Azuki admits it ‘missed the mark’ on Elementals mint amid criticism

Chiru Labs, the company behind Azukis NFTs, debuted a new collection called “Elementals”  on Tuesday. It sold out in 15 minutes, netting the company roughly $38 million. 

In fact, the new NFTs raced off the virtual shelves so quickly that the digital assets didn’t get a chance to go to a public sale. Only prior holders of Azukis and the BEANZ collection who put down a deposit of 2 ETH were able to buy them. 

Shortly thereafter, complaints began to roll in, with community members saying that Elementals was too similar to the original January 2022 Azuki collection. Both collections feature characters looking to the left, so one user joked that the next batch of Azuki NFTs will have them facing to the right.

Another user alleged that Azuki’s latest move has done significant damage to the main collection. According to Blur, Azukis’ floor has plummeted over 30% in the last 24 hours at the time of publication.

Azuki admitted fault on Twitter Wednesday, saying “This time, we missed the mark,” and acknowledging that “the [profile picture NFTs] feel similar and, even worse, dilutive to Azuki.”

“Azuki’s vision is to build a decentralized brand. Doing so requires great communication and execution, both of which were lacking with the Elementals sale,” the company said. “We know that we lost a piece of trust today, but nothing gets us more motivated to make things right.”

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