Azuki Expands With New 20K Ethereum NFT Collection, Elementals

By Sander Lutz

Chiru Labs, the Web3 startup behind popular Ethereum NFT collection Azuki, is set to extend the project with the release of 20,000 new NFTs on Tuesday, the company announced. The new collection, Azuki Elementals, will expand the universe of the original anime-themed project with additional profile picture s(PFPs).

The 10,000 existing Azuki NFT owners have already been airdropped a token for one of the Elementals, leaving half of the supply for the public sale. At the "Follow the Rabbit" community event in Las Vegas on Friday, Azuki holders were surprised with the airdrop of Elementals, but the art has yet to be revealed.

Remaining Elementals will go on sale Tuesday at 9:20 am PST via a Dutch auction, at a starting price of 2 ETH (about $3,750) apiece, with the price dropping every 5 minutes until the supply is depleted. The price of the final NFT sale will ultimately be the price that everyone pays, and earlier buyers will be refunded the difference.

Current holders of Azuki NFTs will have a slim 10-minute window prior to the auction’s start to purchase additional Elementals in a preferential presale, while owners of Beanz NFTs (a collection spun off from Azuki) will similarly get 10 minutes after that (just before the public sale) to snatch up Elementals NFTs.

While details regarding Elementals are still under wraps, the collection’s slogan, ”Four Domains, One Garden,” appears to allude to a mythic landscape sorted into four distinct kingdoms. Each is defined by a classical element: fire, water, earth, and lightning. “The Garden” is a term used to refer to the broader Azuki community, which stretches across both the metaverse and real-life collaborations and events.

Like with Azuki, the 20,000 Elemental NFTs will be comprised from randomized attributes of varying rarity. The collection will contain four tiers of Elementals that will be randomly distributed during both the presale and public sale.

Each increasing tier has a higher chance of revealing rare traits in an Elemental, though all tiers can potentially reveal so-called "grail" NFTs, a Chiru Labs spokesperson told Decrypt. "Grail" NFTs typically feature the rarest traits in a project and thus tend to be among the most valuable on the secondary market.

Elementals marks the first full follow-up collection to Azuki, the smash-hit collection that emerged as 2022’s highest ranking new, original NFT project in terms of trading volume. To date, Azuki has racked up over $1 billion worth of trading, according to analytics platform CryptoSlam. Beanz NFTs, which were airdropped for free to Azuki holders last spring, account for another $273 million worth of secondary sales. 

The team behind both projects has been quick to capitalize on its runaway success and extend the IP into other realms. In April, Chiru Labs revealed a partnership with Line Friends, the media and merchandise property with dominant cultural presences in Japan, South Korea, and across the world. Numerous Beanz-themed collaborations with Line Friends across content, merchandise, and events are reportedly in the works.

Editor's note: This article was updated after publication to clarify presale timing and details around the Line Friends collaboration.

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