NFT Review 98 - Azuki DAO demands a refund!
NFT Review 98 - Azuki DAO demands a refund!
$765K worth of NFTs stolen, RMRK release Crescent Codex, Ordinals hits $210m, and more.
NFT Review is a weekly newsletter covering NFTs in the Web3 ecosystem on Polkadot’s side of the woods. The newsletter is put together by Bruno Škvorc and gbaci.
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Looking for a primer on NFTs? This should be the last introduction you’ll ever need.
Dear NFT enthusiast,
This week's main drama unfolds around Azuki, a prominent figure in the digital art space, as a battalion of dissatisfied holders, alleging a "scam" by the project's team, rally together demanding an eye-watering $38 million refund. Their plight was further complicated when their nascent DAO was victim to a hacking incident, deepening their financial quandary.
The heart of the storm lies in the launch of Azuki Elementals, an offshoot bearing an uncomfortable resemblance to the original Azuki collection. Initially greeted with a flurry of sales, the project soon drew criticism for its perceived lack of originality, a sentiment reflected in its swiftly plummeting floor price.
The controversy leaves us grappling with a conundrum: Is the Azuki DAO's retaliation against Chiru Labs, the creators of Azuki, warranted? The Elementals collection's striking similarity to the original could indeed be viewed as a misstep on the part of the team. Yet, the pressing question is whether there was any misrepresentation on Chiru Labs' part that would substantiate claims of being "scammed".
As this saga continues to evolve, it provides a fascinating, if somewhat sobering, snapshot of the complexities and challenges within the NFT community, illuminating the need for clarity, transparency, and accountability in this fast-paced digital frontier.
Thank you for reading and have a great week.
— NFT Review
📬 NFT News from Kusama & Polkadot
RMRK released the Crescent Codex collection, a time-limited evolvable NFT medal that tracks and rewards your actions on Singular. It was released to celebrate the launch of Singular EVM on Moonbeam.
RMRK published a new ecosystem report for April, May, and June.
RMRK published Singular Release Notes, a detailed breakdown of new features on the NFT 2.0 marketplace.
New features are coming soon to Singular.
Subsocial has minted the Spacers collection. Holders can now view and equip their Spacers with various items on Singular.
Evrloot published a new biweekly dev update, featuring a recap of its Polkadot Decoded experience, upcoming seed financing round, and more.
🗞 NFT News from Ethereum and Beyond
ZachXBT’s research cited in Canadian NFT rug pull class-action lawsuit.
Over $765K worth of NFTs stolen after SIM swap attack on Gutter Cat Gang.
Bitcoin Ordinals volume hits $210M in Q2 — DappRadar.
Animoca still bullish on blockchain games, awaits license for metaverse fund.
Ethereum NFT royalties hit 2-year low as Bored Ape floor price falls below 30 ETH.
Lacoste turns fashion NFTs into digital cards for interactive Web3 experience.
Half of stolen NFTs are sold within 3 hours: PeckShield.
Investors still waiting on $1.9M refund Logan Paul promised 6 months ago: Coffeezilla.
Sega pulls back from blockchain gaming as crypto winter persists.
Tom Brady’s NFT company breaks up with NFTs.
No need for Euro metaverse regulations…yet: EU competition chief.
Andy Murray’s Wimbledon tennis data transformed into NFT artwork.
OpenSea now supports NFTs on Zora's Ethereum layer-2 network.
DeGods tease next moves with 'early Facebook' vibes because 'roadmaps are stupid'.
Dior is latest luxury brand to embrace tokenized fashion—but won't say 'NFT'.
mint.fun is getting ready to unveil L2 support.
Nouns DAO is about to vote on a collab with Pudgy Penguins, and its V3 system is currently undergoing an audit on Code4rena.
OpenSea just added support for the Zora Network L2.
Seed Club, an onchain accelerator network, announced the 10 members of its 6th Cohort, including Fini and Pods.
Azuki is conducting its community vote on whether or not to update the Elementals backgrounds today.
Cool Cats kicks off its new Journeys experience on July 10th.
Kevin Rose published a State of the Moonbirds primer.
Sound.xyz unveiled new post-release editing functionalities and axed its percentage-based fee on mints.
Gods Unchained rolled out a new game mode, Chaos Constructed.
Decentraland Foundation published its Q2 Report.
Webaverse just released an open beta of its AI assistant-themed moemate app.
Arcade is seeing a rise in loans backed by generative art and 1/1 cryptoart.
Blur rolled out its V2 system, while its loan originations have recently dropped.
nftperp conducted a surprise pause of its V1 private beta.
apix posted a thread on their latest on-chain gaming report.
That’s all for this week, see you in the next edition! Got some links to share with us, artists to feature, NFTs to sell, jobs to promote, or events to popularize? Get in touch with Bruno or gbaci!