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A new decentralized autonomous organization allegedly made up of a “dedicated group of Azuki enthusiasts” has come up with a proposal to return 20,000 ether (ETH) from Zagabond, the founder of Azuki’s non-fungible token (NFT) brand.
The proposal, initiated on July 2, is to hire a lawyer to file a lawsuit against Zagabond, whose real name is Alex Xu, for allegedly “checking” several projects. Clawback is seeking $39 million in ETH from the launch of Azuki’s controversial ‘Elementals’ collection. He proposes to funnel any funds received back to the DAO to “promote the growth of the entire Azuki community.”
As of press time, 88.11% of DAO Beans have been used to vote in favor of the action, while 11.9% have voted no. Offer expires at 6:38 AM UTC July 3rd.
Who is AzukiDAO?
However, while AzukiDAO claims to be made up of “OG Azuki holders”, some have questioned the DAO’s origins and connection to the members of the Azuki Project.
In a July 3 Twitter thread, the pseudonymous commenter @tytan.eth told his 19,000 followers that most Azuki holders have never heard of AzukiDAO and assume it is “either a fake or a group with malicious intent.”
Here’s more info on where the original tweet about the AzukiDAO came from. Most Azuki holders have never heard of this group and assume it’s either fake or a group with malicious intent.
The token for voting was minted two days ago sooo there’s that: https://t.co/pF37xr0fQE https://t.co/0SbJLKcnNT
— Tytan.ETH (@Tytaninc) June 2, 2023
Meanwhile, Etherscan data shows that the bean token contract used to vote on the proposal was created just two days ago, while the corresponding Twitter page was only created in June 2023 and has only 116 members on its Discord channel. .
Cointelegraph contacted Azuki, Zagabond, and AzukiDAO for comment but received no immediate response.
Explanation of the Elemental Controversy
Azuki NFT owners and pundits from the wider NFT community have brought a lot of criticism to the Azuki team since the controversial launch of its Azuki Elementals collection on June 27th.
For the first time, the Elementals project was talked about during an event under the Azuki brand, which took place in Las Vegas on June 23. A small amount of 20,000 NFTs were sent out to select Azuki holders.
The remaining NFTs became available for purchase at 16:00 on June 27th. Existing holders of Azuki NFT and holders of BEANZ, another derivative project, received a 20-minute pre-sale window.
Related: Yes, the Secret Service has a collection of NFTs, and no, it’s not for sale
The sale never went public, as the entire collection sold out in private sales in less than 15 minutes. Overall, the launch netted the Azuki team a total of $38 million.
This caused widespread backlash ranging from a small pre-sale window to mint failures due to an overloaded website and a lack of originality in the new NFT art.
NFT holders have also expressed concern that the release of 20,000 new NFTs will reduce the value of pre-existing NFTs in the collection. The controversy came to a head when the project team reportedly transferred 20,000 ETH from the wallet shortly after the collection was minted.