Written by: Leek, Foresight News
On December 16, according to OpenSea data, the floor price of NFT Pudgy Penguins broke through 34 ETH, currently reported at 34.2 ETH (approximately $137,000), with a 24-hour increase of 22.5%; its sub-series NFT Lil Pudgys broke through 4 ETH, currently reported at 4.24 ETH (approximately $17,000), with a 24-hour increase of 20.9%.
Notably, the Pudgy Penguins series has seen remarkable growth in this bull market, with OpenSea data showing its floor price rising from around 11ETH to 34ETH in the past month, equivalent to approximately 980,000 RMB; the market cap reached 300,000 ETH, approximately 1.19 billion USD as of the time of writing.
Image source: OpenSea
After the cryptocurrency bull market arrived, various sectors began to rotate, and the NFT sector also started to slowly take off.
On December 6, the blue-chip NFT project Pudgy Penguins announced that it would release its token PENGU in 2024. The total supply will be 88.88 billion tokens, launched on the Solana chain. Pudgy Penguins' parent company Igloo also stated that in addition to launching on Solana, the PENGU token plans to adopt a multi-chain approach, including launching on Ethereum and Abstract.
In terms of specific allocation, 25.9% of tokens will be allocated to the Pudgy community, 24.13% to other communities, 12.35% for liquidity, 11.48% to partners (with part unlocking after 1 year and linear unlocking over 3 years), 17.8% to the team, 4% for public sale, and 0.35% to FTT holders, while 4% will be used for Proliferation.
After the news was released, the floor price of the Pudgy Penguins series began to fluctuate, breaking through the 20ETH mark from 14ETH within two days, then surpassing the historical high of 23ETH, continuously refreshing its record. The floor price of its sub-series, Lil Pudgys, also rose to 2.45 ETH, setting a new historical high.
Meanwhile, the once-leading NFT Bored Ape series has seen its floor price drop to 19.88 ETH, and the floor price of its other NFT ancestor, CryptoPunks, has also fallen to 38.49ETH, soon to be caught up by Pudgy Penguins.
The Pudgy Penguins series has gone through lows to get to where it is today. It was initially launched by Cole Villemain and three other colleagues in 2021, themed around cute cartoon penguins, with a total of 8,888 unique NFTs. It quickly gained popularity after its launch in July 2021, becoming a hot collectible in the NFT market at that time.
However, the project experienced significant controversy in its early stages due to issues with the founding team's fund management and project development direction, leading to community skepticism and even a trust crisis. In 2022, against the backdrop of an overall decline in the NFT market, the popularity and floor price of Pudgy Penguins also fell, but everything changed after the new team led by internet entrepreneur Luca Netz took over.
In April 2022, Luca Netz purchased the project for 750 ETH (2.5 million USD). He reorganized the project's leadership and announced new growth plans. Under Luca Netz's leadership, Pudgy Penguins showed significant recovery in floor price and overall brand image.
Luca Netz successfully brought the Pudgy Penguins back into market focus by rebuilding community trust, launching brand merchandise, and empowering NFT holders. This not only led to a price rebound but also expanded its brand influence into the real world. In May 2023, Pudgy Toys were launched, available for purchase at Target, Walmart, and Amazon, making Pudgy Penguins the best-performing NFT series in the bear market, with its floor price reaching a historical high of 23ETH in early 2024.
However, there is a history of NFT series launching new tokens.
In March 2022, the then-leading NFT Bored Ape Yacht Club announced a 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 historical high of $28 at launch.
On 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, MFER's price surged, at one point exceeding $0.03. As of the time of writing, MFER's price is around $0.026.
Will other leading NFTs also choose to issue new 'Tokens' to rally?
On December 16, anonymous researcher Waleswoosh from the Azuki NFT series posted on platform X, asking, 'What would the market look like if the blue-chip NFT project CryptoPunks released PUNK tokens?'
Garga.eth (Greg Solano), co-founder of CryptoPunks' parent company Yuga Labs, responded, 'Wow! I never thought of that.'
