The Azuki NFT collection recorded a price drop of as much as 45% following a “dramatic statement” Azuki is dead by pseudonymous founder Zagabond. He revealed that he was previously involved in a few NFT initiatives that some described as “rug pulls”.
Azuki collection is based on the Ethereum blockchain. It’s starting (floor) price dropped from 19 ETH – about $41,800 – to 10.9 ETH – about $24,000 – losing nearly half of its value within hours of the Twitter Space titled “The Death of Azuki”. In the last month, as per data from NFT Price Floor, Azuki collection’s starting price dropped 56% and around 63% in the last week. The price drop is attributed to the crypto and NFT markets plunging across the board.
ZachXBT, an on-chain sleuth, expressed displeasure with Azuki’s blog post. The analyst accused the founder Zagabond of rugging on prior ventures. A rug pull mainly occurs when an NFT project founder or creator introduces a project with an intriguing roadmap but only leaves it abruptly after the initial sale.
However, Zagabond brushed off the rug pull charges leveled against the CryptoPhunks, CryptoZunks, and Tendies. The Azuki Collection founder said he wishes all the projects were successful but, there was no product-market fit at the end of the day. He argued that this doesn’t mean that it’s a rug. Zagabond, in the blog post, described the CryptoPhunks as a parody project. Zagabond said they wound down the Tendies NFT after only minting about 15% of the meme collection. As for the CryptoZunks project, he said it had limitations because of Ethereum blockchain’s gas costs killing the product experience.
The Azuki collection initially saw high sales with over 300 sold on secondary marketplaces in a single day. Now, NFT enthusiasts seem to be taking advantage of the price decline.
