1. Fat penguins trigger a trend of changing Twitter profile pictures
Recently, Pudgy Penguins has set off a wave of avatars in the crypto circle, including Coinbase, Binance.US, OpenSea, VanEck, OKX, BitMart and other industry organizations have successively replaced the official Twitter avatar with the Pudgy Penguins secondary image. Among them, the endorsement of the traditional financial giant VanEck is particularly critical. This 70-year-old asset management company not only changed its Twitter avatar to a fat penguin as early as 2024, but also landed on Nasdaq with a physical doll on June 23 this year to ring the bell, bringing Web3 IP into the mainstream financial hall. The recent popularity has also significantly promoted the price performance of assets related to the fat penguin. As of July 17, the fat penguin ecological token $PENGU has soared by more than 216% in the past month, and its market value has exceeded US$2.8 billion. The transaction amount of the fat penguin NFT has increased to US$13.726 million, an increase of 111% year-on-year from last month.
2. The ecological panorama of fat penguins
Since the NFT bear market in 2022, Pudgy Penguins has not been swallowed by market sentiment. Instead, relying on its unique cute penguin image, it has actively carried out IP licensing and commercial landing, telling the outside world a narrative about brand building and cultural operation. Today, Pudgy Penguins has grown into a core brand of a diversified ecosystem. In its ecosystem, it not only includes the Ethereum Layer 2 network Abstract built on the ZK architecture, but also integrates diversified scenarios such as game applications, MEME, NFT lottery platforms, offline toys and consumer products.
According to official data, as of July, Pudgy Penguins toy sales exceeded 10 million US dollars, the number of game users reached 60,000, and the number of active users of Abstract was about 2.5 million. This series of data shows that Pudgy Penguins is transforming into a Web3 super IP with real user scale effect, product commercialization capabilities and on-chain infrastructure capabilities.
1. Physical Ecosystem
In terms of physical products, Pudgy Penguins Pudgy Toys series is undoubtedly the most successful commercial implementation case. Since its first release in May 2023, Pudgy Toys has quickly topped Amazons best-selling list, with sales exceeding $10 million, and then successfully entered more than 10,000 Walmart stores across the United States. Rich category designs such as plush toys, dolls, and igloos, coupled with the licensing income binding mechanism between Pudgy NFT and real goods, allow Pudgy holders to also obtain passive income from sales, which provides a reference for the commercialization path of the entire NFT industry.
2. Games section
The gaming sector is also a key area of Pudgy Penguins layout. In May of this year, the 1V1 turn-based battle game Pengu Clash was launched in the TON ecosystem, and attracted more than 60,000 players in the first week of its launch. In addition, the multiplayer survival game Pudgy Party, which will be launched in the summer of 2025, has also attracted a large number of users, and its official Twitter followers are close to 100,000. By continuously launching lightweight game content that fits users social habits and entertainment needs, Pudgy Penguins is steadily expanding the reach of its IP and effectively attracting more users into its ecosystem.
3.Abstract Ecosystem
Abstract
Abstract is an Ethereum Layer 2 based on ZK-rollup technology launched by Igloo Inc., the parent company behind Pudgy Penguins, and Cube Labs. It adopts a wallet solution that does not require mnemonics and a user-centric design concept, with the intention of lowering the user threshold and expanding the popularity of consumer-level application scenarios. As of July 18, the TVL of the Abstract network was 42.6 M (a year-on-year increase of 533% at the beginning of the year), and the number of active network users remained in the range of 50K-200K. The network carries a diverse ecosystem including Pudgy Penguins-related games and NFT applications. The more popular projects in the ecosystem include:
Abster: Abster is Abstract’s official mascot MEME. As of July 17, Abster’s market value has risen to 37.6 M, and it is currently the MEME coin with the highest market value in the Fat Penguin ecosystem.
Polly: Polly is the official token of the lottery project PollyPrize. Users can participate in the lottery activities of the platform by purchasing Polly tokens. The price of a ticket is 1 USD or 50 Polly points. The prizes are currently popular NFTs. For example: Goblintown, Moonbirds, etc.
3. Future Development Potential
In the short term, there are three trends in the Pudgy Penguins ecosystem that deserve special attention. First, in March this year, the crypto asset management institution Canary Capital officially submitted an application to the SEC to launch a spot ETF product based on $PENGU. If the ETF is finally approved, it will become the worlds first ETF product with NFT project native assets as the underlying target. It will not only be a milestone, but will also bring unprecedented institutional recognition to $PENGU. The realization of asset anchoring and compliant circulation in the traditional financial system will greatly improve the liquidity, valuation basis and institutional investability of Pudgy Penguins.
In addition, the infrastructure Abstract is also being improved at an accelerated pace. Pudgy Penguins CEO Luca Netz once publicly stated in a live broadcast that Abstract is expected to launch TGE before the end of this year. As the core infrastructure that carries Pudgy Penguins games, NFT interactions, social applications and other diversified businesses, Abstracts token mechanism, once implemented, will provide stronger incentives and collaboration expectations for ecosystem participants, and further promote the popularity of native projects including PENGU, Abster, PollyPrize, etc.
Finally, the multiplayer survival game Pudgy Party is expected to be launched this summer and has already attracted a lot of attention in the community. As the game is about to be officially launched, MEME characters such as Abster in the ecosystem are expected to achieve content linkage and gameplay integration in the game, further strengthening brand stickiness and increasing ecosystem popularity.
The current Pudgy Penguins has far surpassed the scope of traditional NFT projects. It has developed into a complex Web3 brand covering IP, entities, games, and infrastructure. Starting from the initial avatar IP, it has expanded to offline consumer products, light social games, ZK Layer 2 infrastructure, and then to MEME tokens and lottery platforms, gradually building a complex ecological closed loop across virtual and real, multi-chain and multi-scenario. This is also the main reason why Pudgy Penguins has always maintained market activity under the current sluggish NFT market.
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