The proposal to sue the founder has received 88.35% approval votes. Does Azuki have a future?

88.35% of approval votes received for suing the founder. Future of Azuki uncertain.

Author | Morii

Editor | Marco

Techub News Original (ID: TechubNews)

Azuki is currently experiencing the story of the founder being expelled from the community.

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1. Lawsuit proposal passed

After Chiru Labs, the developer of Azuki, transferred 20,000 ETH from the Elementals auction to Coinbase Prime, on July 1, community diamond members successively established 20,000E DAO and Azuki DAO, and initiated proposals on snapshot.

The proposal is as follows:

1. Hire a lawyer to sue Zagabond, accusing him of running away from multiple projects;

2. Recover the 20,000 ETH payment from the team and distribute it to the DAO for community development, and provide incentives for artists, content creators, and builders;

3. Azuki DAO provides funding support to 20,000E DAO, and the funds will be used to establish a litigation research team.

On July 3, this proposal was passed with a support rate as high as 88.35%.

Not Larva Labs founder Jeremy Cahen tweeted on NFT platform, “I am happy to help Azuki DAO take legal action against Azuki co-founder Zagabond. He is a pathological fraudster and serial criminal. My colleagues and I spent more than a year tracking him to recover the funds he defrauded, worth 3 million USDC. He and his team fraudulently obtained funds worth more than 100 million U.S. dollars from our community. I am willing to testify in court about all of this, and I also have complete personal information of many team members who participated in these frauds.”

On July 3, Techub News requested Jeremy Cahen to verify the specific information he mentioned on Twitter, but did not receive a reply.

2. Azuki founder is accused of being a habitual runaway criminal

In fact, Jeremy Cahen’s mockery of Azuki founder Zagabond has never stopped. At the beginning of this year, when Azuki released a New Year’s animation video, Jeremy Cahen tweeted that although Zagabond is a habitual runaway criminal, Azuki may not be, because this time he made an animation for Azuki.

Before this, Jeremy Cahen was regarded as a public enemy of the community supporters for mocking Azuki many times.

Jeremy Cahen refers to the serial rug puller Zagabond, who launched three NFT projects – CryptoPhunks, Tendies, and CryptoZunks – before founding Azuki, all of which were rug pulled a few weeks after launch.

Rug pull refers to the act of project founders selling their holdings and then abandoning the project after it takes off, with the aim of taking all the funds from investors, which is known as running away in Chinese context.

For example, CryptoPhunks, founded in 2021, is a royalty-free NFT project that has only one letter difference from the famous NFT project CryptoPunks. It was initially narrated as a royalty-free decentralized project. According to Twitter user @huckleberrygump, shortly after the project was founded, Zagabond changed the royalty to 5% and then raised the price of NFTs through “wash trading” to make a profit of more than $3 million.

“Wash trading” refers to the rapid and continuous buying and selling of the same asset to raise its price.

“And then the project ended.” wrote @huckleberrygump.

Chopper, a new member of the CryptoPhunks team, revealed that on the 68th day after the royalty was changed, Zagabond exchanged more than 310 ETH for USDC on an exchange. Soon after, the royalty was reset to 0%.

Similarly, Tendies and CryptoZunks were NFT projects that ended shortly after they began.

On May 9, 2022, Zagabond wrote an article entitled “A Builder’s Journey” in response to these allegations. In the article, he admitted to being the creator of the three projects CryptoPhunks, Tendies, and CryptoZunks, but said that they were all created to pave the way for Azuki’s success.

Unexpectedly, the article caused a huge uproar, and the market did not buy his explanation. The floor price of Azuki dropped from 17 ETH to 12 ETH, and the BEANZ companion series dropped from around 2.5 ETH to 1.35 ETH.

While accusing Zagabond of having a rug pull history, people also discovered that he still retained control of the smart contracts for the first three projects while operating Azuki.

In order to quell the controversy, Zagabond announced that he would transfer ownership of the smart contracts for the first three projects. However, he denied accusations of wash trading, etc.

With the influence of the Azuki and BEANZ brands and the loyalty of the community, Azuki’s floor price rebounded to 15.5 ETH and BEANZ’s floor price rose to 2.15 ETH, with a trading volume of over 10,000 ETH in 24 hours.

However, this time the proposal for prosecution passed, which means that Zagabond has completely lost the trust of the community.

3. Can the prosecution succeed

In fact, Jeremy Cahen may be the one who knows best how much it will cost for 20000E DAO and Azuki DAO to successfully sue Zagabond.

Jeremy Cahen (@Blockinguly) was sued for trademark infringement by the official team of Bored Ape Yacht Club Yuga labs because he and artist Ryder Ripps released a set of NFTs called Ryder Ripps Bored Ape Yacht Club (RR/BAYC) to satirize Bored Ape Yacht Club’s fascist tendencies and racism.

According to the ruling issued by the California District Court on August 15, 2022, the lawsuit filed by Yuga labs for trademark infringement was dismissed.

Jeremy Cahen stated on Twitter that the $4 billion Yuga labs will pay for all of his legal fees, and by then, Yuga labs may go bankrupt.

Netizens asked him how much he had actually spent under his Twitter, but Cahen did not respond.

@CancelledBlockingpi stated that as a web3 lawyer who is familiar with copyright law, bankruptcy law, securities law, and even worked at the US SEC, it is a difficult challenge for the community to successfully sue Zagabond. For him, if he receives this job, he must first transform into a developer.

At the same time, some crypto enthusiasts are questioning the authenticity and intentions of Azuki DAO.

Nfty Finance founder @Tytaninc wrote on Twitter: “The voting token was minted two days ago.” That is to say, they may not have voted with Azuki or BEANZ, and it is even unknown whether they hold Azuki or BEANZ.

At the same time, some netizens accused Jeremy Cahen of having a history of improper profiteering in token trading, so they believe that his evidence is not necessarily credible.