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 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 astonishing growth in this round of bull market. OpenSea data shows that its floor price has increased from around 11 ETH to 34 ETH in the past month, approximately 980,000 RMB; and its market value has reached 300,000 ETH, equivalent to about $1.19 billion before the 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 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 the remaining community, 12.35% will be used for liquidity, 11.48% will be allocated to partners (partially unlocked after 1 year of lock-up, 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 surge. Within two days, the floor price rose from 14 ETH to 20 ETH. Following the news release, the floor price of the Pudgy Penguins series began to fluctuate, breaking through 20 ETH within two days, and subsequently breaking the historical high of 23 ETH, continuously setting new records. Its sub-series Lil Pudgys also rose to a new historical high of 2.45 ETH.
Meanwhile, the floor price of the once-leading NFT Bored Ape series has dropped to 19.88 ETH, while another NFT pioneer under the 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 also gone through lows to reach today. Initially launched by Cole Villemain and three other colleagues in 2021, featuring a cute cartoon penguin theme, there are a total of 8,888 unique NFTs. It quickly gained popularity after its launch in July 2021, becoming a hot collectible in the NFT market at that time.
However, the project faced significant controversy in its early stages, as the founding team was questioned by the community regarding fund management and project development direction, even falling into a trust crisis at one point. In 2022, amidst the overall decline of the NFT market, the popularity and floor price of Pudgy Penguins also dropped. However, all of this 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 reorganized the project's leadership and announced new growth plans. Under Luca Netz's leadership, Pudgy Penguins has seen significant recovery in both 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, achieving not only price recovery but also expanding its brand influence into the real world. In May 2023, Pudgy Toys was 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 historical 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. Before publication, the price of Ape tokens was $1.6, far from the historical high of $28.
On 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. Later that day, MFER's price surged, exceeding $0.03 at one point. Before publication, the MFER price was around $0.026.
Will other leading NFTs also choose to issue new 'Tokens' for a price surge?
On December 16, anonymous researcher Waleswoosh from the Azuki NFT series posted on platform X, saying, "What would the market look like if the blue-chip NFT project CryptoPunks released PUNK tokens?"
Greg Solano, co-founder of CryptoPunks' parent company Yuga Labs, responded, "Wow! I never thought of that."