#76 The $37 Million NFT Mistake
How Azuki's OG collection crashed 50% in 7 days
GM - this is The Snapshot, edition #76.
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I write about NFTs/crypto, and solopreneurship in web3.
This is what I’ve got for you:
This Week In NFT/Crypto World - The $37 Million NFT Mistake
Notable Sales - Azuki Elemental, DeeKay, Grant Yun, Other World
Creator Corner - Twitter’s big new update for writers
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Disclaimer: The content covered in this newsletter is not to be considered as investment advice. It is for informational and educational purposes only.
Have a great day,
B
This Week In NFT/Crypto World - The $37 Million NFT Mistake
The $37 Million NFT Mistake
Azuki, the #2 NFT project in the space, sold 10,000 new “Elemental” NFTs at 2 ETH each: 20,000 ETH ($37M) raised.
That is quite extraordinary in the depths of a “bear market”.
This should have been a time for the team to celebrate their enormous raise, and holders to celebrate their new NFTs.
But there was a HUGE mistake…
When the new NFTs started to reveal (20,000 in total: 10,000 were airdropped for free to holders + 10,000 were sold), many of them looked exceptionally similar to the original collection (10,000 in total).
So similar did they look that someone made a game for people to guess which NFT was which… and participants were getting it wrong.
The consequence?
The Azuki market crashed.
In the last 7 days the original collection is down 45% (!)
What’s worse?
The Elementals which were minted at 2 ETH are trading at 1.65 ETH. So losses all around.
The only saving grace is that certain desirable traits are selling for much higher than the 2 ETH mint price (see Notable sales below) - but these are rare circumstances.
So what now for the Azuki collection?
Well, there is a Green Bean which has been airdropped to the original Azuki holders as part of the solution - but we do not know how this will rectify the situation yet.
(If this sounds absurd, I’m sorry - in NFT land, airdropping more NFTs is seen as a gift - depending on the NFT’s “utility”)
Aside from that, the market is looking for reassurance that the team understands the mistake it has made, can put in place processes to make sure it doesn’t happen again, and give people “a narrative to hold Azuki”.
Full thread by Grail,eth, who spent almost $1M on this sale
If I had spent almost $1M on the mint, I would say the same!
Notable Sales - Azuki Elemental, DeeKay, Grant Yun, Other World
Azuki Elemental, ??? - 40 ETH ($74,000)
DeeKay, Self Discovery - 48 ETH ($89,000)
Grant Yun, Park - 50 ETH ($92,622)
Other World, Trail Of Fire - 50 ETH ($92,622)
Creator Corner - Twitter’s big new update for writers
Twitter can be difficult to articulate detailed points.
To expand arguments and convey nuance, many writers have chosen to write long threads and/or write articles on newsletter platforms (like this one).
Twitter does NOT like this latter approach.
Why?
Because attention is moving off their platform to go elsewhere.
Twitter’s solution:
You can now
This is really good for writers because
(i) writers can provide to their audience longer pieces live on Twitter; and
(ii) writers can add images IMMEDIATELY ABOVE OR BELOW the relevant text (instead of the current format of attaching images which only appear together at the very end of a post.)
Whilst this is a very new feature and it will take time to evaluate how best to use it, it must be helpful to know it is available and experiment with this new form of writing (think of it like being able to write a really detailed email to your followers!)
Hope that is a helpful update for you to implement on Twitter.
Have a great day,
B
Disclaimer: The content covered in this newsletter is not to be considered as investment advice. It is for informational and educational purposes only.
I hold some of the NFTs mentioned in these newsletters