Azuki NYC gang rise up ⛩️🗽 Had this piece done by @FuchuGeiju to celebrate my time with @AzukiNYC Some of these people I’ve know for years and am grateful to call friends for life ❤️

harmony save us all 💊

We're going to see more high quality entertainment content created in the next three years than in the previous thirty combined. The question is: who captures that value? We believe the answer is a new class of creator we call AI-native storytellers. These aren't traditional studios. They're not influencers making vlogs. They're solo creators or small teams, often just two or three people, building franchise-quality IP from their laptops. They think in characters and worlds, not posts and thumbnails. They're building things designed to compound over decades, not go viral for a week. And they're emerging right now. You see them on X, on YouTube, on TikTok, building audiences around original characters, lore, animated series. The creative quality is indistinguishable from what studios produce. The only difference is they're doing it from their bedrooms. This is the creator class we're building for. And we're building for them by being one of them first.

I hear you and I want to respond thoughtfully because I respect your passion and all that we've been through together First, I want to clarify something important. I never said we were absolutely done with fashion or web3 or that Azuki wouldn’t do things like being part of Paris FW. What I said, and what I still believe, is that Azuki has to operate first and foremost as a real IP business, and the TCG is the core product that has to work financially. If we don’t nail that, we don’t have a sustainable business, and without a sustainable business, Azuki as we know it won't exist. We're being intentional about building for the long term. I talked about this in my last discord message and garden gathering, and in the last spaces with you as well. I really do understand why this direction may feel like a shift away from the version of Azuki you originally fell in love with. In the early days, Azuki leaned more heavily into community participation and co-creation. And like I've mentioned, if trading volumes and royalties on NFTs remained the same as it did 4 yrs ago, I'd be fucking ecstatic to go back to that exact playbook. But let's be real... times have changed. At this stage of building a breakout IP, co-creation at the core simply does not work from a commercial standpoint. That doesn’t mean I don’t admire or support the community artists and builders. I stand by the team's track record of supporting the community. we've sacrificed a lot and poured our heart and soul into the community. But the only way we can support that ecosystem long term is if the core Azuki IP is strong, focused, and profitable. That requires saying no to a lot of things we used to do. "But you can surely do all the above, why do you have to choose a focus?!"... I'm not saying you've said this but I've heard this plenty of times from others. My answer is, If it's that easy you go do it then! And to their credit, some ppl actually have, and they've all failed. I usually get a dm afterwards like "man you were right, this shit is so hard..." And when I look at their strategy, it's always been unfocused. There are so many distractions in this space and it's easy to fall into the trap of trying to do everything. Sorry, tangent... back to your note I know you’ve said before that you don’t think the TCG is cool. That's fine I know it's not for everyone, but I strongly disagree. I think it’s really fucking cool... but I'm just a nerd who's AIM handle back in the day was literally "magiccards515" (real) so what do I know. It's all subjective but I think we’ve been doing cool shit this whole time. it just might not be your flavor and that’s okay. But minimizing the work because it doesn’t personally resonate misses the fact that a lot of people do resonate with it (see the response from the TCG invitational), and most importantly it’s building something durable that proliferates the IP that all the holders own a piece of with our PFPs. You can choose not to celebrate a moment like what we just had in Paris. But I'm fucking celebrating lmao. AZUKI WAS ON THE RUNWAY IN PARIS!!! We turned steamboy's art, our PFPs, into a medium during fashion's biggest cultural moment. Idc what anyone thinks. No one can take that away from us. Anyways, it's all love brother. You don’t have to change your mind. Just wanted you and everyone else reading this to know that what we're after now is giving Azuki the best chance to be a massive IP that we all know it has the potential of becoming. And with the focus we have right now, I know we'll succeed. AZUKI ON TOP