Conversation with Azuki community OG Christine Junzhu & Nomad: Azuki, the fan culture, and the community at a crossroads.

This article is transcribed from HODLong, a podcast by Mable, Chief Revenue Officer of STEPN and former partner at Multicoin Capital. To listen to the original podcast, please click the link.

Original article organized by BlockBeats

Mable: Today we have two OGs from the Azuki community, Nomad and Christine. Before we begin, I would like to ask both of you to talk about your backgrounds.  

Princess: I used to work as a project manager at a relatively large retail company in Silicon Valley, USA, responsible for the entire process of product development, launch, and sales. I returned to China around 2018 and started my own company. In late February 2022, I entered Web3 for the first time. That was also my first time encountering the concept of Web2. 

Nomad: Just graduated before entering Web3. I am a relatively experienced NFT player and have been playing NFT since the first wave of its rise. I joined the Azuki community on the first day and experienced the entire process of its rise and fall.  

Mable: The process of rise and fall has already drawn such a conclusion. As both of you are early members of the community, could you please describe what Azuki community was like on Day 1, or even how you discovered Azuki from an earlier time? 

Nomad: Actually, the community's shape was completely different from what it is now when I first held Azuki. At that time, the concept of the community was not so strong. In 2020 and early 2022, many people in China who played NFT were playing on Weibo, and there were not many people playing on Twitter. So the atmosphere of playing NFT in China was not so hot at that time. In fact, we didn't even know who the team was and which members belonged to the team.

At that time, it was just a concept of a small group. Azuki was discovered because it had a collaboration with the hottest NFT 0N1 Force project at the time. Azuki had sent some whitelist to 0N1 Force holders, and I was a holder of 0N1 Force NFT at the time, so I noticed the Azuki project. I felt that its Mint experience was excellent, so it became popular. But actually, there was not a very complete community concept at that time, I think it was still in its infancy.  

Mable: You said you are a senior player in the NFT industry. What exactly does this "play" include? Because for DeFi users, they may not really understand the concept of participating in the NFT community. 

Nomad: Actually, at the beginning, everyone entered the industry through the stage of dry white. From the second half of 2021 to the beginning of 2022, the whitelist was particularly popular. Basically, you could earn several Ethereum profits with just one whitelist. The profit was really exaggerated at that time, and many studios also entered the industry.

At that time, what everyone called playing NFT was actually getting on the whitelist. I actually did the same thing before, until the first project that made me hold, Azuki, because the experience of Minting 721A at that time had a great impact on the entire NFT community. Everyone found out that the gas for Minting could be so low. The entire Minting experience, including its graphics, had a qualitative difference compared to other projects. So Azuki was also the first NFT that I held for a long time.

After about three or four months, when I first encountered Zaga fud, I felt that Azuki had formed the concept of a community for the first time. Everyone would go to Twitter to build and express their opinions on this project and this matter, gradually forming many small groups to do things that everyone was interested in. I think this is actually the first formation of the concept of Azuki's community, including everyone forming small groups to play together.  

 Mable: Christine, you only bought it later. What attracted you to it at that time?

Princess: Because I entered Web3 relatively late, I casually looked at some projects that I thought looked good on Opensea. I bought them simply because Azuki's first-generation artistry was very high. After looking at many projects, it was the only project that I impulsively wanted to use as my avatar, so I bought it for about a dozen Ethereum, which was relatively high when I entered the circle.

Just now, I have some experience with NFTs that Normad talked about, because I really delved into the Red Bean community after the Zaga incident last year in May. At that time, I felt that everyone's accusations against him were very unreasonable. Can't someone fail in entrepreneurship? After failing, you can start over and return the previous royalties. I think these are acceptable failures.

Because I have also started my own business, I believe that entrepreneurship cannot be smooth sailing. Therefore, I particularly understand him, and I think his failure is a necessary step for Web3 innovation. Everyone may have to experience failure in order to grow, so I am very supportive of Zaga.

Mable: There may be many situations like this, and many avatar communities are like this. After the Fud incident you mentioned earlier, a Twitter Space participant reached over 10,000 people. Before that, not many people used Twitter Space. After that, you said you felt there was a concept of more communities. Besides active Chinese communities, do you know of any other active regional communities?

Princess: Actually, there are quite a few Holders in the United States, but many of them are ABC or American Holders with Asian ancestry. I haven't been to their offline conferences, but I've asked many people in different regions, and Asians are still the mainstream. In Southeast Asia, Japan, and South Korea, for example, there are also a large number of Red Bean Holders widely distributed.

After Zaga's incident in May last year, I was actually very angry. Why did everyone judge him like that? So I spent time chatting with Red Bean Holders from all over the world. I have talked to those from Indonesia, Malaysia, and Japan, and I asked them if there are any organizations in their area. How do they view this matter? Do they still like the Red Bean brand?

These things are all things I did privately on my own. I talked to them with great confidence. In fact, I think as long as he takes his work seriously, these noises, such as external misunderstandings or slanders against Zaga, will gradually disappear. So I am very confident. Later on, I also kept in touch with holders from different regions for a long time, because we all grew up together from that time, so the emotions will be relatively stronger. 

Nomad: Currently, there are three main series from the official website, one is the first generation of Azuki, the other is the latest release of Azuki Elementals, Azuki Bobu, and there is also a series called Xiaodou Beans and Green Beans. Azuki and Azuki Elementals are more focused on avatars. Beans has now become an independent brand, possibly moving towards a cute style like Minions or Line Friends. This is a sinking brand. 

Mable: My question is, generally speaking, if a project wants to release a series of NFTs one after another, they would need to write new narratives or assign a position for each asset in the entire world view. What are these additional NFTs used for in the overall world view?

Princess: May I ask, what do you mean by "extra NFT"? 

Mable: Like mung beans, like Azuki Elementals, why release this?

Princess: This is a very good question, and it is also a very sharp question. If you ask this question in the Azuki community, you may be accused of FUD by others. Because you don't need to have a problem. You just need to listen to the community managers' slogans.

But to answer this question seriously, none of us know, at least not me. We don't know its positioning, its meaning, or its narrative. We thought we knew, but later found out we were wrong. Why did we say "we thought"? Because Azuki officially launched an activity during Chinese New Year this year to search for Yuki, a female character. We all thought that concepts like the rabbit hole and Yuki would play important roles in the narrative of the next generation of Elementals. So we previously believed that this generation of Elementals would at least be related to rabbits and Yuki, which were concepts officially promoted. However, this time the opening picture seems to have no connection and is disconnected from the previous narrative.

I think this is a confusion for many people, so your question is indeed sharp, but also very on point, because we don't know why. 

Normad: Christine and I have the same opinion. Although the official has been foreshadowing, this time the narrative is completely cut off, including the auction of the essence version last year, a golden dragon scale fell, and now you go to click on that golden dragon scale, there are some question marks, and some foreshadowing left. There is also the mainline of finding Yuki, an official character from the time when Azuki Discord just opened. In Discord, there is an official person controlling Yuki's Discord account, asking everyone to find him. When you are the first to discover Yuki's reply under the official Discord, there will be a whitelist, so this is a narrative that runs through the entire Azuki.

Since the beginning of this year, there has been a lot of hype about finding Yuki. During this event, everyone thought they could find Yuki, but in reality, no one did. We could only watch a promotional video that featured a rabbit that everyone was chasing. However, it's unclear where this rabbit came from and why we should be chasing it. The whole thing feels disjointed and lacks any narrative.

Mable: Azuki is a strong IP and it's very interesting. I'm also working on a project myself, and if you don't tell the community what it's for, no one will give you money. I think it's a bit inappropriate to say that, and I'm a bit envious. Everyone is willing to pay for Azuki, so there must be some strong points. As you mentioned earlier, including his art style and the early experience, what community building has the team actively done from the beginning to today? What kind of activities are they?

Princess: This is a difficult question for me to answer because their events are all in the United States, which I have not personally experienced. In Asia, there is an auction event in Hong Kong. I have not attended this event. There was an event in Hong Kong. I have had a meal with the Japanese community offline in Japan, and this is the official event that I currently know of that has been held in Asia.

In the United States, there should be two large-scale events. One was held on March 18th last year during the airdrop. They held a cool party in Los Angeles, and the atmosphere at the party reached its climax. Founder Zaga said "Check your wallet" at the scene. At that time, everyone found out that they had received the airdrop and were very happy. It was a classic moment.

The second one is in Las Vegas this year. I saw the pictures and videos of the event, and it had a really cool atmosphere. Everyone was enjoying themselves, enjoying the moment, and enjoying the highlights brought by Azuki. So I think the two events in the United States are the most spectacular offline activities, and they also held some smaller events.

There is a local farmer's market in Las Vegas, which is a community where everyone brings their favorite things to sell. They showcased some products made with the IP Beans at the offline event, and what impressed me the most was a knife. The knife was really well made, and I really wanted to buy it after seeing it. There was a little bean printed on the knife, which was quite funny and cute.

This is one of the most memorable offline events of Azuki in my memory. To summarize, there was an auction in Hong Kong, a gathering with Holders in Japan, two very large parties in the United States, and peripheral products made from small beans auctioned at a farmer's market. I don't have much recollection of anything else.

Nomad: I remember there was another collaboration with a popular rap group called EPISODE in Korea. The group performed at a music festival with Azuki's promotional images as the background. Other than that, they have done three offline events in the US. One was the empty-headed Beans you just mentioned, and another was an event similar to the Japanese summer festival, located at New York Fashion Week.  

Princess: The NYC NFT conference was great. I asked many Chinese people and they said the atmosphere was really good, like being in Japan.  

Mable: My previous stereotype of Azuki was that it was very close to the trend culture. I would love to wear their cultural shirts out, and everyone would think it's very fashionable. For many people, including Pudgy Penguins, their current direction is to create an IP and bring these toy entities offline, turning them into a business model. Has this trend appeared in the Azuki community or official statements? Have they mentioned developing towards consumer goods in the trend street culture?

Princess: Yes, I think its overall design style, including the music on the website, and all the previous deliveries such as Tiger Jacket, are all leaning towards the trend culture of streetwear. Even we all speculate whether its next collaboration partner will be Supreme. So, this community actually has a very clear positioning and perception of itself.  

Mable: Do you think Azuki cares about business cooperation? Actually, it is very difficult to obtain cooperation with Line Friends' IP, especially since Line Friends' parent company is not willing to have any relationship with public chains, or is relatively conservative in the short term. From your perspective, is the official desire to obtain cooperation with major IPs strong? 

Princess: I think it's strong, and I think any web3 project would want to cooperate with a big IP. If you can cooperate with a big IP, your product and brand will definitely soar, so it's the same for the Red Bean project. I think they are also very eager to cooperate with big IPs. But whether they can cooperate or have the resources and ability to cooperate is a question mark. Later, I found that there was not much landing with the cooperation with Line Frieds. After they announced the cooperation, there was no follow-up, at least in my opinion.  

Mable: Can we understand that working with a traditional IP, especially with Japan, starting from one year, means that although we want to cooperate, our efforts are not enough. I think it's a strange thing that many people actually think that the Monkey community or some other blue-chip communities are not as strong as Azuki's community. The concept of "community strength" has not been defined particularly well. What kind of activities do you think the members in the community have organized to make the sense of community identity so strong?

Princess: I don't think this question should be asked in this way. We shouldn't ask what kind of activities can make everyone have faith or what kind of activities can make everyone more united. Later, I found that the real answer should be that Azuki initially attracted relatively high-quality Holders, and the positioning of the initial crowd and users was relatively good, which made it easier for him to build a community later on. If the initial users and positioning are relatively poor and people do not recognize the brand, it is difficult to form a very cohesive community no matter how much effort is made later on. So I think the core point of this question should be how to screen out high-quality community members at the beginning, which I think is the reason why the community is very good. Because these Holders of Azuki, if they go to other projects, I believe they will also be very good Holders. It's not because they are fans of Azuki, so they are good Holders, but because they are good themselves, and they happen to be fans of Azuki. This is my understanding of this matter.

Nomad: These days have also been a process of faith collapse for me personally. I used to think that everyone shouting slogans together on Twitter and making a lot of noise, we have organized many offline events together, including the Holders events in Europe and America, where they organized more than 20 events themselves. In addition to official events, the Azuki community has created more than 6,000 derivative works, which is unmatched by any other Web3 community.

But in the process of faith collapse, I also rethink, what does it mean to be "community strong"? Is it strong just because of purchasing power? I don't have a good answer myself. But from some data, as I just mentioned, they have more than 6,000 derivative works, and the lowest cost of a derivative work is 0.1 ETH. The cost they may have paid in the process of making derivative works may exceed 1,000 ETH, which is not seen in many communities in many aspects.

Princess: Regarding the personnel composition of the Red Bean community, I have participated in many communities myself because I have also bought many NFTs. I think the composition of the Azuki community is indeed what I consider to be relatively pure. Why do I say it's pure? Because the people here are all artists who are very passionate about digital art. Azuki community really has a lot of excellent artists, and I think it's no problem for them to release a series of NFTs themselves. These artists really like Azuki's art and pictures, and they will do secondary creation on it, so these active and high-quality artists make up the foundation of the Azuki community. 

Secondly, many luxury players who are interested in watches and bags come to the Azuki community. They believe that Azuki can be like a watch, with permanent and commemorative significance, and can be collected. Therefore, many people do buy Azuki as a luxury item, including myself. I am actually a person who likes to buy luxury goods, so I did initially approach it with a luxury consumption mentality. 

The third one is Azuki, which has a community with many high-quality overseas returnees, many of whom have received excellent education in good schools in the United States. Therefore, I think the Azuki community is composed of artists, luxury goods, and high-quality overseas returnee communities. Therefore, when these three types of people gather together, they have many common hobbies and topics to talk about. At the same time, everyone is relatively nice, so the community is great. Although there have been many things that have challenged our values, including recent events, I still believe that the Azuki community has a good foundation and everyone has high quality.

Before, I thought about it for a long time and divided it into these three categories. Let me talk about Azuki's fan culture. I think it has a strong fan culture characteristic inside. The fan culture characteristic is that you will maintain a person, worship them like a god, elevate them to a high position, endorse their behavior, explain for them, and pay for their products. So Azuki does have a strong fan bloodline and characteristics inside, which is also what makes me feel different from other NFTs. As for the question of whether the Azuki community is better than the Monkey community, I have never thought so, even when I was doing the Azuki community. In fact, I am also in the Monkey community. I think the Monkey community is more diverse compared to Azuki because the main composition of the Azuki community is Asian, but there are many different backgrounds and user portraits in the Monkey community, so the Monkey community is actually a more diverse and inclusive community.

After experiencing a year and a half in the Web3 industry, I think the output of the Monkey community is great. If someone says that the Azuki community is better than the Monkey community, I think this conclusion is hasty because there are many indicators to judge whether a community is good or not. If we use quantitative indicators to analyze, just like we do for growth, I like to say that quantitative indicators such as daily output of content, total number of community members, or number of people using its PFP avatar can all be used as standards to measure whether a community is good or not. In fact, the Monkey community is excellent in these indicators. The number of people using the Monkey PFP on Twitter is the highest, whether they are real or fake, at least its community is diverse enough, and its influence and brand power are strong enough.

So I don't think this statement is very good, it's a bit provocative. And there's a reason why I never say it myself, because Zaga, the founder of Azuki, likes to say, "We are the strongest community," which is more sensational. So I think everyone will gradually be brainwashed into thinking that they are the strongest community. But the truth is, the Monkey community is also great, and that's the truth.

Mable: I think the crowd classification theory you just mentioned is quite interesting. Players of STEPN and Axie Infinity are very different, which leads to different user behaviors and consumption levels. Regarding Azuki's art, you mentioned in a tweet that it was outsourced. How did you obtain this information?

Nomad: The outsourcing was discovered by a group member, and I am not very clear about the details. There are screenshots of their outsourcing studio on Weibo, which the group member posted in the group. I verified and found that both World 2 and World 3 of Azuki were completed by domestic studios. As for the Azuki Elementals series, I talked to the Asia-Pacific ambassador of Azuki in the Chinese region, and he said that 80% of it was completed by Azuki's own team, but this is a matter of opinion, after all, it is the official statement. I think there are still some differences in the details between the second and first generations of Azuki, and you can see that there are many places that have not been cleaned up just by looking at the pictures.

Mable: Actually, the Azuki team did a lot of preparation in the early stage of the sale. For example, they created riddles and held an offline Vegas conference, which was widely spread on the internet. Can you tell us about the details before and after the Vegas conference, and why people were disappointed? Was it because of expectations? Was it because the expectations were raised by a lot of online hype, including the possibility of the Vegas conference pushing expectations to a climax when everyone met offline, and then when the actual sale came, people had different ideas about what they saw? So, can you talk to us about these details?

Nomad: Vegas offline meeting, I didn't actually go, but I read a lot of tweets and heard from some group members who went that the atmosphere was great. The nightclub in Vegas that was chosen at the time was quite famous, and it should have cost a lot to organize the event. It's basically a hype event for Hive. At 12 o'clock US time, they played a promotional video that lasted about a minute and a half. There didn't seem to be a lot of Red Bean elements other than that. It was a bit more flashy than before, but it may have lacked some cultural elements compared to previous events.

Mable: So, in these past collaborations, how does the official process of communication work for unofficial introductions, such as those with Bilibili and Red Bull? Because in the past, I've tried to contact Azuki, but it didn't seem possible to collaborate. They're similar to Yuga Labs, wanting to create their own original content rather than collaborate with others, unless it's a very powerful IP. So, how do these negotiations usually happen, and do they have a BD department?

Princess: At least in my opinion, there is no BD department. Their cooperation in Asia is through an Asian ambassador named Er Yue Cha, also known as Fat. Whenever any of us have resources, we will recommend them to him. For example, if we want to follow up on a cooperation with Red Bull and do a three-party joint venture with a certain trading platform at that time, they will first come to me for simple communication to see if it is a scam or if there are any issues. After that, I will recommend the corresponding personnel for this resource to Er Yue Cha and explain the situation to him to see if he wants to cooperate. After that, I will not participate in the details of their cooperation, such as how much money each party will give or how it will be done.

This is the cooperation details with Red Bull, so I understand that they do not have a BD department. In Asia, the main work is done by February Tea, and the way everyone cooperates with him is by sending their resources to Azuki. I think the community has given Azuki a lot of things. Because I think it is possible, this is my guess, that Line Friends is also a Korean family helping to connect the dots. I have this feeling.

Because Azuki is a relatively large brand and symbol in Web 3, Web 2 companies also want to cooperate with them, which is a mutually attractive process. It's not just about someone introducing or pushing for this to happen, but rather the team really lacks the corresponding department to do the corresponding management, so many times it is done through the community to help.

Mable: Can we make some comparisons based on actual experiences between Azuki's first-generation experience that Normad just mentioned, except for gas optimization, and the experience of Mint Elementals later?

Princess: Actually, the first generation was a Dutch auction. At that time, it was uncertain how the Elementals project would turn out, so I prepared five Ethereum to mint the first generation. It is a wallet that can mint 5 tokens, and then starts a Dutch auction from one ETH, with the price decreasing by 0.1 ETH every 5 minutes. I remember chatting with other group members and we decided to participate at around 0.6 ETH. When it officially went on sale, it only took 2 minutes to mint all 8000 tokens, and the remaining 2000 were reserved for the whitelist. However, the process of minting 8000 tokens went very smoothly, without any problems such as frontend crashes or failed transactions. It was different from many previous projects. There were no errors during the entire minting process.

However, when it comes to Elementals Mint, many people encountered problems. Many OGs were even mistaken for bots because of the 10-minute window, resulting in the inability to Mint. The second phase is to allow OGs to Mint in the first 10 minutes, and then BEANS holders to Mint after the 10-minute window. When it comes to the BEANS phase, many people couldn't even access the website, making it impossible to Mint. So personally, I think this experience was quite bad. Even some big players tweeted that they were unable to Mint at all.

Mable: What was the real atmosphere in the community after this Mint ended? Because earlier, Junzhu mentioned that this time it was a bit like everyone was condemning Zag, who had previously rug pooled and so on. So what kind of factions did everyone have this time?

Princess: When Mint just ended, the official actually sent a tweet celebrating the sell-out. It was silent for about two hours before the pictures started to be released. In fact, during the time from the end of Mint to the release of pictures, the overall atmosphere in the group was still relatively harmonious. Some people did not get the chance to Mint and expressed disappointment, hoping to see if the official would have any compensation measures, but in fact there were no compensation measures. When the pictures were released, I remember very clearly that a group member posted a picture that someone else had opened, and everyone was silent. At first, everyone thought that this picture was fake and was just a second creation found at random, but they didn't expect it to be real, it was the second generation picture. At that time, the bottom plate price of Red Bean was around 12 ETH, and after the pictures were released, it directly dropped to 9 ETH.

More than 90% of the people in this graphics community are very dissatisfied with it because many of its elements are directly taken from the first generation, and its entire character model is also from the first generation. The floor price is actually the most direct expression of everyone's emotions. After digesting it for a while, some people may think that the rare graphics are not bad, and this set of graphics is still well thought out. So there are some people who choose to support Red Bean, regardless of their motives. Then there are some, like me and Junzhu, who think that this set of graphics is perfunctory and completely harms the interests of first-generation holders. They did not consider that first-generation users would make such a decision, so we are equivalent to leaving the community directly. It's probably divided into these two types.

Mable: Going back to what he was discussing earlier, you guys aren't really sure what the Azuki team is up to, but people are still willing to buy. So from what I've heard, it's not like they have no idea at all, the official announcement will give everyone something to look forward to and create a vague sense of anticipation. It may not have specific details yet, but it's being prepared for something in the future, like a certain setting in a game's world view, or there may be some vague expectations and assumptions, and they may have done a lot of work in this area. It makes people believe that this is something that may have a chance in the future.

Can we say that looking back rationally is more of a guidance? Everyone may have their own expectations in their minds, but it is not clear what it can do in the future. We may be willing to accept the uncertainty for a period of time. However, due to various reasons such as the release of the image, some people may feel that it has nothing to do with the previous promotion. This is where faith collapses, and there may be some reasons for this.

Princess: The summary is very accurate. Also, because the team has always emphasized brand animation, they also said they want to do animation and have invited some experienced people from animation companies to come as consultants. We have great expectations for them to do animation. However, after a year, there was no sound or progress in the direction of trendy fashion or luxury goods and culture.

So I will feel very puzzled, what are we expecting? Previously, we thought that Azuki or this element was innovative and consistent with the story told by the overall project positioning, but now it seems to be disjointed and inconsistent. It may be true that most of the things are what we may have fantasized about, or the images we have woven and imagined through the team's promotional videos, words, and the positioning on the official website. So I think the feeling of disappointment and disillusionment is just a fantasy, and I may just be thinking too much.

Nomad: The team has always been shouting the slogan of community first, and they brainwash people with some slogans every day. I have always believed in the delivery of Red Bean, including my conversation with February Tea before Mint. He thinks that Elementals is even better than OG, including these brand new product experiences. I have been holding onto this belief until now, so I believe in the team's delivery capabilities. I never thought they would come up with products like these elements that are similar to the first generation.

This is equivalent to diluting a generation, which is very harmful to the interests of the holders of that generation. I didn't expect them to do such a thing, including poor delivery quality. The entire delivery of the Red Bean team cannot be trusted anymore. My previous belief was that everything they produced was very cool.

Before the launch of the map, I actually chatted with a friend who has been with me since the first day. He told me that he believed there would be no problem with the map and that it was not something we needed to worry about. Although there was no preview image before the release of this sale, we still chose to believe in the team. The delivery process was very disappointing to me. I feel that I can no longer trust such a team, including their delivery quality, which makes me feel that the team's ability may be just like this, and the first generation may be just a perfect design that happened to be designed.

Mable: When talking about products, it's actually more about whether the image is right or not. Because the so-called product experience, I always thought it would require something interactive and usable, but maybe in this context, product experience only refers to this image.

Nomad: Yes, in fact, the second generation is very thin, without any narrative or any connection to the previous story. What we get is just a picture, without any other new things. It is a set of pictures made based on the first generation, and I think it is very fragmented.

Princess: I still want to say that I didn't leave because of my appearance. If it's a team that cares a lot about their brand, why would they deliver such a product? If you really cherish your wings, why would you choose to damage the interests of the OG community at a very high price in a bear market? I don't understand and can't get a reasonable explanation. Then in February, Tea told me that the purpose of issuing the second generation was to attract holders from other blue-chip communities, including Multi-Month Bird and Clone (community), with prices around 2 ETH. But the minting mechanism chose to let all communities buy his two ETH prices. If you want to sincerely attract users from other communities, you should fight for them some opportunities. Why did you choose to make everyone mint within 20 minutes, 10 minutes for soybeans and 10 minutes for red beans?

If you are confident in your product and really want to attract others, why not say that cloning Holder can come to Mint? Azuki's approach and its statement are contradictory, and this logic is flawed. They want to attract other communities, but only open it to their own community when Minting, and force everyone to Mint at a very high price in a very short time.

The second point is that why do I still doubt his original intention? It's because he hasn't released any teaser images. When Azuki released the first generation of Mint, they did release teaser images. If you are very confident that your product is problem-free, I think you can release one or two teaser images for everyone to see what they are buying on Ethereum. But currently, it seems that they are not providing any teaser images.

Of course, I think he may want to play mysterious, which I think can be explained, but it may be a bit far-fetched. When developing products and projects, before any product goes online, people are invited to test it and consumers are invited to provide feedback, including at internet companies. However, at Azuki, there is no testing at all, even for big clients who may be confused by the graphics. So based on these two points, I think there is some risk involved in this project, and I have chosen to withdraw.

Mable: In other words, if Azuki continues to stick to his anime style, because I do know that making an IP anime takes time, including the fact that this big IP may not be something the team doesn't want to do, but if he doesn't go to Mint now, everyone may still be willing to give him time and space to believe in him. But once he does this, it's actually a bit different, because after all, many of the things he said before don't match.

Princess: If the original intention of a team changes, it is something that cannot be changed. If it is just a matter of ability, I think it can be improved and saved. If the original intention has deviated, it may be difficult to bring it back, which is my inner judgment. Therefore, I made the decisive decision to clear the position for this reason.

Mable: I'm not particularly involved in the NFT community and don't communicate with everyone. So sometimes I don't have a very deep understanding of why people are willing to pay for a certain culture. But after chatting today, I feel like I've gained a lot, of course, there are some things that have surprised me. But I found that some questions may not need answers at a certain stage of the community, and what they may need is a more broadly imaginable space, and everyone will believe that this will move forward.

I think this reflects some of the confusion that may exist in the entire NFT market now. For example, when he went to Pudgy Penguins, it was interesting that it was a turning point. The original founder didn't want to do things well, but someone else spent 800 Ether to buy the penguin, and then he started to do something that could be implemented seriously. So I am also looking forward to seeing the development of Azuki in the future. I don't know if there will be some community power to restart it, or it may be another result.

Princess: I think they did a great job with the offline part. I've always been curious about how they did it, because Azuki has been talking about doing these things but never got around to it.

Nomad: I have actually studied a little about penguins. I have talked to many people in the penguin community because their Instagram followers have surpassed one million. On that Ins, they do not refer to themselves as NFTs. They create funny and easily spreadable emojis. The BD network of the penguin core is particularly strong, and their emojis have attracted many fans. Lucas has a theory called the triangle theory. The penguin IP attracts one million people to get to know their emojis and image, and in the end, maybe only 100 people will buy NFTs, which is enough. They mainly follow the path of WEB2 landing, and they do not rely on the community. The team's network sense is particularly strong, and they have created many popular emojis and other things. It is all about the network effect.

Mable: The penguin team shouldn't have many people. Regarding what you just said about offline, I want to say that it's purely a matter of willingness. As long as you're willing to run, willing to spend time to figure out all the logistics, including production, you can completely handle it. To put it bluntly, it's the least troublesome thing, because the most difficult thing is to build an IP. Once someone is willing to foot the bill for you to do this offline thing, everyone will spend a lot of money to foot the bill for you, it's just a matter of whether there is a willingness to make this work.

Princess: Does the Penguin team have more than 20 people?

Nomad: There shouldn't be any, they are very few in number.

Princess: So actually, the Azuki people are fewer in number.

Mable: Right. Because his chart is not difficult, he has a dedicated Head of Partnership who handles things like offline collaborations in Asia and with some IPs. They also establish official contacts with their offline fans, basically that's it. They actually value cooperation that matches their style, cute and adorable, very chill lifestyle. But they do have a clear division of labor. Because the founder of Penguin was not the current team, but the team they brought in is still quite serious, you can feel it.

He is considering expanding his network, for example, with Layerzero. Of course, the Layerzero team also likes them and has done a lot of cross-chain NFT things. This is not something that has very obvious value now, but I can explain why I want to make the penguin cross to other chains.

Princess: Penguins are also focused on branding, but they do it very well. I saw their products during an offline event in Beijing some time ago, and the product quality was quite good.

Nomad: The best-selling product on Amazon for Penguin Toys.

Mable: Why did I feel like chatting before, but now it seems like Azuki's team has no intention of doing anything. You've been watching for so long and there's been no explanation. Because I think it's normal for people who are willing to spend money on it to want to know what exactly can I do with NFT?

Princess: Yes, this is also what we want to ask, but we can't ask and don't know. I think another topic we can talk about is that the birth of the mung bean is actually because of this serious Fud this time. The official immediately airdropped everyone a mung bean after this mint. But their Asian ambassador said in the group that the usage of the mung bean will not be reviewed within this year.

Nomad: At least next year, and possibly the year after.

Mable: From the perspective of a project party, it's because they haven't thought it through. They just think about painting a picture and then talking about it, stabilizing first and then talking about it.

Princess: So you know that after listening to it, including many people, I am more determined to leave. The mung bean incident will indeed affect the mentality of many people, because although we are loyal, we are not stupid. So after listening to the announcement, everyone's mentality collapsed.

Nomad: After hearing the announcement from Green Beans, I liquidated my position.

Princess: There are many aspects of this matter that I can think about in detail, because I quite like penguins, they are very down-to-earth in their work. I will make a comparison, if you don't compare, it's still okay, but if you compare with penguins, you will feel that the work is a bit slow.

Mable: The Penguin team doesn't really like to hype up events like consensus conferences. The Penguin team, including AMA, is rarely seen. They won't always be chatting on Twitter space. Because we worked with them before, I have a lot of penguins myself, and I asked their advisor to find them and had a chat to know what they were doing. They are in talks with these offline consumer brands and want to do these collaborations, which is a more reasonable way to operate projects.

Princess: I still think there is something very strange. Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book) welcomes teams like Azuki to create content. Azuki has always emphasized the need to break through the circle and what better platform than Xiaohongshu in China? For this trend culture and luxury goods, we were very active in promoting the team to do Xiaohongshu, but in the end, there was no splash. As a result, we at Hongdou created a Xiaohongshu account, which performed well. In February, Tea told me that they would officially cooperate with Xiaohongshu in January 2023, but there has been no news since. I think this is also very strange. As a project party that wants to build its own brand, the largest flow in China is the trend brand flow pool. Xiaohongshu came over and said they would help promote, but it didn't happen. Why is that?

You said I need to build a brand, and Xiaohongshu said they are willing to provide traffic as long as I come and create content. They won't do it themselves. I don't think this is difficult because the marketing team of DJ TOOLS is very diligent in posting on Xiaohongshu every day. It is managed by a foreigner who doesn't understand Chinese culture but still posts every day. I think this foreigner is very pure, persistent, and serious, and I am moved by this spirit. However, there is no news of execution or implementation from Azuki.

Mable: Just doesn't work. I feel that the sales team in the United States may indeed have some PUA elements.

Nomad: It means drifting.

However, there are indeed some friends who come for the purpose of chasing stars and paying the bill. They just want to pay for their favorite celebrities, and I think this is understandable. Because there is a girl who left a message under my Twitter, she said it is the culture of the fan circle, and she just wants to pay for the brand. I think this is just like buying a bag, and it can be understood. I don't think this brand will disappear in the future, because it has already collected the best and highest quality group of consumers who are willing to pay for it, and it has succeeded. So I think it is indeed more successful than the monkey from this perspective, because the holders of the monkey still have to look at the quality of product delivery and whether the game is fun, and they are still very picky.

Mable: So let's end our conversation here today. I feel like we talked about a lot of core things. We thoroughly discussed how communities are formed.

Princess: The community is constantly being screened, just like we can't keep paying for them, blindly supporting them will only get us filtered out. Yes, we are the OG filtered out.

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