Pudgy Penguins is just one step away from catching up with CryptoPunks.

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 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 astonishing growth during this bull market; OpenSea data shows that its floor price has risen from around 11 ETH to 34 ETH in the past month, approximately 980,000 RMB; the market capitalization has reached 300,000 ETH, which is about $1.19 billion as of the time of publication.

Image source: OpenSea

After the arrival 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 is 88.88 billion tokens, to be launched on the Solana chain. Pudgy Penguins' parent company Igloo also stated that besides 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% to the remaining community, 12.35% for liquidity, 11.48% to partners (partially unlocked after a 1-year lock-up, with 3-year linear unlocking), 17.8% to the team, 4% for public sale, 0.35% to FTT holders, and 4% for Proliferation.

After the announcement, the floor price of the Pudgy Penguins series began to soar, breaking through 20 ETH from 14 ETH within two days. Following the news, the floor price began to show unusual movement, breaking the historical high of 23 ETH and continuously setting new records. Its sub-series Lil Pudgys' floor price also rose to 2.45 ETH, creating a new historical high.

Meanwhile, the floor price of the once-leading NFT Bored Ape series has dropped to 19.88 ETH, and the floor price of another NFT pioneer under the company, CryptoPunks, has also fallen to 38.49 ETH, about to be caught up by Pudgy Penguins.

The Pudgy Penguins series has also experienced lows along the way. It was initially launched by Cole Villemain and three other colleagues in 2021, themed around cute cartoon penguins, consisting of 8,888 unique NFTs. After its release in July 2021, it quickly gained popularity, becoming a hot collectible in the NFT market at the time.

However, the project experienced significant controversy in its early stages due to questions from the community regarding the founding team's management of funds and project development direction, even falling into a trust crisis for a time. In 2022, amid a general decline in the NFT market, the popularity and floor price of Pudgy Penguins also dropped. However, this all changed when 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). He restructured the project's leadership and announced new growth plans. Under Luca Netz's leadership, Pudgy Penguins has significantly recovered in both floor price and overall brand image.

Luca Netz successfully regained market attention for Pudgy Penguins 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. Pudgy Toys were launched in May 2023 and can be purchased at Target and Walmart stores as well as on Amazon, making Pudgy Penguins the best-performing NFT series in the bear market, with its floor price reaching a historical high of 23 ETH in early 2024.

However, it has a history of launching new tokens for NFT series.

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 publication, the Ape token is priced at $1.60, far from its opening price of $28, the historical high.

In 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. Subsequently, on that same day, the MFER price surged to over $0.03. As of the time of publication, the MFER price is around $0.026.

Will other NFT leaders also choose to launch new 'Tokens' to rally?

On December 16, anonymous researcher Waleswoosh from the Azuki NFT series posted on platform X, "What would the market look like if the blue-chip NFT project CryptoPunks released the PUNK token?"

Garga.eth (Greg Solano), co-founder of CryptoPunks’ parent company Yuga Labs, responded, "Wow! I never thought about that."