Summary:
- A newly formed DAO in the Azuki community voted to hire a lawyer after last week’s Elementals launch.
- The DAO comprised of 74 members wants to recover 20,000 ETH from pseudonymous founder Zagabond and the blue-chip NFT project.
- Azuki’s community voiced heavy backlash against the Elementals NFTs with members saying they look strikingly similar to the original collection.
A newly formed DAO in the Azuki community – a popular Japanese manga-themed project –voted to hire a lawyer for the recovery of 20,000 ETH raised last week during the Elementals mint, a new NFT collection from Chiru Labs that holders say is similar to the original collection.
The snapshot proposal floated over the weekend by Azuki DAO was titled “Hire a Lawyer and Help the community reclaim the 20000ETH from Zagabond” and saw 37 votes out of 74 members that comprise the newly formed decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).
88.35% of voters backed recovering nearly $40 million in ETH raised by the Elementals and reallocating the proceeds to community incentives meant to support artists, creators, and builders.
Azuki Elementals Just Like Original Collections, Community Cries Out
Sunday’s vote follows intense community scrutiny surrounding the Elementals launch and claims that pieces from the new collection look almost exactly the same as NFTs from the original 10,000 profile picture (PFP) project that debuted in February 2022.
Elementals was released last week by Chiru Labs – the startup behind the Azuki project – and raised 20,000 ETH in 15 minutes. Each NFT from the new collection cost 2 ETH to mint worth roughly $3,900 at current market prices.
The hype was shortlived as community members raised concerns over similarities between the two collections, leading to sell-offs across NFT marketplaces. Azuki’s floor price – the cheapest available NFT on open markets – fell over 50% and now sits around 6 ETH.
Azuki DAO which says it is made of OG holders of the original project argued that the pseudonymous founder Zagabond let down the community and tried to pacify community members with “empathy checks and promises”.
We have max-minted the 2e elemental beanz and are anticipating the release of a new product, as suggested by the Asian ambassador. Despite our efforts, we have only been given a similar profile picture to that of the original Azuki holders, and nothing more. The Team is blatantly scamming us…
In other related news, the DAO governance token contract for BEANZ was exploited for around 35 ETH due to a signature vulnerability.