Author: Leek, Foresight News
On December 16, according to OpenSea data, the NFT Pudgy Penguins floor price 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%.
It is worth noting that the Pudgy Penguins series has seen an astonishing increase in 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; its market value has reached 300,000 ETH, equivalent to about 1.19 billion USD as of the press time.
Source: OpenSea
After the arrival of the cryptocurrency bull market, various sectors began to rotate, and the NFT sector is also slowly starting.
On December 6, the NFT blue-chip project Pudgy Penguins announced that it would release its token PENGU within 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 strategy, including launches 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 locking, 3 years of linear unlocking), 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 surge, breaking through from 14 ETH to 20 ETH within two days. Following the news release, the floor price began to show unusual movements, breaking through 20 ETH within two days and subsequently surpassing the historical high of 23 ETH, continuously refreshing its history. Its sub-series, Lil Pudgys, also saw its floor price rise to 2.45 ETH, setting a new historical high.
Meanwhile, the former NFT leader Bored Ape series has seen its floor price drop to 19.88 ETH, and another NFT ancestor from the same company, the CryptoPunks series, has also seen its floor price drop to 38.49 ETH, soon to be caught up by Pudgy Penguins.
The Pudgy Penguins series has gone through lows since its inception. 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 became popular after its launch in July 2021, becoming a hot collectible in the NFT market at the time.
However, the project experienced significant controversies in its early days, facing community doubts due to issues in fund management and project development direction, even falling into a trust crisis at one point. In 2022, amid the overall decline of the NFT market, the popularity and floor price of Pudgy Penguins also declined, but everything changed after 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 reorganized the project's leadership and announced new growth plans. Under Luca Netz's leadership, Pudgy Penguins has significantly recovered in terms of floor price and overall brand image.
Luca Netz successfully regained market attention for Pudgy Penguins by rebuilding community trust, launching brand peripheral products, and empowering NFT holders. This not only achieved a price rebound but also expanded its brand influence into the real world. In May 2023, Pudgy Toys were launched and can be purchased at Target, Walmart, and Amazon, making Pudgy Penguins the best-performing NFT series during the bear market, with its floor price reaching a historical high of 23 ETH in early 2024.
However, the release of new tokens for NFT series has a history.
In March 2022, the then NFT leader Bored Ape Yacht Club announced a token launch, with 14% airdropped to the community. As of the press time, the Ape token price is $1.6, far from its opening price of $28, which was its historical high.
On March 30, 2024, at dawn, 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 skyrocketed, exceeding $0.03 at one point. As of the press time, MFER's price is around $0.026.
Will other NFT leaders also choose to issue new 'tokens' to drive up prices?
On December 16, anonymous researcher Waleswoosh from the Azuki NFT series posted on the X platform, asking, '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 of that.'
