Written by: Nancy, PANews
On the evening of December 17, the highly anticipated leading NFT project Pudgy Penguins announced its launch and initiated an airdrop, which has already received over 100,000 claims. The high traffic temporarily caused the claim API to malfunction, and after a brief pause, the airdrop has now resumed. Binance data shows that the opening price of the PENGU token reached a maximum of $0.07, with a fully diluted valuation (FDV) peaking at $6.2 billion, although the current price has since retreated.
According to the airdrop eligibility inquiry, users can add multiple wallet addresses for inquiry at once, including Pudgy Penguin series NFT holders, Ethereum/Solana OG players, L2 Abstract Enjoyers, and various chain Explorers can all receive airdrops of the PENGU tokens, with more eligibility conditions leading to more airdrop quantities.
From the user feedback, in addition to NFT holders reaping substantial profits of tens of thousands to millions of dollars, some veteran players have also opened multiple addresses to win a hefty 'pork trotter rice,' while others have found 'nothing' after checking dozens of addresses. Besides the high returns from the airdrop, experienced traders have also made huge profits through on-chain arbitrage. According to Lookonchain monitoring, a trader made a profit of 36,984 SOL (about $8.36 million) by trading PENGU in less than 20 minutes. Additionally, a whale is buying in bulk; Lookonchain monitored that a certain whale spent 15,300 SOL (approximately $3.46 million) to purchase 6.47 million PENGU tokens at an average price of $0.053.
It is worth mentioning that, according to on-chain analyst Ai Yi, the wallets associated with the PENGU project party (or early investors) are currently conducting large-scale on-chain sell-offs, having sold PENGU worth $8.74 million.
During this airdrop frenzy, Pudgy Penguins not only successfully drove up the price of its NFTs but also further expanded its community and ecological influence. However, the benefits brought by the airdrop have also triggered a lot of speculative behavior, causing dissatisfaction within the community.
Boosting NFT prices and expanding the community through the airdrop activity
With a flexible airdrop mechanism and a broad token distribution strategy, Pudgy Penguins has attracted significant attention in recent times and actively expanded its community size and ecological influence.
On one hand, unlike most projects that determine airdrop eligibility through snapshots, Pudgy Penguins' airdrop has no time limit; the PENGU token is distributed to relevant NFTs as soon as they go live, and holders have 88 days to apply. This flexible airdrop mechanism has also led to a massive rush for Pudgy Penguins series NFTs, injecting strong upward momentum into their prices.
NFT Price Floor data shows that from the announcement of the token issuance plan on December 6 to the official launch, the floor price of Pudgy Penguins increased by a maximum of 133.6%, while Lil Pudgys rose by 165.7%. Meanwhile, sales volume for the Pudgy Penguin series also surged, with CryptoSlam statistics indicating that Pudgy Penguins' sales exceeded $54 million during this period, and Lil Pudgys reached $22.6 million.
On the other hand, Pudgy Penguins hopes to expand its community through airdrops. The PENGU token economic model shows that in addition to the 25.9% of the total token supply allocated to the Pudgy community, other communities will receive 24.12% of the tokens. According to Pudgy Penguins, the Solana ecosystem can receive about 25% of the PENGU token supply airdrop, allowing active users of applications like Phantom Wallet and Jupiter to receive airdrops even without holding NFTs. The number of wallet addresses in this part is about 7 million, covering multiple protocol users and community members.
Additionally, in expanding its ecological scale, Pudgy Penguins' tokens have adopted a multi-chain deployment strategy. In addition to being deployed on Solana, they will also be launched on Ethereum and the anticipated Layer 2 network Abstract Chain. Pudgy Penguins' parent company Igloo stated that this move aims to build the largest on-chain community and expand the audience for the Pudgy Penguins ecosystem through multi-chain deployment.
Airdrops have triggered a surge in speculation for physical toys, and the theft of QR codes has caused dissatisfaction
Although the Pudgy Penguins airdrop activity incentivized community members and promoted ecological development, it also sparked speculation chaos. With the IP derivative toys Pudgy Toys included in the airdrop targets, this toy quickly attracted a lot of attention from speculators and became a target for their rush to purchase.
'I just hired a group of kids to help me shop at Walmart, and I can't wait for my airdrop.' 'I got a free 10x airdrop from Pudgy Penguin toys that no one wanted at Walmart. I spent $1,000 on this experiment and might buy more. I'll donate these toys to children at Christmas. Regardless of the outcome, it's a win-win situation.' 'I ordered 10,000 penguin toys priced at $20 each from Amazon, and if each toy airdrops $100, returning these toys would yield a $1 million profit with no cost.'
Pudgy Toys were snatched up
On social platforms, speculators are sharing their 'harvest' of purchasing Pudgy Penguin toys, attempting to profit by hoarding Pudgy Toys on a large scale. Compared to the risks of financial losses caused by purchasing high-premium NFTs for airdrops, buying physical toys can yield considerable gains.
Driven by profit motives, many speculators have resorted to exploiting the QR codes inside Pudgy Penguin toys (which grant access to Pudgy World) and even resorted to theft to profit, an action that strays from the original cultural and emotional value of Pudgy Penguins and has sparked controversy and criticism.
'$PENGU is about to be issued, and toys across North America are almost sold out. Is anyone willing to buy these QR codes?' Some users are selling Pudgy Penguin toys' QR codes at high prices. Others have stated that penguin toys ordered from Walmart are missing QR codes or toys in some boxes.
Pudgy Toys QR code was damaged
According to a post by Mask founder Suji, 'Today, in a New York store, Web2.5 users wanted to purchase some Pudgy Penguin toys, but found that several packaging boxes had been opened and the attached QR codes had been stolen. These toys were originally prepared for those who truly love Pudgy Penguins. Even if many people accidentally lost their QR codes, they still enjoyed the fun. However, with the launch of the airdrop, Degens flooded into the stores and behaved irresponsibly. This behavior is theft, and the entire crypto community should condemn these actions. Please leave the Pudgy Penguin toys for those who truly love them.'
Overall, the Pudgy Penguins airdrop activity has brought significant ecological expansion and market heat to the project. However, how to balance cultural spirit and community values while promoting economic incentives has become an important topic that Pudgy Penguins and other crypto projects need to think deeply about and pay attention to in their long-term construction.
