Who said Azukis were dead? The legacy NFT project has had it’s quiet periods, but has found a new wind this past week catering to some of it’s most loyal and dedicated audience. Azuki whales stepped up and showed out with the projects latest auction, ‘Proof of Skate.’ Eight ‘gold skateboard’ NFTs – sold as an Azuki NFT with a physical pairing – sold at over 200 ETH each.

Let’s dive into the details around eight of the most expensive skateboards in history that were sold over the weekend.

Azukis Eight Gold Skateboard NFTs

Price tags ranged between 200 ETH and 309 ETH for the eight winning skateboards, with bidding wrapping up over the weekend through a 24 hour auction. Azukis posted a recap of the winners and shared that the skateboards would be rolling out next month:

The boards were built through Azukis leadership team at Chiru Labs, who helped implement a physical tracking chip to make the token a “physically backed token” – or PBT. Each board carried a unique engraved emblem within a 40+ pound deck, trucks and wheels fully coated with 24K gold.

They are widely considered to be the eight most expensive skateboards in history (and the first six-figure value skateboards) with present ETH valuations pricing them between a quarter million and a half million dollars each. Top bidder ‘dingalingts’ is a large Azuki holder and a household name for NFT collectors – with a sizable previous presence in Top Shot, as his name alludes.

Azukis new collection of eight gold skateboards yielded over 1,800 ETH over the weekend over a 24 hour auction. | Source: ETH-USD on TradingView.com

A Golden Opportunity?

The sale for Azukis comes at an interesting time for NFTs; a bear market has been in essentially full swing – persisting throughout much of crypto for a good portion of this calendar year, with no end in sight. Yet, big name blue chip NFT projects have consistently held their strength, and Azukis is seemingly no exception. It also comes at a time when non-blue chip NFTs are gaining interest across non-Ethereum blockchains, including the likes of Solana, Avalanche, Cardano, Hedera, and more.

It’s another timely example of how valuable building such a dedicated audience can be. NFT collections continue to show a strength of being the ‘future of communities’ in some capacity, and Azukis ability to drive such substantial investments from such a niche audience in the big picture deserves its respect.