Author: Zhang Wen
Azuki’s disaster sale issues still haven’t been resolved, and all series’ prices are still fluctuating dramatically. In the early morning of June 30th, Christian, the founder of NDV Fund and ManesLAB, who is also a major holder of the Azuki series, and Azuki founder Zaga had a long conversation during a conference call. This major holder, who had previously expressed interest in acquiring Azuki for $40 million, shared the content of the conversation with BlockBeats. In summary, the Azuki team underestimated the community’s emotions and overestimated their abilities. They do not want to do anything that involves raising funds, nor will they sell the company.
BlockBeats: The Azuki founder probably talked a lot during the conference call, and what everyone is most concerned about is actually two things: first, why did such a catastrophic mistake occur, and second, what is the solution? Let’s first look at why it happened. Did Zaga say why the image is almost the same as the OG version, and why set the high price of 2ETH?
Christian: Last night, in a call with Azuki founder Zaga, we talked about the cause of this incident and the current state of the team. The reasons for the consequences of this disaster can be divided into several parts. First, the pricing of this sale was too high. The Azuki team initially believed that this pricing was actually quite reasonable, based on their understanding of the price and community emotions and market performance of the OG Azuki at that time. They did not realize that a pricing of 2ETH is difficult to afford in the current macro market.
Second, the 10-minute sales time given to Holder during the auction was too short, resulting in many Holders not being able to mint. Zaga admitted this mistake quite frankly, saying that the team had some discussion and differences at the time, but ultimately decided to proceed with this interval time. He did not give specific reasons, but I guess they thought that Azuki’s Holders would not mint completely, so including the price, he said it should be expected to enter the public sale and lower the price through a Dutch auction, but he did not expect the reaction to be so strong and sold out instantly.
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To sum up, I think the main reason for this crisis is that Azuki underestimated the community’s expectations and overestimated the product they delivered. In my personal opinion, there are still some commendable aspects in the production of the Elementals series, and the quality of some of the images is good, but the most criticized aspect is that they are too similar to the OG images, without any distinction, which harms the interests of the community. This is something the team did not consider before, and they also acknowledge that they will differentiate the series through a series of means in the future to better meet everyone’s expectations and positioning for different series.
BlockBeats: Do the solution teams in this meeting have any ideas about the currently feasible solution? I saw news that it may be possible to change the picture so that Elementals and OG are different.
Christian: The current solution of changing the picture may be the final decision of the team. Yesterday, in the communication, Zaga emphasized that the focus of OG Azuki needs to be highlighted, and he also mentioned that OG Azuki must be the most core series in the community, belonging to the top identity.
He believes that the Azuki series represents very cool member attributes, and in the future may provide more rights for OG Azuki. The team’s solution may be to make some processing on the recognition, and to give priority to Azuki in points and other rights to appease OG Holder’s emotions.
BlockBeats: You said on Twitter that the acquisition price of 40 million US dollars is too cheap. Does Zaga have any opinions on this price, or do you think that the value of Azuki is far higher than 40 million?
Christian: Yesterday, I also clarified that the price of 40 million US dollars cannot be bought. After yesterday’s communication, Zaga has no intention of selling the brand, and this incident is not an intentional act of rug or fundraising. The reason is still what was said above, they overestimated their ability and the quality they delivered. I said on Twitter that 40 million US dollars is too cheap, not that Zaga has set a higher price, but that he has no intention of selling the company at all. Because I have many core contributors in the Red Bean Chinese community around me, everyone’s emotions are very low now, and many have begun to change their attitude. I and Zaga raised this situation, and he also apologized in the communication, acknowledging the contributions made by the core Builders such as Junzhu for the brand, and also mentioned that he will pay more attention to the Asian and Chinese markets and communities in the future. This year will continue to hold offline activities in Asia. I hope this can give the community some confidence.
BlockBeats: What other key points do you think can be shared with everyone in this meeting?
Christian: We also talked about the development direction of Beanz. As the largest Beanz Holder, I honestly say that I am somewhat disappointed with the progress of Beanz so far. Zaga said that in their conception, Beanz and Azuki are separate, and the two routes are relatively independent. Beanz focuses on cooperation with Line this year, as well as the incubation of some physical dolls and peripherals similar to penguins, which are already in production and operation, but the details have not been disclosed too much before.
He is also very optimistic about Beanz, and even thinks that in terms of IP, the potential of this character may be greater than that of Azuki. He said that compared to Azuki, which focuses on being a unique and rare status symbol, the Beanz character is cute enough and more accessible. It can be used as a cartoon for large-scale promotion, reaching children and other groups, which is their goal and expectation. He also mentioned that Beanz will play a relatively important role in Azuki’s worldview in the future.
Finally, he emphasized that Azuki’s future IP operation will not only be based on the Web2 model. He has different ideas on how to combine IP with the concept and technology of Web3, hoping to subvert the traditional IP operation mode. The production of animation is also underway.
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