Welcome to the OpenSea digest. Let’s look back through the biggest NFT and web3 news of the week.

Azuki Launches Third Collection, Azuki Elementals

This week, Azuki launched their third collection, Azuki Elementals. Elementals is a new collection of PFPs, 10,000 of which were airdropped to holders as Elemental Beans and another 10,000 of which were to be sold via Dutch auction, starting at 2 ETH.

By June 27th, the date of the mint, hype was at an all-time high but quickly, some issues arose. Holders of the original Azuki collection NFTs and related collection, Beanz NFTs, were each given a 10-minute window to purchase their Elemental NFTs before the public sale began, and all 10,000 NFTs sold out during the presale window. There were reportedly minting bugs that meant holders who were qualified to mint weren’t able to, likely due to high traffic. And perhaps most controversially to many in the community, the Elementals artwork looked very similar to the original Azuki collection’s art, prompting negative sentiment from some community members. Despite this, Chiru Labs, the company behind the collections, made about 20,000 ETH on the sale of Elementals.

On June 28th, the Azuki team tweeted a response to the issues, saying, “It’s always both challenging & exciting opening up the gate to the Garden. This time, we missed the mark. We hear you - the mint process was hectic, the PFPs feel similar and, even worse, dilutive to Azuki.”

What’s next for Azuki? Only time will tell, though as of June 28th, it appears as if they’re airdropping holders mysterious green beans.

Cool Cats Announces Ecosystem Changes

During a Town Hall this week, Cool Cats announced that they are “focused on bringing [our] global brand to life in elevated ways  – including partnering with notable game developers to release 3 games in the upcoming year and upgrading our Cool Pets collection.”

First up, Cool Pets will be eligible to be upgraded to new companions this summer.  The new companions include new artwork, future utility in the Cool Cats ecosystem (though the utility has not yet been specified), and expanded character development. 

Next, they have discontinued active generation of $MILK as of July 27th, 2023, and plan to provide a final burn event later this summer for those who burn the rest of their $MILK.

And finally, existing Cooltopia items (Pet Questing and Cat Gathering) will reportedly have future utility in the upcoming avatar system.

Cool Cats is intent on continuing to build the brand into a “global storytelling character brand that people know and love,” and with these new changes, it seems like they’re on their way.

Nouns DAO and Atrium Reveal Part One of New Movie: The Rise of Blus

Nouns DAO has funded its first feature-length movie, The Rise of Blus, produced by the animation studio, Atrium. On June 21, Atrium Animation posted The Rise of Blus: A Nouns Movie Part 1 to YouTube where it was met with a flurry of positive comments like, “Wow this is so beautiful! Amazing work guys!” and “Let’s goooo! I need an IMAX 3D version of this!”

The movie is set in the floating cloud city of Blus and centers on a 13-year-old Noun who discovers a plan set in motion by the city’s aristocrats. Together with a group of other Nouns, he must protect the city and his friends. 

The movie is utilizing Unreal Engine 5, a 3D creation tool used by video games, film and television shows, and more. It’s being co-directed by HKJay and Zen Doubt.

This is a big moment for NFTs as this is reported to be the first-ever animated film to be funded by a DAO. And while this is the first of its kind, we could be seeing more open-source IP make its way from web3 to the big screen in the coming years.