Azuki To Overshadow Bored Ape Yacht Club?

• Bored Ape Yacht Club was a groundbreaker upon its release back in April 2021 and swiftly became the trending collection all across the globe.
• Now this year, a latest project dubbed Azuki is trying to snatch their spotlight. Azuki is a cluster of 10,000 NFTs inspired by NFTs which is surging in popularity this year.
• With private events, airdrops, and aspiring strategies for future, Azuki shares similarities with the well-liked collection Bored Ape Yacht Club.

Bored Ape Yacht Club’s Walk To Summit

Pixelated Punks and animated monkeys are not the only popular NFT collections in Metaverse currently — NFT enthusiasts are also throwing big bucks on artworks inspired by anime for their digital identities.

Since the boom of NFT sector during previous year, several collections have come and passed. A handful of such collections have elevated in growth to become “blue chips,” in turn luring massive interest and hefty values in the secondary market. Although, there is no formula for what renders a triumphing NFT project, sector leaders are thriving to make passionate communities and executing their roadmaps.

Bored Ape Yacht Club was released by Yuga Labs back in April 2021, and was arguably the initial NFT project to do everything precisely. There was a fair release, with a reduced entry price, and no paid advertising or deceptive marketing was utilized.

Pledges regarding complete metaverse experiences were given, and generous rewards were promised to the loyal audience.

By year’s end, Bored Ape Yacht Club became a prominent name in sector and top organizations as well as celebrities started to get involved with it. With this, Yuga Labs also touched the milestone of $4 Billion in a fundraiser organized in Silicon Valley mammoth Andreessen Horowitz and snatched the throne from previous crown holders CryptoPunks, indicating that winds were with the side of monkeys.

Later, Yuga Labs launched ApeCoin to fuel Bored Ape Yacht Club metaverse dubbed “Otherside”. Today, lowest price tag for Bored Ape NFT remains about $375,000, an amount only the affluent can throw for an NFT.

Azuki NFTs’ Dramatic Rise

If things move quickly in crypto, they move like The Flash in NFTs. Latest drops land regularly, forgotten archive collections come out of the bushes suddenly out of nowhere, what is trending today may get forgotten by tomorrow. And similarly, if Bored Ape Yacht Club held the crown back in 2021, Azuki may snatch it in 2022, just as the monkeys snatched the throne from Punks.

Azuki was released by Chiru Labs back in January 2022, Azuki’s 10,000 NFTs based on Ethereum got sold out swiftly upon release. As the Apes are considered as participants of the yacht club, Azuki holders are the part of “The Garden,” an edge of internet where community, culture and art blend together to render magic. Community members were dubbed as “stakers of the internet.”

Then there was the artwork. The collection stands alone, apart from several avatar projects based on animals which have saturated NFT space owing to its unique anime style, getting inspired with well liked trading Pokemon card game.

Majority of prime Azuki team enter into NFTs via NBA TopShot, where unveiling an NFT pack invokes similar emotions as revelation of initial Pokemon card pack does back in the day, as per official Azuki website. Apart from crypto space, it also have experience in large technology organizations such as Facebook and Google.

As wider community commenced to catch wind of Azuki, collection values started to surge. Back in February, entry price to “take the red bean” leaped over 15 Ethereum, then witnessed a minor retrace amid market panic over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

However, reduction in floor price didn’t affected sales volume as it remained high. Azukies traded almost $300 Million in initial month; then, activity got a boost when it was featured by Forbes.

It unveiled Azuki’s strategies to develop an animated series, games, and merchs similar to Bored Ape Yacht Club’s recent developments. Azuki has hinted over a merchandise shop on its official website.

In project’s aspiring ‘mindmap,’ Azuki has pledged to concentrate on collabs, released a BEAN token, and traverse a DAO setup. The team also unveiled that it is eyeing to release a game as well as an “interactive brand” along with other ventures which are still to be unveiled.

Celebrity Ballyhoo

While a market limp characterized February in cryptocurrency, Azuki value started to soar in March as Ethereum, Bitcoin and other cryptos started to come alive. Azuki hype was elevated with launch of Bobu the Bean Farmer, a sister cluster whose IP will be handled and story elucidated by holders.

Azuki floor value was then boosted by 2X in lead-up to the declaration of “Something,” a shadowy collection of 20,000 NFTs for community of Azuki.

Azuki unveiled the airdrop at a private NFT | LA party organized for holders back on 30th March; Wiz Khalifa gave a guest appearance in that event. Every holder got a couple of NFTs which traded above 3 Ethereum upon its release, equaling a payout of about $20,000. NFTs turned to ashes on 1st April, and since then, collection is called BEANZ, with an entire reveal to drop soon. They are worth more than 5 Ethereum at the time of writing.

As the buzz circulating this collection has grown, so does its trading. Previous week, Azuki #9605, one of the rarest NFTs from collection got sold for $1.4 Million. After the theft of Jay Chou’s Bored Ape NFT, he bagged this NFT in his collection.

Following Eminem and tide of star celebrities who joined Bored Ape Yacht Club, Chou made an announcement that he had acquired a red bean and is now a member of “The Garden” in an unsubtle indication to his 7.1 million followers on Instagram.

Shortly after, the cluster went parabolic as “Fear Of Missing Out” spread across the market, briefly touching Floor Value of 34 Ethereum.

Azuki’s Journey Out Front

With among the most aspiring roadmaps in NFT sector, Chiru Labs have a lot in their plate to execute to live up to their commitments for Azuki. But it hasn’t deviated from their path yet.

In providing an entire community experience, involving airdrops, exclusive in-person events, and innovative DAO frameworks, Azuki draws numerous adjacents with Bored Ape Yacht Club. In few instances, the team behind couple of collections have progressively executed their strategies so far because they function similar to established organizations than nascent decentralized projects.

Bored Ape Yacht Club is often contrasted to hyped fashion houses such as Supreme, and buzz circulating Azuki is not dissimilar. While this artwork may be a cut above the rest, there is much more to being a staker than having a badass profile picture. Just as Bored Ape Yacht Club, Azuki is now a fully-fledged lifestyle brand. Teams are eyeing to create the next 6-figure blue chip avatar which would perform well to take note.