BEANZ Official: NFT helpers for Azuki owners

There are not so many bright projects on the NFT market, the so-called blue-chips, which have established high standards and are benchmarks for the community. Among them, Azuki project stands out. That’s a startup from the Chiru Labs studio. Thanks to effective marketing campaign, 10,000 tokens were sold out in just 3 minutes from the moment they were put on the market. In just two months, the minimum price for a token grew from $3,400 to $23,900.

The collection was released as an addition to Azuki, whose owners received 2 new tokens for free. The original name of the collection was Something Official. However, the developers quickly decided to change it to BEANZ Official. After all, Azuki means red beans in Japanese. According to the creators’ idea,  new tokens should act as helpers for already known characters. Therefore, the name “beans” looks more logical.

As a result, the BEANZ Official collection didn’t get lost in the NFT space. Moreover, it generated 72k ETH in secondary sales and got to 19th place in terms of sales of all time on the most popular OpenSea marketplace.

What is BEANZ Official?

BEANZ Official is a derivative NFT collection of Azuki Project. It consists of 19,950 ERC-721 NFT beans on the Ethereum blockchain. The official launch took place on March 28, 2022, at the Azuki Garden Party.

Introducing BEANZ: a small species that sprout from dirt in the garden. Being a sidekick is in their DNA, although some like to kick it alone.

They're earnestly driven by the desire to help. However, certain BEANZ feel a calling to pave their own path…🧵 pic.twitter.com/jMaFF8XwgC

— Azuki (@Azuki) April 18, 2022

Upon release, the project gained a large number of fans due to its unique Japanese animation style and excellent aesthetics. It quickly became a blue chip level project in the FPF field.

As the story goes, these bean characters appeared from garden dirt. They should diversify the metaverse, as well as bring some fun to it, because these helpers have their own world view.

The main idea for the Azuki metaverse was the desire to combine two cultures, that is, a generation of skateboarders and anime fans. Besides, according to the creators, this collection was conceived as a symbol for the emergence of a new global brand. Supposedly, the new community should bring together fans from all over the world who like to skateboard and watch anime. There are also plans to integrate the virtual and real worlds by launching clothes and footwear lines.

BEANZ Official in numbers

• The collection of 19,950 tokens was officially launched on March 28, 2022,
• Tokens are a thank you to the entire community and were distributed free of charge, 2 pieces per Azuki,
• The project is ranked 19th among the best collections in terms of sales of all time on the largest NFT marketplace OpenSea.
• Total secondary sales exceeded 73k ETH (over $120m at current exchange rates),
• Floor price is 1.4 ETH (about 2.3k dollars),
• Average sales range from 1.3 ETH to 2 ETH,
• The most expensive #4096 was sold on May 6, 2022, for 90 ETH ($247k at the time of sale),
• Total 7301 unique holders (37%). There’s no wonder about it, for at launch time, the team distributed 2 tokens for each holder. So, the owners understand the value of such NFT assets and are in no hurry to sell them.
• Only about 4% of the collection (787 pieces out of 19,950) are for sale, among them the range of offers is from 1.4 ETH to 10 ETH. This shows that almost all holders see the project as a great investment prospect and are not in a hurry to part with their assets at a lower price.

Data (including exchange rates) are given at the time of publication of the article

BEANZ Official Types and Attributes

For the sake of greater individuality within the collection, the developers have created 16 types of beans, among which you can find the following:

• Red Bean (3,718 pieces),
• Lentil (2,077 pieces),
• Coffee Bean (1,972 pieces),
• Pinto Bean (1,142 pieces),
• Golden Bean (530 pieces),
• Earth Bean (10 pieces),
• Fire Bean (10 pieces).

Besides, there are 12 main characteristics, including background, face, eyes, footwear, head, clothes, etc. Thus, 484 different traits were obtained. Thanks to this, there’s rarity in the collection, and the pictures are visually distinguishable. So you can easily choose and add the BEANZ you like to your collection.

Who created BEANZ Official?

BEANZ Official is the brainchild of Chiru Labs. The real names of the participants of this startup are kept secret.

The founders of the studio are:

• Zagabond @ZAGABOND takes on the role of PR director of the project. He distributes and promotes the collection. Previously, he worked as PR manager at Google, and then he was involved in the creation of some decentralized financial service. It is not known what kind of service it was.
• Flow @2pmflow, amateur rapper, ex-Google/Y-Combinator.
• Location tba @locationtba, ex-Facebook software engineer.
• HoshiBoy @hoshiboyzen, a two-time graduate of the Y Combinator incubator.
• Arnold Tsang @steamboy33, 39-year-old lead artist. Prior to Azuki, he served as art director for Activision Blizzard’s shooter hit Overwatch for 12 years.

BEANZ Official Idea

The main idea at the core of BEANZ Official is the desire to encourage the owners of the Azuki collection, and also expand the popular metaverse, increasing the number of its characters by three times.

As for virtual concept of new tokens, they were conceived as funny helpers with their own peculiar quirks. NFT beans just want to have fun! However, they go overboard in their desires, and as a result, their fun turns into anger. As the developers say, BEANZ do not know how to fight, but they can bite.

Supposedly, developers will share more information about the temper and unique features of the new characters later. For now, we can only talk about two key characters:

• Red Toshi, who likes to walk wherever he wants, and reacts quite strongly against instructions and remarks,
• Blue Gus, or Les, who likes to annoy his Azuki very much.

Why are BEANZ Official popular?

Of course, the basis of BEANZ Official’s popularity was their attachment to Chiru Labs’ core product, the Azuki Metaverse. As an addition to anime tokens, NFT beans immediately attracted attention. At the peak of sales, the average cost of one token reached $1,500, and the total value of the collection exceeded $100 million.

Besides, by the time BEANZ Official appeared, Azuki tokens already had a fairly high value. And the presentation of Hilumia’s own metaverse in January 2022 increased the demand still more.

So, the launch of BEANZ Official:

• contributed to lowering the threshold to entry into the metaverse,
• expanded the number of participants of the virtual community,
• opened access to the private Discord channel for new participants.

BEANZ Official Roadmap

As conceived by the creators of Azuki, their metaverse will consist of two components in the real and virtual worlds.

For the virtual dimension, Chiru Labs promises to release the following products:

• multimedia events,
• game competitions,
• cartoons,
• a series of comics.

As for offline reality, the team’s plans are also quite global. Under the Azuki brand, they not only plan to produce clothes, but also open tattoo parlors and fast food pavilions around the world. In October 2022, the team announced a “Physical Backing Token”. This Azuki PBT allows users to own real items online. A real collection with exclusive gold skateboards was launched as well.

BEANZ Official ecosystem

BEANZ Official does not have its own ecosystem, as it is a derivative collection from the main project. If you look at the brand as a whole, you’ll understand that cute and funny BEANZ NFTs, which entered the market for free and were kind of gifts for the community, became a derivative collection that turned out to be a successful top project.

How much does BEANZ Official cost?

Initially, in March 2022, NFTs were distributed to all Azuki owners as a free airdrop at a ratio of 2/1. At the end of April 2022, the project entered the top 20 most successful projects. What happened to sales next?

To visualize the price dynamics, we made a cut at the average price for 1 NFT:

• in April 2022 – 5.3 ETH,
• in June 2022 – 1.6 ETH,
• in September 2022 – 1 ETH,
• in December 2022 – 1.8 ETH.

Now (February 2023) the minimum price is 1.4 ETH (about $2.3k). On average, the latest sales are in the range of 1.3-2 ETH. And the total volume of secondary sales amounted to more than 73k ETH (about $120 million).

Most Expensive BEANZ Official Sales

The most expensive sales are led by the following NFTs from the BEANZ Official collection:

1. #4096: sold on May 6, 2022, for 90 ETH ($247k at the time of sale).
2. #2233: sold on May 6, 2022, for 70 ETH ($192k at the time of sale).
3. #1257: sold on May 6, 2022, for 69 ETH ($189k at the time of sale).
4. #17085: sold on May 8, 2022, for 57 ETH ($143k at the time of sale).

Where to buy BEANZ Official?

Currently, BEANZ Official can only be purchased on the secondary market, on marketplaces such as OpenSea, X2Y2 and LooksRare.

How to buy BEANZ Official?

1. Remember that initially you need to connect your crypto wallet with self-storage to the marketplace of your choice.
2. Next, find the official collection using the search bar on the marketplace.
3. Analyze and choose the NFT you want to buy; click on it and then on the “Buy” button.
4. Or you can bet on the token you like. Make sure you have enough ETH for gas or transaction fees. If the seller approves your bid, the deal goes through.

Should you invest in BEANZ Official?

There are good reasons to take this playful NFT collection quite seriously from an investment point of view:

• The project is of great interest among crypto collectors. The reasons for the popularity are described above, and you can see it for yourself.
• BEANZ Official is a full-fledged part of the Azuki metaverse, while their cost is much less than that of the main collection. This makes it possible to enter the popular metaverse with a minimum entry threshold.
• In October 2022, the team announced a “Physical Backing Token”. This Azuki PBT allows users to own real items online. A real collection with exclusive gold skateboards was launched as well. Such steps indicate the scalability of the project and global development prospects.
• The project continues to evolve, as evidenced by the recent launch of the Hilumia virtual city in January 2023.
• The anime industry has a huge following all over the world. This is not surprising, because it has become the symbol of a whole generation for many. This trend is especially popular in the Asian market, where anime products are the most sought-after things.

In any case, do your own in-depth analysis and research when investing in NFTs, and then make your own decision.

Opinion of NFTMetria

Having reached the popularity of the Azuki metaverse, the developers from Chiru Labs decided not to stop and went on working on the development of their project. The BEANZ Official collection became part of the elaborated marketing strategy, thanks to which it shared the same popularity as the main project. The strong and huge community around the project makes it unattainable for most similar market projects. At the same time, Chiru Labs continues to develop its metaverse, as evidenced by the recent launch of the virtual city Hilumia.

All of these ingredients create an ongoing interest in a metaverse that will continue to grow. The same is the case for its individual parts, which include the BEANZ Official collection.