Last week’s Azuki Elementals AirDrop, which became the center of controversy, caused a backlash that hit the NFT market as a whole. The NFT market experienced a sharp drop in the past 24 hours.
A Significant Decline in the NFT Market
Famous market observer Colin Wu, referring to data obtained from NFT data platform NFTGo, highlighted the sharp decline in the NFT market. Wu emphasized the drop in the base price of leading NFT collections, saying, “BAYC fell by 16% to below 30 ETH, MAYC dropped 20% to below 5 ETH, and Azuki decreased 11% to under 6 ETH. The total market value of the NFT market dropped 53% to 3.33 million ETH over the past year.”
Azuki Elementals were minted on June 27, causing significant excitement in the Web3 community. The Azuki Elementals, marketed as the next stage of the famous anime-themed Azuki PFP project, sold out quickly with all 20,000 NFTs minted before the pre-sale stage ended. However, Elementals sparked major controversy, and the excitement surrounding the Elementals NFTs quickly faded. According to current data, some Azuki Elementals owners started hastily selling their NFTs at considerably low prices.
Azuki Elementals Base Price
On launch day, Azuki Elementals NFTs were sold for the base price of 2 ETH (approximately $3,800). However, according to data from OpenSea, the base price dropped below 0.8 ETH within a week after the launch.
Many NFT owners and creators voiced their dissatisfaction on social media regarding the appearance of pieces from the Azuki Elementals collection. These NFTs were claimed to bear a striking resemblance to the original anime-themed Azuki PFPs. The new Azuki Elementals NFTs were reportedly almost identical to the originals with some minor differences and peculiar errors such as a figure holding a magic wand appearing to lack a handle sparked controversy.
A Twitter user named Solana Legend, who is also a managing partner at Frictionless Capital, commented on the situation, “Did Azuki manage to bomb the perception and formation of the new collection at the same time?”
People are worried that the Elementals collection will make the original Azuki project less special and valuable. Therefore, many are selling their original Azuki NFTs. Azuki NFTs were highly popular earlier this year, even leaving behind BAYC NFTs.
