Azuki DAO Rebrands, Transitions into a Memecoin Project

Azuki DAO has rebranded as "Bean" following its withdrawal of legal action against the project's founder, Zagabond.

Azuki DAO Transforms into a Memecoin Project. Source: Zipmex

According to the announcement, the DAO will officially pivot to a memecoin project and become part of the emerging and controversial Blast ecosystem, a new layer-2 solution on Ethereum. The DAO team claims that Bean has successfully raised $10 million from prominent investors.

The total supply of the BEAN memecoin is 1 billion tokens. Under the previous plan, the DAO's treasury was set to hold 40% of the tokens, 50% allocated to Azuki DAO members, and the remaining 10% reserved for Azuki's founder, Zagabond. At that time, NFT holders of Azuki were also given exclusive rights to mint the token.

Initial BEAN Allocation Proposal. Source: Azuki DAO Website

The latest statement reveals that the plan has changed. 50% of BEAN has been allocated to the Azuki DAO community over the past four months. The remaining tokens, equivalent to 40% of BEAN, have been moved to the Treasury, with the last 10% held by Zagabond.

Azuki is an original collection released by Zagabond in February 2022, featuring 10,000 anime-themed profile pictures (PFPs). In June this year, the project launched its second NFT series, "Elemental," which quickly generated $38 million in revenue within just 15 minutes of its sale.

However, the new collection received significant criticism from the community due to its design not markedly differing from the original NFTs, raising concerns about "diluting" the NFT supply. Azuki DAO later sought a refund of the funds raised from Elemental and proposed legal action against Zagabond to clarify the motives behind the alleged investor deception.

The floor price of Azuki NFTs has sharply declined since the introduction of Elemental.

Azuki NFT Floor Price Volatility from Early This Year. Source: CoinGecko