Azuki officially enters the metaverse: important clues in the virtual city "Hilumia".

Original Title: "Azuki officially enters the Metaverse: important clues in the virtual city of 'Hilumia'"

Original Author: Shiwen, Odaily

Since its inception, Azuki, as one of last year's NFT blue-chip projects, has been accompanied by various auras - selling out within three minutes, rapidly rising floor prices, second-dimensional trendsetting, filling the gap in the Eastern market after BYAC... Its unique art style, diverse marketing strategies, and strong community cohesion have all contributed to Azuki's breakthrough of one obstacle after another, making it a phenomenal NFT project.

However, a piece of dark history from the founder (for more information, recommended reading "Azuki Founder's Confession? What Happened This Morning?") has caused public opinion to ferment, causing most NFT players to sneer at their past behavior and also causing panic selling, resulting in a drop in Azuki's floor price by about 10 ETH, and also reducing its attention compared to previous years. Coupled with the macro environment of the NFT trading volume plummeting since the second quarter of last year, Azuki has been performing mediocrely and has not made much breakthrough.

In order to gain long-term capital favor and show community growth to players, every NFT project must innovate gameplay and seek new business or development models.

Last June, Azuki shared its plan to expand Azuki, which was followed by a series of activities including IP, offline art experiences, and the release of PBT standards. This seems to be announcing that Azuki's metaverse plan is approaching us.

Today, on the occasion of Azuki's 1st anniversary, the team announced the official launch of the community-built virtual city "Hilumia". Azuki NFT holders or community participants can now participate in exploration. In this virtual city, there are various interactive platforms, such as Slowpoke's Toy Haven, Ember Square design platform, Golden Skate Park for skateboard enthusiasts, and Garden Express, an "opinion collection box".

The news is out, and the Azuki airdrop project Beanz Official has seen a surge in floor price, with a 24-hour increase of 69%, and now ranks second on the Opensea leaderboard.

Next, the Odaily Star Daily will take you to a detailed understanding of Hilumia.

Hilumia: Azuki's Dream Town

From the official website, it can be seen that Hilumia presents the appearance of a dreamy town, with 10 main interactive locations that clearly showcase the function of each location and the plans being implemented, such as:

Ember Square: A design store that features the latest designs and styles from every corner (even alleys) of Hilumia, it is the place to discover current trends and future fashion. Combined with Azuki's recent collaborations with fashion brands such as the limited edition clothing line with Japanese streetwear brand AMBUSH®, the XNOR-Assassins virtual sneakers in partnership with Meta Street Market, and the release of the PBT standard that supports on-chain physical items, we can boldly speculate that virtual fashion NFTs will be an important part of Azuki's development in the future Azuki metaverse.

Slowpoke's Toy Haven: a toy store that originally started as a small stall selling red bean and blue bean plush toys (which was also Azuki's airdrop project Beanz), but of course, it also produces other high-quality toys. However, the production time cannot be predicted (it is speculated that there may be new Azuki airdrops or derivative projects, and the toy store may also be a mint location).

9 Lives Arcade: A game hall. The official introduction states that it is a place that can connect fans of classic old games and modern game enthusiasts. Players can play games every day and there will be regular tournaments or events. It is foreseeable that Azuki will release a game platform, and the entire building's appearance and logo are cat-themed. Is it possible that the game theme is also related to cats?

In addition, there is a skateboarding enthusiast community called Golden Skate Park, which seems to be able to collect 9 gold skateboards. The Web3 version of "Single is Hell" Love Island has 64 Azuki residents living on a heart-shaped love island, and only 2 people can find their other half in the end. And community plans such as 56 Fitness and graffiti platform MODA, etc. It can be said that Azuki is slowly enriching its story and is executing its initial positioning to build the metaverse ecosystem.

Azuki's Four-part Metaverse

Actually, Hilumia is not the first attempt of Azuki Metaverse project. As early as June last year, Azuki launched an offline event called "Enter The Alley" at the world's largest NFT event NFT.NYC, showcasing various art installations, tattoo shops, physical peripherals, etc. The event was also the first exhibition under the World section of Azuki's official website, and Alley was defined as the gateway for Azuki holders to the future world, with many airdrop clues left inside the door.

Following July, Azuki's official website added a "The Ruins" game interface in the World section, but no further functions have been displayed. The only function is badges with different totems hanging on the stone tablet. Clicking on the badge will redirect to a personal profile page of an Azuki holder, where the holder can display the badges obtained, NFTs held, and participate in NFT airdrops and other activities. According to the official statement, the personal profile setting function is just the beginning, and more innovations will be explored with the development of the community, such as IP interaction, community interaction, and badges will continue to increase over time.

Today's launch of Hilumia is the third showcase under the World section. Of course, we also discovered a fourth plan, which is currently blank with no images or information displayed. However, after seeing Azuki's first three metaverse projects, we also saw Azuki integrate its past product series and technology updates into a new narrative, and all the characters in the Azuki metaverse found their own positions, waiting for the plot to unfold.

The atmosphere of the community, the creativity of the users, and the development of future stories are all growing upwards. It can be seen that Azuki is making some interesting attempts. And the upcoming fourth Azuki metaverse project may herald even more surprises.

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