Written by: 0x21, Rhythm BlockBeats

"Emm...Crypto Phunk, Tendies, CryptoZunks These projects are the experiences I "learned" on the road to create Azuki." Azuki's founder zagabond's voice in the live broadcast did not fall, and the floor price of Azuki NFT began to fall in response.

question

question

Two days ago, zagabond published an article called "A Builder's Journey" on the mirror. In the article, zagabond sincerely explained his own journey of creating Azuki. The most important thing is that he wrote in the article He mentioned that he had previously participated in the issuance of three other NFT projects, Crypto Phunk, Tendies and CryptoZunks. Although these projects ended in failure, they provided him with a wealth of project experience.

You may not have heard of Tendies and CryptoZunks, but the "rebel" Crypto Phunk was a smash hit. In order to oppose LarvaLabs' copyright control of Crypto Punks, a set of Punks that were all manually "flipped" appeared in the eyes of everyone last year. , People's worship of decentralization and the spirit of Web3 are fully reflected in Crypto Phunks, and the floor price once reached 3 ETH. After YugaLabs announced the acquisition of Crypto Punks, the "rebel army" of Phunks became as quiet as Tendies and CryptoZunks.

The zagabond article quickly spread on social media. People don't seem to care about the team's plans for Azuki's future development in the article. Instead, they focus on zagabond's personal "entrepreneurship history" (three projects that have been abandoned). Members of the Azuki community are in a state of confusion. They don't understand why zagabond "revealed" its black history when the market sentiment is so bad, and most NFT players sneered at zagabond's behavior of publishing NFT projects anonymously. NFT Kol ZachXBT's comment is more direct: "Translate, it is my past three rug (blanket) projects". Affected by the overall market conditions, it became more difficult to control the fermentation of public opinion. "Rug Pull" became synonymous with Azuki in the next few hours. The zagabond article caused the first panic selling of Azuki holders, and the floor price fell from 18ETH to 10ETH about. All major KOLs, communities, and different social platforms are talking about the ups and downs of azuki's floor price, and emotions spread rapidly.

panic

Until NFT collector Andrew Wang tweeted that he would host a live broadcast on Twitter Space at 9:30 a.m. Pacific time on May 10, at which time zagabond would be invited to explain what happened. At that time, the community and the market showed two levels of differentiation: on the one hand, Azuki supporters expected zagabond and the team to give reasonable answers and good news; Or the veil of mystery that the azuki team still maintained at the time. The trading volume of Azuki has risen sharply, and the floor price has risen from 10ETH to around 16ETH. The two sides are eagerly waiting, but in fact, the scene of "crisis and opportunity" coexists. Some people expect that the zagabond of "check your wallet" can achieve personal deification, and some people want to pull this mythical azuki project down from the mundane world.

At 12:30 am on May 11th, Beijing time, the stage was set up and all parties were in place. I believe it was the first time for many NFT players to see such a large-scale scene. In just two minutes, nearly 7,000 people flooded into the Twitter Space. Everyone seems to regard this Space as a press conference for zagabond or the azuki team to the public, looking forward to what kind of surprises the Azuki team can bring to everyone. When zagabond began to answer questions from the host, Space reached tens of thousands of real-time online listeners, even surpassing the number of Azuki NFT issued.

In this space, zagabond does not seem to be ready. When responding to the question of Azuki’s rise, zagabond replied: “We did not expect that azuki would develop so fast. We have been focusing on products, communities, and routes before.”, for the increase Crypto Phunk royalty zagabond said: "Well...we (the team) found that there were a lot of people swiping the transaction volume at that time, so we changed the royalty income of Crypto Phunk...", when referring to the follow-up treatment of the previous three projects , He said, "Well... Crypto Phunk, Tendies, CryptoZunks These projects are the experiences I have "learned" on the road to creating Azuki."

The sharp questions from the fans' comments made zagabond's mentality gradually unbalanced, and he kept repeating "it's just an experiment. I've been trying to learn." It quickly caused dissatisfaction among the audience.

The reason of "learning" obviously cannot be accepted by the holders of the three projects or some audiences at the scene. Therefore, even if the team is now under a real threat to personal safety, they choose to "exposure themselves", but the masses are in great anger. And in the mood of doubt, it is impossible to empathize with it. Even Andrew Wang, as the owner of Azuki, was questioned by the audience in the back row and private messages from fans, whether he had a tendency to favor the azuki team, so he kept expressing his sympathy and concern for the safety of zagabond to everyone present.

Then zagabond suddenly fell off the speaking area due to a malfunction. The audience once thought that its filter was broken, but zagabond was overwhelmed and "escaped" from the press conference in front of tens of thousands of people.

The subsequent free questioning session was also chaotic.

stampede

Obviously this is a relatively "real" press conference. Zagabond and the team responded very badly to this press conference that should have been "already prepared, but significantly ahead of schedule" as he said. Members of the azuki community were not satisfied with zagabond's answer because he did not give a follow-up plan, nor did he express any position on the holders of azuki. The communities and holders of the other three projects have also become more irate for not giving them proper positive news or transferring contracts and control. All emotions were concentrated at the top, which directly caused the azuki floor to fall to the current 7.39ETH. Everyone even felt "zagabond, I just need you to sincerely apologize to other projects and make compensation."

Later, Zagabond, the founder of Azuki, also tweeted that he messed up the live broadcast. He also issued an announcement on the official Discord that all income from CryptoPhunks and CryptoZunks (including sales income and copyright income) and smart contract private keys will be handed over to the community. , in addition to returning all Tendies sale income to holders who have already minted, after which Zagabond will devote itself to the subsequent development of Azuki. Azuki will launch artist collaboration activities in New York in the near future, and the team is also developing follow-up derivatives including (jackets and skateboards, etc.). In response to this incident, Zagabond also stated that the team has established a consultant and public relations team, and will issue an announcement soon.

As a team of less than 20 people with no financing, Azuki is very successful today. He once became the next candidate to surpass the BAYC ecology in everyone's mind. Every time a new news is released, they seem to be able to Accurately finding the rhythm is also an important reason for the cohesion of the community, so many people can firmly believe that Azuki can find the right direction again in this public opinion. On the other hand, the Asian culture represented by Azuki and the distinctive personality established by the founder zagabond have become a double-edged sword.

dispute

dispute

NFT is the most unique branch of the Crypto world. Under the cloak of financial attributes and investment value, it contains the core of culture and emotion. This also means that NFT is actually a brand. Although everyone yearns for a decentralized world, NFT with cultural attributes is not well integrated with the governance model of DAO. Mainstream NFT projects still need to be relatively central. Optimized business model to improve efficiency and complete progress. But relatively centralized operation does not mean that it is contrary to the concept of Web3.

In the Azuki incident, the most difficult thing for people to understand is why an NFT project with the top 3 transaction volume all the year round is so vulnerable? How should we think about the NFT space if even Azuki fails?

In fact, this is not an accident, it is just a sign of the maturity of the NFT market. Whether it is an NFT, a traditional brand or an artist, there are many things that cause projects to collapse due to public opinion, or cause stars to lose their luster because of a past. But turning negative emotions into positive is the key to testing the strength of the team. In 2018, Nike"NFL player Colin Kaepernick, as a spokesperson, caused heated discussions and was boycotted. Nike fans expressed their anger by burning their sneakers. Nike's market value evaporated 4 billion US dollars in a few hours. When the video of burning sneakers gradually increased, they chose to publish a tutorial on burning shoes to "guide" users how to burn Nike sneakers correctly and resolve the crisis.

We are still at the connecting point of Web2 and Web3. I believe that most people can accept centralized teams, but they cannot accept unprofessional teams in public relations or other levels. A project like Azuki with a revenue of almost over 100 million can surpass most traditional listed companies. This is closely related to their operational thinking and team personality. However, while they are doing a good job of branding, they lack the proper public relations team within the organization. Facing a high rate of return while improving the basic structure of the team, it is the performance of being responsible to the community. The zagabond incident does not mean that Azuki has no hope , Shouting to let zagabond leave is not the key to the problem, but he did give more entrepreneurs, including the Azuki team, a wake-up call. In the final analysis, in the world of web3, a creative team will bring more opportunities, and a mature team will determine whether it lasts.