NFT Market Tanks Sharply After The Azuki Incident

Over the last 24 hours, the NFT market has witnessed a sharp price drop after the backlash following the Azuki Elementals airdrop last week.

Citing data from NFTGo, popular crypto analyst Colin Wu explains: “BAYC fell 16% and fell below 30 ETH, MAYC fell 20% and fell below 5 ETH, and Azuki fell 11% and fell below 6 ETH. The overall market value of the NFT market has fallen by 53% to 3.33million ETH in the past year”.

Last week on June 27, the Azuki Elementals mint was launched, causing great excitement in the Web3 community. Marketed as the next stage of the well-known anime-themed PFP project, Elementals quickly sold out, with all 20,000 NFTs being minted even before the presale phase concluded.

However, there’s a huge uproar over the ‘Identical’ Elementals Art, and the excitement around elementals NFTs seem to be subsiding very soon. As per the latest reports, some holders have been selling Elementals well under the ninth price.

Azuki Elementals Floor Price Tanks

On the day of the launch, the Azuki Elementals NFTs sold for 2 ETH (about $3,800) apiece, or the floor price. However, the floor price has come crashing down to now under 0.8 ETH in a week of launch, as per the data from OpenSea.

A lot of people who own or collect NFTs, as well as creators, have been expressing their dissatisfaction on social media about the appearance of the Azuki Elementals. They feel that the artwork of these NFTs is quite similar to the original anime-themed Azuki PFPs.

ONE IS AN AZUKI AND ONE IS AN ELEMENTAL…. OMG … WHAT THE FCKKKKKKKKKK … I am down so much fucking money man …. FUCKKKKNN pic.twitter.com/KGFyEipXzb

— Wizard Of SoHo (🍷,🍷) (@wizardofsoho) June 27, 2023

When you compare the new Elementals NFTs with the originals, they look almost the same except for some small changes. People have also noticed some strange mistakes in the artwork, like a person holding a magic wand that seems to be missing its handle.

A pseudonymous Twitter handle Solana Legend, also the managing partner at Frictionless Capital, said: “Azuki managed to nuke the perception of the new collection and the genesis at the same time?”

People are worried that the Elementals collection will make the original Azuki project less special and valuable. Because of this, many people are selling their original Azuki NFTs.

The popularity of Azuki NFTs was quite high earlier this year, and it even surpassed BAYC NFTs.