Azuki developer Cygaar_dev has jokingly written code that would prevent Steve Aoki from buying NFT projects — to avoid the “Aoki curse.”
NFT project owners, tired of @steveaoki buying into your project and dropping the floor? Here’s a couple lines of code you can add to your contract to prevent this from happening. With this code in place he’ll never be able to hurt you or your holders. pic.twitter.com/3Xb4iC5eND
— cygaar (@cygaar_dev) August 10, 2022
In an August 10 tweet, the Azuki developer told NFT project owners who are tired of seeing Aoki buy into their projects and the floor price dropping to add the code to their contract.
“With this code in place he’ll never be able to hurt you or your holders.”
Meanwhile, NFT projects like Edgehogs have also jokingly included codes to prevent Aoki from buying their project.
Hey @steveaoki we heard you’re famous for bringing bad luck to #NFT projects.
We have taken care of that 😂 pic.twitter.com/LfXqNYicFG
— Edͩgeͤhͪoͦgs ⛓🦔 (@EdgehogsNFT) April 29, 2022
What is the Aoki Curse?
According to community members, the floor price of an NFT collection tends to drop whenever the celebrity DJ announces its purchase.
The scenario has played out several times, which has led to the NFT community calling the phenomenon a “curse”
For example, after Aoki bought the Moonbirds NFTs, the floor price of the collection tanked from over 30 ETH to 22 ETH.
The same situation played out when he bought Azuki NFTs. The collection had a peak floor price of 36 ETH, which fell significantly after Aoki revealed he had purchased the collection.
Is the Aoki Curse real?
While some within the community think the Aoki curse is real, the decline in value of most of the NFTs he bought is explainable.
In the case of the Azuki NFTs, Aoki aped into the collection around the same period the collection’s founder publicly admitted that he had abandoned three different projects before creating Azuki.
Meanwhile, some of his purchases happened during the thick of the industry-wide crypto market crash alongside the decline in NFT trading activity. All of this played a role in the declining value of some of these NFT collections.
Aoki remains an avid NFT collector
Despite the myth about his NFT acquisitions, Aoki remains a top NFT collector with projects like Azuki, Bored Apes, Moonbirds, Goblintown, 3Landers, etc., in his collection.
Besides being an avid collector, Aoki also has his own NFT avatar collection on The Sandbox. Before that, he launched the Dream Catcher series and created the A0K1VERSE.