Founder of popular Azuki project admits to past rug pulls

A human figure with brown-purple skin and blond hair tied back in a bun, holding a sword over her shoulder. She has a tattoo on her neck and the side of her face, and is wearing a parka with a furred collar.Azuki #2821 (attribution)
In a blog post titled "A Builder's Journey", the founder of the popular Azuki NFT project admitted that he had also been behind the NFT projects CryptoPhunks (note the "h"), Tendies, and CryptoZunks. CryptoPhunks were simply mirrored versions of the early CryptoPunks project. In his telling, he decided to "decentralize the [CryptoPhunks] project by handing over the reins to our community". Many, if not most, others consider CryptoPhunks to be a rug pull — abandoned by its founder in a betrayal of the community. The same is true for the other two projects that Zagabond admitted he ran.

This news came as a shock to many lovers of Azuki NFTs, pricey NFTs which regularly trade for 20–30 ETH (~$45,000–$70,000). Azuki is not without its own controversies, recently facing accusations of insider trading.