GM

Welcome to the 11 new subs who joined yesterday.

You can't see this, because there's a huge black bar across my face, but you've brought me tears of joy.

In today’s edition:

• What just happened?

• Updated Mint List

• Two new additions to the Watch List

• Four new drops (including two minting today)

More info on Mint/Watch lists HERE.

Did you know?

We have a premium pass that gives you access to a directory of every drop we cover, complete with detailed information on how to get on every whitelist (including those underrated ones that aren’t already full).

And for those curatooors out there, you can get free NFTs just by finding drops that end up on the Mint or Watch list.

Lastly, hang with me and the MoS team in a private discord with weekly voice chats. The vibes are great.

What just happened?

One of the best moments in life is when you get really hyped up about something – be it a World Cup game, a long-awaited album, or maybe a vacation down the shore – and then it turns out even better than you imagined.

It just straight-up over-delivers and takes you from excitement into pure euphoria.

Unfortunately for Azuki holders, yesterday was not one of those days.

Azuki’s highly anticipated Elementals collection dropped at 12 PM ET on Tuesday, and what ensued was a day full of highs, lows, and apologies. The whole experience became an instant classic in NFT history – a total spectacle.

First, the high

As we expected, Elementals sold out within 10 minutes at a price of 2 ETH. That’s 20,000 ETH, or roughly $38 million, in the middle of what’s supposed to be an NFT bear market.

This is hugely impressive. It’s one of the biggest NFT sales ever and tells us that there are people on the sidelines still more than willing to spend big on high-end on-chain collectibles.

Then, the low(s)

The mint was botched.

Azuki went with extremely short 10-minute minting windows, despite complaints from the community. This wouldn’t have been so bad if the minting process was smooth and without errors.

But there were indeed errors – lots of them. Yours Truly was among many who couldn’t even mint due to glitches on the mint page.

The art was a huge misstep.

First reaction when seeing the revealed Elementals:

Now, to be fair, after spending more time looking through the collection, I do think there’s a lot to enjoy. The traits are an improvement to the original collection in almost every way, and the top 10% rares provide many completely new characters and stylistic remixes.

And in general, Azuki’s art quality is still near the top of the PFP genre.

But the bottom third of the collection was a complete miss. You know those blindfolded wine taste tests where the host pours a Very Fancy Wine in one glass, the local swill in another, then the person drinks both and can’t tell the difference, which prompts the host to turn to the camera and say:

Azuki just weirdly did that to their holder base.

I can tell you that virtually nobody, outside of the few people with a post-doctorate in Anime Art History, will be able to consistently tell the difference between a common Azuki and a common Elemental when viewing them as small Twitter mobile PFPs.

We’ll have to see how this level of art dilution affects the collection in the long run, but the short-term sentiment is obviously bad.

The apologies

The Azuki team ended up apologizing twice on the same day. I won’t bore you with the PR speak, but you can check those apologies here and here if you’re into that sort of thing.

However, the last thread is worth highlighting because it introduced yet another Azuki NFT: the Green Bean.

Shortly after, the Green Bean contract showed up as a claim for all OG Azukis.

Now what does the Green Bean do? We don’t know. One theory is that they’ll be used to upgrade the original Azukis visually, which could also solve the Elementals resemblance concern.

Another theory is that they’ll upgrade Elementals themselves, maybe as part of an evolution system of sorts. This is what I’d prefer.

Whatever it is, it’ll be too little too late for some people. This whole debacle cost the Azuki brand a lot of trust, perhaps worth even more than what they raised yesterday.

NOTE: These drops are lightly curated. Our only requirement is that they have recognizable founders. As usual, DYOR. To learn more go here.

RED 365 by RedruM

A jolly day for AI artist RedruM as they celebrate their pseudonym’s birthday (that’s a crypto-native celebration if ever I’ve seen one) with a 365-piece limited edition titled RED 365.

The mint already started at 3 PM ET yesterday and will close at the same time today, with unsold pieces being burned.

Vonsai (PROTOTYPE α)

6town Port Rebels is a project focused on distributing works by Japanese creators backed by Ki/oon Music, a Sony Music Japan label, which is tied to ReVers3;x, a pretty cool-looking XR project at the company. Both are led by Ryota Saito, an A&R representative.

Their first release will be Vonsai (PROTOTYPE α), a free mint on Sony’s Polygon-based SNFT platform. While limited to Japan residents for now, the team has hinted at future availability in other regions.

The Emperor's New Buildings by DVK the artist

AI art platform Mirage Gallery goes architectural with their upcoming release The Emperor's New Buildings by DVK the artist, a creator who was recently featured in the Makersplace AI Art Hackathon.

I haven’t seen much architectural-focused AI work, so I’m curious to see the market’s reaction during this sluggish AI art market.

Seasky by Ralgo

Ralgo, a generative artist with a plethora of work on fxhash and a past verse exhibition, makes his Art Blocks debut this October with Seasky, a 100-piece collection.

The pieces aim to portray the transformative power of chaos through the progressive layering of different, seemingly disjointed art elements that come together to form ethereal landscapes.

Check it out on Sansa, some of them might pass your “wall hang” test.

The Mint List

1. Taproot Wizards. OG Bitcoin meme inscribed as ordinals

2. Project Animus. RTFKT's biggest launch since Clone-X

3. Symbiogenesis. Square Enix's upcoming gaming NFT

4. Garbage Friends. New PFP from the creator of Invisible Friends

5. Dimensionals - EVE. Free gaming PFP from doxxed studio

6. 10KTF PFP. Drop from a team that includes Yuga and Beeple

7. 6529 Meme – Botto. Affordable edition from the decentralized artist

8. Ether. Anime PFP collection by viii, an artist with a cult following

9. Tony Babel x Typical Friends. Limited edition from the popular artist

10. World Flag by Gerrard. AB x Pace drop featuring an established artist