Yesterday, I bought myself into the Azuki NFT ecosystem. While Bobu the farmer (Azuki #40), has an offer on the table for 12.05 ETH or $32,657.67 I paid just 0.065 ETH--around $160 🤯
What happened is a genius move in leveraging the strong Azuki brand and crafting an innovative business model around NFTs.
It started with a mint of 20,000 tokens for 0.01 ETH each ($26). They have been sold out in less than 30 minutes and generated more than $500,000.
First, before diving into more detail, no, I do not own the Azuki #40, it is not for sale. What I own is a token that allows me to participate in its collective governance.
WAIT, WHAT?! 😅 To keep it simple you can imagine it like that: the owner of Bobu locked the actual NFT in a vault and fractionalized its ownership in 20,000 tokens one could buy/mint. Each token allows the token-owner to vote on the vault’s governance. Or in simpler terms, vote on proposals to build the brand.
Examples of those proposals can be:
Should the ETH from the Bobu sale be used to make Bobu merch for all Fraction holders?
Should the Bobu treasury be used to fund an animated short featuring Bobu and other Azukis?
WHY IS THIS EXCITING? 👀 While we need to keep in mind that the project is a huge web3 project - first of its kind - the potential upsides are huge.
🚀 The Bobu, the Farmer project exemplifies what web3 is about: Decentralization! The Azuki NFT is locked in a vault so that no single person can transfer or sell it, and nobody owns it. Period.
🧑💻 It showcases a whole new value trajectory for NFTs by pioneering a novel business model around the ownership of even one single item. Assuming the project creators transfer the full IP rights to the owner, one can create massive brands and stories around it. Opportunities are huge. The sky is the limit
💼 Building a sustainable and powerful mother-brand is vital. If you build a short-term hype brand with 🤑 as your main motivator, you'll fail. Get-rich-quickly attitude attracts the same audience that does not help to build something great. Azuki is a role model for "modern" NFT brand building
WHAT DOES THAT MEAN FOR BRANDS? 🤔 Brand building in web3 does not work with historically-proofed playbooks. They’re doomed to fail.
For both, already existing, as well as newly founded companies, it is key to fully understand and embrace the new web3 business order. It needs to be unlearned what worked so gracefully in web2 but is so irrelevant in web3.
While it might seem scary and raises multiple doubts, the emerging opportunities are close to being infinite.
Azuki, as a web3 native, is, therefore, one pioneering example. A brand that understands the new paradigm.
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Two clarify two points from my intro to avoid misinterpretation 🤓
First, the value of Bobu is undefined. There is an offer, but it won't be accepted. The NFT is locked away, it can't be sold anymore. Second, the project's current floor price is 9.5 ETH or $25,916.38