoodie can mint the PBT on the project's website, which cannot be transferred or sold. Owners can also equip the digital hoodies on their Azuki NFTs, and scan the hoodie to unlock a new Azuki x AMBUSH !IKZ emblem featured on the Collector's Profile.
Claiming the PBT will reveal their rarity as Common, Rare, Epic, or Legendary, according to the tweet.
More information on the scanning and minting of PBTs can be found here.
