Aswang Tribe, Azuki controversy & more

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May 13, 2022 | ± 6 minutes

CONTENTS:

  • Our analysis of the NFT market for the year & for the week
  • All you need to know about current drops
  • A heads up on cool projects we think are worth checking out
  • Industry news update

Let’s go!

NFTs in 2022

Our weekly index shows that NFTs on the fractional marketplace are returning 37% from the initial offerings. Not much has changed in the fractional market since the beginning of 2022.

Price data taken from the fractional platforms Rally and Otis

Many of the fractional offerings are underwater at the moment, but the fractional marketplaces are slow to react to the general marketplace because:

1) the markets are relatively illiquid
2) since the fractional markets are slower to react, sellers are less likely to panic sell.

The assets could have dropped further, but with Rally adding the airdropped Otherside to their corresponding Apes, prices have managed to stay relatively flat rather than entering a freefall.

BORED APE #601 + OTHERSIDE #601 on Rally

Weekly sales volume is coming down ever since the buildup to the Otherside mint two weeks ago.

However, the volume appears to continue rising this week as some buyers take advantage of lower prices for some of the more well-known NFTs. Volume this week is already higher than the beginning of April and approaching most of the year’s levels.

NFT Weekly Sales Volume (30 days). Courtesy of Theblockcrypto.com

NFTs Last Week

NFTs on Fractional Marketplaces

NFT Art rebounded this week, but it’s making up for lost ground a week ago. After seeing the largest decrease last week, the FEWOCious i miss your voice call back soon okay on Otis drove the NFT Art market this week. The asset traded for $0.48 per share last week and is now up to $0.72. Active “asks” are currently sitting at $0.72 per share.

Price data taken from the fractional platforms Rally and Otis

The Bored Ape floor has plummeted this week, along with every other NFT. The floor price was as high as 159 ETH on April 30th. It currently sits at 89 ETH.

Floor prices are dropping on all assets. Nearly all assets on Rally are underwater based on our inferred value. The “Glowing Eyes” Azuki IPO’ed a few weeks ago at $32k, and now has an inferred value of $30k – which is the floor price for Azukis with the “Glowing Eyes” trait. When we wrote about the “Glowing Eyes” Azuki, its inferred value was $120k.

Rally was scheduled to drop “Blue Tassel” Azuki #8467 last week, but with an IPO price of $75k that may be on hold for now. The most recent and comparable “Blue Tassel” Azukis have sold for $17k and $21k.

Ho-hum, just another day in NFT land.

NFTs on OpenSea

Otherdeed for Otherside takes the top spot in sales volume on OpenSea this week. No surprise there, given the magnitude of the collection. Deeds had a floor price just above 8 ETH just after the mint was completed, and have steadily declined, now sitting at about 2.7 ETH – a 1 ETH drop from a week ago.

The Weekly OpenSea Top 12 – Otherdeed for Otherside is the top-selling NFT for the 2nd straight week.

The most curious stat this week is Azuki, which is the 2nd-highest selling NFT on OpenSea. The project is embroiled in controversy and its floor has gone as low as 5 ETH. It’s not a good time to have a major crisis in the middle of a market meltdown.

NFTs – you may get rekt, but the entertainment is so worth it!

But it appears as if Azuki is now priced low enough for people to buy in, believing that the project will recover. To its credit, Azuki had done everything right for its community from the second the project started minting (even nailed the party at NFT LA).

The biggest question is if there will be a change in leadership to stop the project from free falling. While the project’s creator, Zagabond, should be recognized for overseeing one of the cleanest mint contracts in the space, his handling of previous projects raises some serious red flags. Check our Industry news section for the details.

NFTs This Week

Fractional Marketplaces

There are no drops this week on the fractional marketplaces.

Projects Minting

Aswang Tribe

Minting Date: Late May
Price: TBD

  • The PFP art is created by Giantcatz and the tech is developed by Augminted Labs
  • Augminted Labs was the lead developer for the well-respected NFT collection KaijuKingz
  • The collection is made up of 3,333 unique NFTs that will then lead to 3D versions developed for emerging NFT metaverse projects
  • The roadmap is in constant development but the project will include its own token, staking, and breeding to get rarer Tribes
  • Here is the link to their Discord channel.

Is this from a 90s anime?

Industry News: The Azuki scandal

It is astounding to see how far Azuki has fallen.

At its peak, the collection had a floor price of 33 ETH. The current floor price has been fluctuating between 7.5 and 9.5 ETH. The price drop can be attributed to its founder, Zagabond, tweeting that he had founded three or co-founded projects before Azuki.

The problem is that all three projects are perceived to have been rug pulls – when a creator promises a roadmap with future utility only to abandon it after taking profits. Rug pulling is the greatest sin that any creator can be guilty of in the NFT space.

The three projects that turned out to be rug pulls.

When news broke out about Zagabond’s admission on Twitter, the NFT community went wild. There were additional accusations, denials, counter-accusations, and counter denials. Zagabond went on a Twitter space to explain his side, ultimately admitting that he made mistakes with past projects and didn’t handle things very well:

That explanation didn’t go over very well, either.

The result is that Azuki, one of the most well-known and admired collections in the NFT space, is facing an existential crisis. Where does the collection go from here, and does the project’s future have room for Zagabond as its leader?

These questions will be answered sooner than later, but they also shed light on the NFT space in general. What is it that people are investing their money into, and how much more important is it to know who’s behind these projects?

The team of Azuki Garden creators. I wonder if they knew.

In no other space can a co-founder operate in relative anonymity, use Twitter and Discord as primary fundraising tools, and then raise millions of dollars off of hype and a roadmap. In some ways, that’s the beauty of PFP NFTs, but it’s also a surefire way to keep turning away NFT enthusiasts and future collectors from an already volatile market.

That’s all for today. I hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s issue, and thanks so much for all the great feedback so far.

Is there anything in particular you’d like us to cover? Email us and let us know. We read every piece of mail!

Thanks,

Horacio

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Author

Horacio Ruiz

Horacio Ruiz

Horacio is a veteran math teacher of the New York City public school system. Prior to teaching, he lived in New Orleans where he worked in sales for the New Orleans Hornets before joining The Institute for Sport and Social Justice to rebuild homes in the Lower Ninth Ward and neighboring St. Bernard Parish. He currently lives in Staten Island with his wife, Alicia, his three sons; Oliver, Henry, and Jacob, and their pitt-mi,x Tipitina. In 2019, Horacio published a biography, The White Knight: Calvin Patterson and the Integration of Florida State University Football.

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