A Fat Penguin Non-fungible Token worth 1 million RMB, to become the new "Big Brother"?

Author: Leek, Foresight News

On December 16th, according to OpenSea data, the floor price of NFT Pudgy Penguins has exceeded 34 ETH, currently at 34.2 ETH (about 137,000 USD), with a 24-hour increase of 22.5%; its sub-series NFT Lil Pudgys has exceeded 4 ETH, currently at 4.24 ETH (about 17,000 USD), with a 24-hour increase of 20.9%.

It is worth noting that the Pudgy Penguins series has seen a staggering increase in this bull market. According to OpenSea data, its floor price has risen from around 11 ETH to 34 ETH in the past month, equivalent to approximately 980,000 yuan. Its market value has reached 300,000 ETH, which is about 1.19 billion US dollars as of the time of writing.

Image source: OpenSea

After the bull market of cryptocurrency arrives, various sectors begin to rotate, and the NFT sector is also slowly launching.

On December 6th, NFT blue-chip project Pudgy Penguins announced that it will release its token PENGU within 2024. The total supply is 888.8 billion, released on the Solana chain. Pudgy Penguins’ parent company Igloo also mentioned that besides launching on Solana, the PENGU token plans to adopt multiple chains, including Ethereum and Abstract.

Specifically, 25.9% of the tokens will be allocated to the Pudgy community, 24.13% will be allocated to the remaining communities, 12.35% will be used for liquidity, 11.48% will be allocated to partners (partially unlocked after 1 year, linear unlocking after 3 years), 17.8% will be allocated to the team, 4% will be used for public sale, 0.35% will be allocated to FTT holders, and 4% will be used for Proliferation.

After the announcement, the floor price of Pudgy Penguins series began to fluctuate. It broke through the 20ETH mark within two days from 14ETH, and then broke the historical high of 23ETH, continuously refreshing the record. Its sub-series Lil Pudgys also followed suit, rising to 2.45 ETH, reaching a new historical high.

Meanwhile, the floor price of the former NFT leader Bored Ape Yacht Club series has dropped to 19.88 ETH, and the floor price of another NFT pioneer series CryptoPunks under the company has also dropped to 38.49 ETH, about to be surpassed by Pudgy Penguins.

The Pudgy Penguins series has also experienced a downturn to this day. It was originally launched by Cole Villemain and three other colleagues in 2021. It features cute cartoon penguin characters and consists of 8,888 unique NFTs. Since its launch in July 2021, it has quickly gained popularity and became a hot collectible in the NFT market at that time.

However, the project experienced significant controversy in its early stages, as the founding team’s issues with fund management and project direction were questioned by the community and even led to a crisis of trust at one point. In 2022, with the overall decline of the NFT market, the popularity and floor price of Fat Penguin also declined. However, everything turned around when a new team led by internet entrepreneur Luca Netz took over.

In April 2022, Luca Netz bought the project for 750 ETH (2.5 million dollars). He restructured the project’s leadership and announced a new growth plan. Under Luca Netz’s leadership, Pudgy Penguins has made significant recoveries in floor price and overall brand image.

By rebuilding community trust, launching brand peripheral products, and empowering NFT holders, Luca Netz has successfully regained market attention for Pudgy Penguin. Not only has it achieved a price rebound, but it has also expanded its brand influence to the real world. In May 2023, Pudgy Toys were launched and can be purchased at Target, Walmart, and Amazon, making Pudgy Penguin the best-performing NFT series in the bear market. Its floor price reached a historical high of 23 ETH in early 2024.

However, the release of new tokens in the NFT series has a long history.

In March 2022, the leading NFT project at the time, Bored Ape Yacht Club, announced its token launch, with 14% airdropped to the community. As of the time of writing, the Ape token is priced at $1.6, far from its all-time high of $28 at launch.

On the early morning of March 30, 2024, the founder of another NFT series, mfers, announced the launch of the meme coin MFER and airdropped it to mfer holders. Later that day, the price of MFER skyrocketed to over $0.03. As of the time of writing, the price of MFER is around $0.026.

Will other NFT leaders also choose to launch “Tokens” to boost the market?

On December 16th, Azuki NFT anonymous researcher Waleswoosh posted on X platform, ‘What would the market look like if blue-chip NFT project CryptoPunks released PUNK tokens?’

CryptoPunks parent company Yuga Labs co-founder Garga.eth (Greg Solano) responded, “Wow! I never thought about it.”