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⛩️ Azuki has what other high-end NFT collections lack: the power of anime
- Why does this matter? Per a16z’s recent Anime Is Eating the World post, anime’s global market dominance, and its estimated +$50 billion market size, are rising.
- With fan engagement uptrending, interactive experiences like AI-powered anime companions, VTubing, and anime games (which currently account for ~20% of mobile app store spending) seem primed to boom in the years ahead.
- That said, Azuki is the leading anime IP in NFTs. It’s well-positioned to harness the convergence of AI, user-generated content, gaming, and virtual reality that will shape the future of anime. If it dives into this crossroads headlong, Azuki can significantly expand its influence both within crypto and beyond.
- It's not that other high-end NFT collections like Bored Apes and
Pudgy Penguins can't tap into these trends too. Instead, Azuki can do so while leveraging the rising cultural momentum of anime, which has a growing transcendent appeal across multiple demographics.
- These tailwinds make Azuki’s long-term prospects intriguing. More short-term, Azuki introduced its role as an early contributor to AnimeCoin and AnimeChain, an
Arbitrum Orbit network, in March 2024. - These new advances are part of Azuki’s Anime 2.0 efforts. This is a campaign to build an open anime universe ecosystem centered around co-creation and fan ownership of anime IP. Azuki’s recent anthology series work and acquisition of Anime.com gives the collection flagship platforms around which to further these efforts.
- As such, Anime 2.0 and its coming rollouts may prove to be catalysts for Azuki in the near future. These short-term prospects combined with the likely long-term macro uptrend around anime put Azuki in a uniquely promising position compared to most NFT collections today.
- My current rating, then, is definitively Bullish. For the reasons above, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Azuki become a Top 3 NFT collection by market cap once more.
More about Azuki
🌸 Website | Magic Eden
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