The popular NFT collection Azuki finished a fresh coin with 20,000 ETH (about $37.5 million) in the bag – before it was ever open to the public.
The new collection, called Azuki Elemental Beans, contains 20,000 NFTs linked to Azuki’s main collection. Consuming an Azuki Elemental Bean reveals the user’s Azuki Elemental, an avatar that can control water, fire, earth or lightning, according to the collection’s OpenSea page. Half of the NFTs were given to Azuki holders for free.
The auction started at 12:00 AM ET for Azuki holders, who could hit one Elemental for every Azuki NFT owned. At 12:10pm ET, holders of BEANZ, an Azuki spin-off collection, could mint one Elemental for every NFT they own, with additional restrictions if they own an Azuki NFT and are pre-sold. Finally, at 12:20 PM ET, the Elemental coin opened to the public.
The Azuki Elemental sale used a Dutch auction structure, where the starting price was 2 ETH and would decrease by 0.1 ETH every five minutes until there were no NFTs left.
Within 15 minutes, the collection sold out – and was never available to the public.
“Azuki’s new collection generated $37.5 million in revenue from current production of 10,000 units, each priced at 2 ETH,” said Brad Kay, research analyst at The Block Research. “The last instance of hitting more than $30 million in revenue occurred more than a year ago on May 1, when Yuga Labs generated $319 million from Otherdeeds for Otherside.”
Data from past NFT sales, according to The Block Research.
Azuki’s expanding universe
The launch of Elemental adds another facet to the Azuki universe. The project launched its own virtual city called Hilumia in January 2023, which included a mixed physical and digital world. The connector between the two would be the Physical Backed Token, or PBT, which facilitates how physical items appear in the Azuki virtual universe.
Launched Hilumia to celebrate Azuki’s one year anniversary. Released on January 12, 2022, the Azuki NFT collection raised a total of 574,722 ETH (approximately $1.08 billion) and maintains a floor price of 14.25 ETH, or $26,700. The BEANZ sidekick collection brought in another 162,634 ETH ($305 million) at a floor price of 0.85 ETH ($1,594), according to OpenSea.
Azuki brought in the most trading volume in the first five months after launch, bringing in a record high of $121 million in the second week of May 2022, according to The Block’s Data Dashboard. The highest-rated Azuki NFT sold on March 30, 2022 for $1.4 million.
The company behind Azuki, Los Angeles-based Chiri Labs, raised $30 million in Series A funding in November 2022. At the time, the company’s valuation was between $300 million and $400 million, The Block previously reported.
This article has been updated to include a quote and chart from The Block Research and to clarify Azuki Elemental’s role in the Azuki collection.
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