The newly launched PENGU token has stolen the spotlight by becoming the largest Solana-based meme coin by market cap.
The token's rebound has attracted significant interest from large investors, who have made substantial investments in the token over the past few days. The new Solana token stole the spotlight on December 17, when the Pudgy Penguins non-fungible token (NFT) project launched its official token PENGU on the Solana blockchain. The token has come a long way, flipping other Solana-based tokens and garnering widespread attention within 9 days.
The Chubby Penguins are one of the largest NFT collections, consisting of 8,888 unique cute penguin cartoons, with a market cap of 205,757 ETH. In anticipation of the token release, the project surged to become the second largest NFT collection, only behind CryptoPunks. According to the project team, the community has seen significant growth since its launch three years ago, solidifying itself 'in the hearts of ordinary people and culture.'
Furthermore, although specific use cases have not yet been announced, it is expected to contribute to the governance of the project. Therefore, the newly launched cryptocurrency aims to 'expand its community and further broaden the project's reach' by allowing new and old users to 'ally' with penguins. According to CoinGecko data, the Solana-based meme coin surged 500% upon debut, reaching a market cap of $3.5 billion, followed by huge volatility in the following days. Just hours after launch, PENGU's price retraced by over 50%, then fell to a market cap of $1.4 billion on December 20.
The token hovered between $0.025 and $0.037 for several days, stabilizing near the upper limit of that range on Christmas Eve. Whales filled their bags as PENGU flipped BONK during the market's brief Christmas surge, breaking through this range and climbing to the $0.042 mark on Thursday morning, with a market cap of $2.6 billion. In this 18% rebound, the token flipped dogwifhat (WIF) and BONK, becoming the largest Solana meme coin by market cap and currently maintaining its leadership status in the sector.
By this metric, PENGU has become the fourth largest meme coin, following Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, and PEPE. Additionally, the token's market activity increased by 25% in the last 24 hours, with a daily trading volume of $1.92 billion.
PENGU has become the largest Solana meme coin. Source: CoinGecko
According to data from on-chain analytics firm Lookonchain, crypto whales have also noticed PENGU's rebound, with several large investors filling their bags over the past week.
On December 24, a whale that received 116.7 million PENGU airdropped (worth $3.52 million) increased its position with a $1 million purchase. According to the post, the wallet spent 5,250 SOL to additionally purchase 34.42 million PENGU, holding a total of 151.12 million PENGU worth $5.08 million. Similarly, another whale exchanged 500,000 ai16z (another popular Solana-based meme coin) for PENGU today. Over the past eight days, this investor spent $2.47 million to purchase 79.9 million PENGU, with unrealized profits of approximately $835,000. At the time of writing, PENGU's trading price is $0.036.
