The anime-inspired NFT collection of avatars, Azuki, is now facing controversy after its creator known as Zagabond, revealed in a blog post how he left behind three NFT collections.
Azuki has been proving itself to be a stiff competition among top collections such as Bored Ape Yacht Club and Clone X ever since the NFT (non-fungible token) project was launched last January. In fact, it is the sixth-highest selling collection in trading volume on OpenSea.
However, what's supposed to be a show of vulnerability by Zagabond has unfortunately led him to the forefront of NFT controversy and ultimately plummeting the prices of his collection.
He detailed in his blog post that he was behind CryptoPhunks, Tendies, and CryptoZunks - which were all abandoned by their founding team. He said that the lessons he gained from these failed projects have helped his new project succeed.
But Twitter users were not inspired or delighted by this information, instead they called the projects as rug pulls or scams that were never meant to be built.
Rugging Three Projects in a Year?
Twitter user and Web3 sleuth @zachxbt, made a thread accusing the Azuki's founder of "rugging three projects in less than a year".
•Bull or bear, Azuki is building towards the future of web3. We're in it for the long term.
— ZAGABOND.ETH (@ZAGABOND) May 9, 2022
•Builders need to experiment for web3 to challenge web2.
•Azuki is built on learnings from creating Phunks & other projects. This taught me to lead, not follow.https://t.co/Z2enFov8m9
He alleged that CryptoPhunks, Tendies, and CryptoZunks are all rug pulls citing the following:
1. Profiting with $3m+ (1000+ ETH at minimum) across 3 projects within two months:
2. Abandoned after a few weeks
3. Different identities or wallets were used for the three projects, and
4.Their socials or contract were not handed over
According to NFTEXPLANED.INFO, rug pull is used to describe a scam "in which founders of an NFT project don't fulfill their promises' ' once they receive the funds.
Twitter user @sxtvik also responded to Zagabond's tweet saying, "thanks for informing everyone that you're a serial rug artist, makes everyone really have a lot of trust and confidence in you!"
But other users also came into the defense of Zagabond, claiming that CryptoPhunks and CryptoZunks were not scams.
"If someone promises you something and then delivers on that promise, even if it's just an NFT, they aren't responsible for working on it anymore," @Loopifyy tweeted.
"Misaligned Expectations"
The Azuki founder responded to this controversy in a Twitter Spaces session hosted by Andrew Wang, he denied that these projects were rug pulls and that any disappointment that occurred was due to "misaligned expectations" that ensued between creators and consumers.
He admitted that he could have done better in those projects but reminded himself that as a builder, he should keep moving forward when one project fails rather than wasting time.
As soon as the news broke out, the floor price of the collection declined from 21 ether (ETH). But its volumes and transactions still spiked by 998% in the last 24 hours since traders capitalized on the steep prices.
This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Joaquin Victor Tacla
