Azuki Launches Its Own Anime Studio
1️⃣ Azuki bets big on anime
Give or take, the size of the global anime market is currently around $50 billion, and it's growing fast.
As such, Azuki—the leading NFT brand in the anime vertical—is doubling down on making deeper content inroads here to meet this surging demand.
That's because this week the project announced Studio Azuki, a new U.S. animation house in collaboration with Japanese anime companies COMISMA and Xenotoon that will create IP "shaped by Azuki's creative DNA."
The minds behind Azuki and Animecoin also just announced the beta launch of anime.com, which is designed to be a go-to social and news platform for anime fans. Let's see if it catches on in the mainstream.
2️⃣ Farcade's rebrand
If you've done any exploring around the Farcaster mini apps scene, you've undoubtedly come across Farcade before.
Previously, it was a hub for arcade games, reaching +800 titles and over 18 million game sessions played. But the strict arcade focus is over now, as the project has refined its vision with its new rebrand to Remix.
With this shift, the mini app aims to become a hotspot for creating, remixing, and discovering games, with remixes powered by AI prompts. The project also has an airdrop coming up, so it's a good time to dive in if you haven't before.
3️⃣ Ethereum gets time capsules
To mark Ethereum’s 10th anniversary, the trifecta of EthCC, Protocol Guild, and Shutter Network rolled out an onchain project, the Ethereum Time Capsule, this week.
Having opened on June 30th, anyone can now visit the project's website and lock in art, memes, predictions, etc. for 0.001 ETH.
Then, after submissions close on July 30th, 2025, every entry will be sealed via Shutter's threshold encryption system. All the info will stay totally private until it's automatically decrypted on July 30th, 2026—Ethereum’s 11th birthday.
It's a fun cultural effort, and all proceeds raised go to Protocol Guild to support their development and research work around Ethereum. Give it a try sometime this month!
4️⃣ The Lolli acquisition
In other news, Bitcoin venture studio Thesis just acquired Lolli, the cashback BTC rewards app that pays out satoshis for purchases made via one of its +50,000 supported retailers.
The details of the deal haven't been disclosed, but it's a big pickup for Thesis. We can expect the team to integrate Lolli more deeply with its existing umbrella of projects, which include Fold and tBTC.
For now, Thesis is pausing transfers for 90 days amid the transition, though Lolli users have a revamped Arcade, new earning opportunities, and rapid withdrawals to look forward to after that.
5️⃣ A brand new Coop Recs
Coop Recs is an onchain record label, and it's one of the most interesting projects still powering on at the crossroads of music and crypto.
Take note, then, because this week the team just unveiled their revamped platform where fans can collect onchain songs without needing a wallet or crypto thanks to Privy and Crossmint respectively.
I'm still a big believer in the longterm potential of music x crypto, so it's great to see Coop Recs still experimenting and making strides here. Godspeed going forward.
