ANIME: Everything You Need to Know About the Azuki-Linked Ethereum Token and Airdrop

The anime industry is booming, and is projected to grow to $60 billion by 2030. Yet, despite its massive popularity, the AnimeCoin Foundation sees a significant opportunity to tap into fans who have remained passive consumers of the art form.

Intending to build an open and decentralized anime universe, the AnimeCoin Foundation is launching ANIME, a token designed better to align incentives between creators and fans of the genre. 

Here’s everything you need to know about ANIME before its launch, which is scheduled for later this month. 

What is ANIME?

ANIME is described as a “culture coin” dropping on Ethereum and the Arbitrum layer-2 network.

Launched by the AnimeCoin Foundation, ANIME will hold a total supply of 10 billion tokens, more than 50% of which will be given to the Web3 community, headlined by its premier launch partner, Azuki—a prominent NFT collection and crypto-native IP.

Of the 10 billion token supply, nearly 77% will be unlocked immediately for trading upon launch.

When is ANIME dropping? 

The ANIME token will launch on January 23, 2025.

Who will get the ANIME airdrop? 

The ANIME token supply will be distributed in six distinct buckets, allocating more than 5 billion or 50% of the total supply to the Web3 community. 

Azuki community

The largest allocation of ANIME, 37.5%, is set aside for claiming by the Azuki community.

As the premier launch partner of ANIME, it is expected that holders of all three significant NFT collections—Azuki, Azuki Elementals, and BEANZ Official—will be eligible to claim the ANIME token. 

Though no specifics were provided about the allocations afforded to each NFT from the Azuki community, the project has long utilized a points system or “Collector’s Status” within its user profiles. This program will play a role in current and future Azuki ecosystem rewards. 

Any unclaimed ANIME tokens from this group will be added to the “Community Cultivation” basket.

Domain expansion

The second-largest bucket of ANIME tokens is reserved for the AnimeCoin Foundation and its domain expansion efforts at 24.44%.

This serves to boost the growth of the ANIME ecosystem by funding “grant programs, launch operations, ongoing foundation operations, and initiatives designed to bridge the gap between AnimeCoin and the broader anime industry,” the Foundation said. 

The 2.444 billion tokens from this allocation will be fully unlocked at launch. 

Team and advisors

The Azuki team, contractors, early advisors, and contributors to the AnimeCoin Foundation will receive 15.62% or 1.562 billion ANIME tokens. This group of tokens is subject to a one-year cliff, meaning they cannot be transferred or sold in the first year. 

The tokens will unlock over three years, and unlocked tokens can be sold after the one-year cliff. 

Community cultivation

A second community tranche is set aside for the “Community cultivation” bucket, comprised of 1.3 billion ANIME tokens or 13% of the total supply. 

Holders of ANIME tokens and participants of the eventual AnimeDAO will control this set of tokens. Those participants can manage this 13% to fund community initiatives. 

While the starting allocation is 1.3 billion ANIME tokens, this percentage could grow pending any unclaimed tokens from the Azuki ecosystem bucket.

Company allocation

An additional 7.44% of the supply is set aside for the Azuki company, beholden to a one-year cliff and three-year vesting period. 

Partner communities

A final 200 million ANIME tokens, or 2%, will be allocated for other Web3 communities, including Hyperliquid (HYPE) token stakers, users of analytics platform Kaito and its yaps program, Arbitrum communities, as well as as-yet-unrevealed projects that align with the AnimeCoin vision. 

Details about specific communities included in this allocation are expected soon. 

How to claim ANIME

No formal details have been provided about the ANIME claim, yet the AnimeCoin Foundation included a disclaimer that no new domains outside of anime.xyz will be used for the token generation event (TGE).

Edited by Andrew Hayward

Editor’s note: This story was originally published on January 16, 2025 and last updated with new details on January 17.