On December 16, according to OpenSea data, the floor price of the BAYC Pudgy Penguins NFT project has surpassed 34 ETH, currently trading at 34.2 ETH (approximately $137,000), a 24-hour increase of 22.5%. Its sub-series NFT Lil Pudgys has also exceeded 4 ETH, currently trading at 4.24 ETH (approximately $17,000), 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, equivalent to approximately RMB 980,000. Its market capitalization has reached 300,000 ETH, which is approximately $1.19 billion as of the time of writing.
With the arrival of the cryptocurrency bull market, various sectors have started to rotate, and the Non-Fungible Token (NFT) sector is also slowly starting up.
On December 6, the blue-chip NFT project Pudgy Penguins announced that it will release its token PENGU within 2024. The total supply is 88.88 billion, and it will be launched on the Solana blockchain. 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 the specific allocation, 25.9% of the tokens will be distributed to the Pudgy community, 24.13% to other communities, 12.35% will be used for liquidity, 11.48% will be allocated to partners (partially unlocked after 1 year of lockup, and linearly unlocked 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 announcement, the floor price of the Pudgy Penguins series began to surge, breaking through from 14 ETH to 20 ETH within two days, and then surpassing the historical high of 23 ETH, continuously refreshing new highs. Its sub-series Lil Pudgys floor price also followed and rose to 2.45 ETH, reaching a new historical high.
At the same time, the floor price of the previously leading BAYC series has dropped to 19.88 ETH, and the floor price of another NFT pioneer CryptoPunks series under the same company has also dropped to 38.49 ETH, about to be caught up by Pudgy Penguins.
The Pudgy Penguins series has also experienced low points on its way to today. It was initially launched by Cole Villemain and three other colleagues in 2021, featuring the theme of cute cartoon penguins, with a total of 8,888 unique NFTs. After its launch in July 2021, it quickly became popular and was one of the hottest collectibles in the NFT market at the time.
However, the project experienced major controversies in the early stage, as the community questioned the founding team's issues in financial management and project development direction, and even fell into a crisis of trust. In 2022, against the backdrop of the overall decline in the NFT market, the popularity and floor price of the Bored Apes also declined, but this all turned around after 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 have seen significant recovery in both floor price and overall brand image.
Luca Netz, through rebuilding community trust, launching branded merchandise, and empowering NFT holders, has successfully regained market attention for the Bored Apes, not only achieving a price rebound, but also expanding the brand's influence to the real world. In May 2023, they launched Pudgy Toys, which can be purchased at Target, Walmart, and Amazon, making the Bored Apes one of the best-performing NFT series in the bear market, with its floor price reaching a historical high of 23 ETH in early 2024.
However, the release of new tokens by NFT series is not a new phenomenon.
In March 2022, the then-leading NFT project Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) announced the launch of its token, with 14% airdropped to the community. As of the time of writing, the Ape token is priced at $1.6, far from its historical high of $28 at launch.
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. Later that day, the price of MFER surged, briefly exceeding $0.03. As of the time of writing, the price of MFER is around $0.026.
Will other leading NFT projects also choose to launch new "Tokens" to boost their prices?
On December 16, Azuki NFT series anonymous researcher Waleswoosh posted on the X platform, asking, "What would the market be like if the blue-chip NFT project CryptoPunks released the PUNK token?"
Yuga Labs co-founder Garga.eth (Greg Solano) responded, "Wow! I never thought about that."
