The NFT sector, which has been absent from the bull market for a long time, has also become restless recently. First, yesterday Magic Eden opened the airdrop share query, and today the top NFT in the ETH ecosystem "Pudgy Penguins" also tweeted to announce their token launch plan for this year.
Although the specific date and distribution details have not been announced yet, the overall token distribution ratio has been released. The largest share (25.9%) goes to the Pudgy community; at the same time, 24.12% is distributed to other communities, and even 0.35% is reserved for $FTT Holders.
According to community user @BTCThinker88, the $PENGU token airdrop scale is still considerable, and Pudgy Penguins holders are expected to receive $31,000-$61,000 (7.9 ETH-15.8 ETH) per person. If Abstract Chain also provides token distribution for the Penguin community, this may become one of the largest airdrops of 2024 after HYPE.
Indeed, the biggest positive for the project is the ability to stimulate price appreciation. After the token launch news was released, the floor prices of the Pudgy Penguins and Lil Pudgys NFT series Pudgy Penguins and Lil Pudgys rose sharply: the floor price of Pudgy Penguins is currently 18.55$ETH (about $72,600), and the floor price of Lil Pudgys is currently 1.91$ETH (about $7,500), with a daily increase of nearly 20%, and the trading volume has increased 3-5 times.
NFT recovery, can projects grasp the trend to get out?
With the continued rise of the overall market, the overflow of funds has also come to the NFT ecosystem. According to data from Dune user @hildobby, the total NFT sales volume has started to recover, with the daily trading volume reaching nearly $40 million at its peak, and the weekly trading volume exceeding $100 million.
The blue-chip NFTs have also seen impressive growth, according to OKX data, the floor prices and trading volumes of the blue-chip NFTs on the ETH mainnet have seen good growth in the past 30 days.
Some projects have stopped operating, while others keep airdropping
During the bear market of the past two years, the NFT sector can be said to have been even worse off than Altcoins. In 2021, the blue-chip NFTs like Bored Ape Yacht Club and Azuki encountered a series of major incidents such as community FUD and large-holder sell-offs, and their prices plummeted to the freezing point. The market has also gradually disenchanted with NFTs, with the use cases of NFTs being more as "expected redemption vouchers" for future airdrops of a project or simply as commemorative certificates, and the vast majority of NFTs have lost their utility as investment/speculative assets. Even some major projects are not immune, on December 3, the once-popular NFT brand RTFKT, which was even acquired by Nike, announced that it would gradually cease operations as the crypto bull market arrived, which is quite saddening.
Aside from the occasional project launching new hot spots, only a few blue-chip projects have managed to maintain their heat, and the polarization between NFT projects is becoming more and more severe: some blue-chip NFTs have performed well even in the bear market, with projects like Milady, Pudgy Penguins, and Madlads receiving large airdrops from various popular projects such as Ethena ($ENA), Aethir ($ATH), Zksync ($ZK), and Wormhole ($W) just this year, with the total airdrop value basically far exceeding the project's floor price.
Staying close to the market is obviously a path
From the current distribution plan, the Pudgy Penguins community clearly understands the market well, and the "customer attraction" ability of the veteran top-tier NFT is indeed impressive. Not only does the community's share account for the largest portion of the distribution, but the distribution to other communities is also very generous. These inward and outward distribution plans account for half of the total token amount.
In addition to the large distribution to the community, the Pudgy Penguins, which was born on the ETH mainnet, also specifically chose to launch the token on the currently hottest Solana. Indeed, whether in terms of liquidity or player sentiment, as a cartoon NFT project, Pudgy Penguins' choice of the MEME-enthusiastic Solana is undoubtedly a better choice for the project's price launch.
How are the other old NFTs doing?
Bored Ape Yacht Club
Current floor price: 20.7888 ETH
Historical highest average price: 340 ETH
90-day average price: 14.21 ETH
90-day trading volume: 20409 ETH
As one of the most popular NFTs, BAYC has been criticized for not keeping up with the times during the bear market. Indeed, since the sky-high transactions and token launches in 2021 and 2022, the Bored Ape series has not made any further substantive innovations. In October this year, Apechain announced that it would start its own MEME Pump, and BAYC's short-term trading volume also increased accordingly, but after the heat dissipated, it fell back again, until the recent overall sector recovery, and its trading performance has gradually recovered.
Milady Maker
Current floor price: 6.53 ETH
Historical highest average price: 7.11 ETH
90-day average price: 4.63 ETH
90-day trading volume: 10756 ETH
The relatively low-key but community-strong Milady has recently maintained an upward trend, with an average floor price already exceeding the Milady-themed emoji "shill" launched by Musk last May, and with ETH prices already approaching $4,000, in dollar terms, Milady's price has more than doubled from its previous high.
Azuki
Current floor price: 6.1 ETH
Historical highest average price: 40.77 ETH
90-day average price: 5.222 ETH
90-day trading volume: 8026 ETH
Azuki's current floor price of 6.1 ETH is still some distance from the average price of 16 ETH during the community FUD and cliff-like drop in June 2023, clearly the current price is not yet a "recovery", but more of a rise along with the overall market recovery.
Mad Lads —— Solana
Current floor price: 43.5 SOL
Historical highest average price: 173.58 SOL
90-day average price: 45.47 SOL
90-day trading volume: 59345 SOL
As a representative project of Solana, Mad Lads can also be considered a welfare project that has received airdrops from various projects, with Wormhole, Backpack and other projects distributing a considerable portion of airdrops to the Mad Lads community. Perhaps affected by the overall poor performance of Solana ecosystem NFTs, the price of Mad Lads has been declining since its peak in March, but with the recent market recovery, the price has also rebounded.
Summary
By choosing to announce the token launch on the Solana chain, which has the best liquidity, at the time when ETH broke new highs and the market sentiment was improving, Pudgy Penguins' token launch plan can be considered a strategic success, and the market's response to this move has also been positive.
From the price trend of $APE in recent years, it can be seen that issuing tokens is not a panacea for Non-Fungible Token projects. To avoid the token issuance becoming the last dance for the project party to realize the value, it is also necessary to look at the specific "operation" of the project party in terms of price and token use cases. However, one thing is certain: not only for Non-Fungible Token projects, but for all old projects that want to recover, grasping the trend and getting close to the market is the main melody that should be followed in this bull market. For market participants, no matter how the project is hyped, maintaining observation and making calm and fully grasped investment decisions is the most important survival strategy in the bull market.
