Written by: Leek, Foresight News
On December 16, according to OpenSea data, the floor price of NFT Pudgy Penguins has surpassed 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 has surpassed 4 ETH, currently reported at 4.24 ETH (approximately $17,000), with a 24-hour increase of 20.9%.
It is worth noting that the Pudgy Penguins series has seen remarkable growth in this bull market, with OpenSea data showing that its floor price has risen from around 11 ETH to 34 ETH in the past month, approximately 980,000 RMB; and its market capitalization has reached 300,000 ETH, equivalent to about $1.19 billion as of press time.
Image source: OpenSea
After the onset of the cryptocurrency bull market, various sectors began to rotate, and the NFT sector is also slowly starting up.
On December 6, the NFT blue-chip 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 the tokens will be allocated to the Pudgy community, 24.13% will be allocated to other communities, 12.35% will be used for liquidity, 11.48% will be allocated to partners (partially unlocked after 1 year of lock-up, with linear unlocking over 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 news was released, the floor price of the Pudgy Penguins series began to move abnormally, breaking through the 20 ETH mark within two days from 14 ETH, and then breaking the historical high of 23 ETH, continuously refreshing the record. Its sub-series Lil Pudgys floor price also rose to 2.45 ETH, setting a new historical high.
Meanwhile, the floor price of the once-leading NFT series Bored Ape Yacht Club has fallen to 19.88 ETH, and the floor price of another NFT ancestor under the same company, CryptoPunks, has also dropped to 38.49 ETH, soon to be caught up by Pudgy Penguins.
The Pudgy Penguins series has also experienced 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 penguin images, with a total of 8,888 unique NFTs. It quickly became popular 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 days, as the founding team faced community questions regarding fund management and project direction, even facing a trust crisis at one point. In 2022, amid an overall decline in the NFT market, the popularity and floor price of Pudgy Penguins also dropped, but everything changed when a 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 restructured the project's leadership and announced a new growth plan. Under Luca Netz's leadership, Pudgy Penguins has seen significant recovery in floor price and overall brand image.
Luca Netz has successfully regained market attention for the Pudgy Penguins by rebuilding community trust, launching brand peripheral products, and empowering NFT holders, which not only achieved 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 and Walmart stores as well as on Amazon, making Pudgy Penguins the best-performing NFT series during the bear market, with its floor price reaching a historic high of 23 ETH in early 2024.
However, there is a history of NFT series releasing new tokens.
In March 2022, the then-leading NFT Bored Ape Yacht Club announced the issuance of tokens, with 14% airdropped to the community. As of press time, the Ape token is priced at $1.6, far from its opening historical high of $28.
In the early hours 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, MFER's price surged to over $0.03. As of press time, MFER's price is around $0.026.
Will other leading NFTs also choose to issue new 'tokens' to pump their prices?
On December 16, Azuki NFT series anonymous researcher Waleswoosh posted on platform X, stating, '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 about that.'
