Since its mint, Azuki, the popular anime NFT, has long been considered one of the highest-valued NFT collections on Ethereum. Their artwork, roadmap, and connection to Steve Aoki has caused the collection to prosper and garner a massive community that has weathered multiple issues within the NFT network and with their founder. 

After an uneventful summer, Chiru Labs - the founders of Azuki - has just come out with an eye-catching new announcement about a major innovation in NFT technology. It turns out that the team behind Azuki has been hard at work, developing a new way for the digital and physical world to meet by using physically-backed tokens. 

Physically backed tokens

A physically backed token is a new concept that reworks how physical items are attached to NFTs. Before this development, physical goods had to be locked inside a vault where they could be audited and registered with their associated NFTs. 

This new method turns the roles around, by placing a chip inside the physical item which is scannable and allows the user to receive the appropriate NFT directly to their wallet. This removes any need for a vault because the physical item itself must be in the possession of the owner first before the NFT can be claimed. 

The Bean Chip

Tomake this concept a reality, Chiru Labs teamed up with a group called Kong who worked on the technology. The chip, which is named after Beanz (a notable Azuki collection), is used similarly to a QR code and generates an asymmetric key pair that transfers the token from one wallet to another. 

This will help the collection grow from just a standard NFT group to something much more practical in the real world. However, plans by Kong do not end there. Their website (ARX) claims the bigger breakthrough will be bridging this utility to the metaverse where digital and physical goods have the potential to be recognized by a single token, allowing for easier management of physical and digital products. 

Bridging the digital and physical world

By using the new scan-to-own system, NFTs can take on a new life with additional value that transcends both the physical and digital worlds. By connecting it even further to the Metaverse there is additional potential for web3 to establish a new set of business models that revolutionize both the tech and consumer industries. 

The art world also has a lot to look forward to with this new technical innovation because it creates a new way for artists to continue providing goods to their holders through airdrop and other wallet services. 

Traditional art has, for a long time, lacked major innovation. New royalty structures and a borderless marketplace that is open 24/7 have allowed artists to reach new audiences with new genres of art that had been unthinkable in the past. 

Concerns about Azuki

All of this cannot be said without mentioning the criticism Azuki received earlier in the summer when their founder, Zagabound, came out and revealed that they had been responsible for a number of rug pulled projects before beginning on Azuki. 

Now that major FUD from that incident has been replaced with this innovative new technology, there’s a strong chance that Azuki will reinforce itself and become even stronger than before because the team has shown that there is no risk of them abandoning the project. 

What Makes Azuki Special?

Azuki has risen to fame as one of the best NFT collections available on the Ethereum network because of its stylized use of anime artwork. Further, the collection is connected to Steve Aoki which has propelled the value upwards because of the value he brings as a holder and member of the community. 

The project also has detailed plans to create a comic book to help spur the lore of Azuki as well as create clothes for holders to own. Overall, the project represents some of the best utilities and rewards in the NFT ecosystem.