The reshuffle of the NFT market after its recovery: Fat Penguin to acquire OpenSea? PENGU craze erupts in South Korea.

As the NFT market gradually warms up, there are rumors that the popular project Pudgy Penguins will acquire the NFT exchange OpenSea, to which the team has come forward to deny. At the same time, their own token $PENGU has also sparked a frenzy on South Korea’s largest exchange Upbit, with daily volume surging and even surpassing DOGE (DOGE).

Pudgy Penguins Denies Acquisition of OpenSea: Focusing on Brand Management

In October last year, Pudgy Penguins CEO Luca Netz revealed in an interview that he “wanted to acquire OpenSea” and “bought a large project last December,” among other statements. Additionally, the sudden issuance of tokens by OpenSea after operating for more than four years sparked speculation in the community, leading to the belief that Pudgy Penguins may have quietly acquired OpenSea as early as the end of last year.

However, Pudgy Penguins’ security chief Beau clearly denied on X: “Pudgy Penguins did not acquire OpenSea, calm down. The scale we are planning is large, you don’t need to speculate on a single acquisition.”

Pudgy Penguins didn’t buy Opensea… chill.

The scale of things planned for the Penguin is so large that you need not speculate on a single acquisition.

Instead talk about partnering with Lufthansa and NASCAR, and go find the next great brand for us to proliferate with. pic.twitter.com/78ZmUZOyLe

— Beau (@beausecurity) July 26, 2025

He further pointed out that the team is currently focused on expanding brand influence rather than acquiring platforms. He also urged the community: “Instead of speculating about acquisitions, let’s talk about our collaborations with Lufthansa or NASCAR and see what other brands we can co-create ecosystems with.”

(Pudgy Penguins aims to achieve a revenue target of 50 million dollars this year. The CEO predicts that the NFT market will revive?)

This statement also shows that the Pudgy Penguins team is more inclined to expand the breadth of physical products and applications through brand collaborations, rather than acquiring and integrating platform markets, such as collaborating with PMI Toys to release the Pudgy Toys dolls, or launching the casual mini-game “Pengu Clash” on the TON chain, further extending the ecosystem and community engagement.

Fat Penguin Sweeps Korea: $PENGU Becomes the New Favorite of Local Exchanges

At the same time, Pudgy Penguins’ own Token $PENGU has also stirred up a frenzy in the Korean market. Lookonchain pointed out that, although DOGE’s market cap is 13 times that of PENGU, the recent volume of PENGU on South Korea’s largest exchange Upbit reached 136.4 billion Korean won ( about 100 million USD ), even surpassing the volume of DOGE.

The continuous accumulation of positions by local investors indicates that the brand’s influence in the Korean market is rapidly expanding, and it reflects the high enthusiasm of Korean users for low market cap Tokens and community-driven projects.

(Fat Pengu becomes a crypto enterprise favorite avatar, VanEck explains why it’s not BAYC: not discussing Web3 becomes key)

NFT Market Rebounds: Whales Sweep Up CryptoPunks Boosting Confidence

DappRadar data shows that the total market value of the NFT market has now rebounded to $6.6 billion, a significant growth of 94% compared to last month, with weekly trading volume also growing by more than 50%, marking the strongest rebound in the past six months.

This wave of revival is mainly driven by the legendary project CryptoPunks on Ethereum, with its floor price rising over 50% in a month. Including Ethereum reserve company GameSquare, BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes, and several on-chain whales are making large acquisitions, bringing vigorous vitality to the market.

(GameSquare, Arthur Hayes bought millions of dollars in CryptoPunks: Can NFTs serve as financial reserves? )

Pudgy Penguins’ clarification regarding the acquisition of OpenSea not only reaffirms its own development roadmap but also highlights the importance of brand management and community building. In the current resurgence of the NFT market after years of stagnation, we cannot help but witness a reshuffling of top blue-chip projects, once again proving the value and significance of physical businesses and loyal communities.

This article discusses the major reshuffle in the NFT market after its recovery: will Pengu acquire OpenSea? A PENGU craze has erupted in South Korea, first appearing in Chain News ABMedia.