Azuki NFT collection ends Elemental mint with $37.5 million — before it was ever open to the public

Popular NFT collection Azuki ended a fresh mint with 20,000 ETH (around $37.5 million) in the bag — before it was ever open to the public.

The new collection, called Azuki Elemental Beans, contains 20,000 NFTs tied to Azuki's main collection. Consuming an Azuki Elemental Bean reveals the user's Azuki Elemental, an avatar that can control water, fire, earth or lightning, according to the collection's OpenSea page. Half of the NFTs were given to Azuki holders for free.

The auction started at 12:00 p.m. ET for Azuki holders, who could mint one Elemental for every Azuki NFT owned. At 12:10 p.m. ET, holders of BEANZ, a spin-off collection to Azuki, could mint one Elemental for every NFT owned, with additional constrictions if they hold an Azuki NFT and minted in the presale. Finally, at 12:20 p.m. ET, the Elemental mint opened up to the public. 

The Azuki Elemental sale used a dutch auction structure, in which the starting mint price was 2 ETH and would decrease by 0.1 ETH every five minutes until no NFTs were left.

Within 15 minutes, the collection sold out — and was never available to the public. 

"Azuki's new collection generated $37.5 million in revenue from today's minting of 10,000 units, each priced at 2 ETH," said Brad Kay, research analyst at The Block Research. "The last instance of minting surpassing $30 million in revenue occurred over a year ago on May 1st, when Yuga Labs generated $319 million from Otherdeeds for Otherside."

Data from past NFT sales, according to The Block Research.

Azuki's expanding universe

The launch of Elemental adds one more facet to the Azuki universe. The project launched its own virtual city called Hilumia in January 2023, which included blended physical and digital worlds. The connector between the two would be the Physical Backed Token, or PBT, which facilitates how physical items show up in the Azuki virtual universe.

Hilumia launched to commemorate Azuki's one-year anniversary. Released on January 12, 2022, the Azuki NFT collection brought in a total of 574,722 ETH (around $1.08 billion) and maintains a floor price of 14.25 ETH, or $26,700. The BEANZ sidekick collection netted an additional 162,634 ETH ($305 million) at a 0.85 ETH ($1,594) floor price, according to OpenSea.

Azuki brought in the most trading volume within the first five months of its launching, bringing in an all-time high of $121 million in the second week of May 2022, The Block's Data Dashboard shows. The most valued Azuki NFT sold for $1.4 million on March 30, 2022.

The firm behind Azuki, the Los Angeles-based Chiri Labs, brought in $30 million in Series A funding in November 2022. At that point, the firm's valuation laid between $300 million and $400 million, The Block previously reported.

This article was updated to include a quote and graph from The Block Research, and to clarify the role of Azuki Elemental on the Azuki collection.