The current cryptocurrency bear market has caused major upheaval in the Web3 sector, negatively impacting the growth of many decentralized projects, including NFTs. Essentially, it makes it very difficult for any platform or collection to gain traction in the current climate. However, some projects are built differently and have prospered, while others have failed. One such success story comes in the form of the Pudgy Penguins nft.
What are Pudgy Penguins NFTs?
Chubby penguins represents a collection of 8,888 collectible NFTs created on the ethereum network in July 2021. The project was co-founded by Cole Villemain, Clayton Patterson, and two pseudonymous members (“MickyJ” and “Jonah”). The Pudgy Penguins collection is a classic PFP nft that offers exclusive benefits to its holders (referred to as “Pengus” or members of the “Huddle”), including access to events, experiences, intellectual property licensing opportunities, and much more.
At launch, Pudgy Penguin NFTs were minted for 0.03 eth and quickly sold out within 20 minutes of launch, prompting enthusiasts to seek them out on secondary marketplaces like OpenSea. After launch, its average minimum price reportedly rose from 0.04 eth in July to 3.49 eth in August 2021. However, its minimum price decreased from September to December 2021, plummeting to 0.88 eth. This decline was associated with several accusations against the founders, including a deviation from the project roadmap.
This development resulted in several Pengus (Pudgy Penguin holders) wrapping the Penguin NFTs in METADROP into a new collection, preventing them from paying royalties to the accused founders and their team. At the launch of the nft project, its founders expressed their goals, which included creating an educational book for children about nft, a virtual game for the ecosystem, and a custom token for the ecosystem, among others. However, its community feared that the founders were abandoning the project since their initial promises did not deliver. This caused a partial decrease in the project’s minimum price from the end of 2021 to the beginning of 2022.
The game changer
With accusations circulating on social media and their community (Twitter and Discord), Villemain and Patterson were kicked out of the company in January 2022 following a Discord vote. Meanwhile, one of the Diamond arms of the PFP nft that advocates the rebalancing of the project’s initial goals was contacted to buy the company for 888 eth, which he rejected and announced in a tweet thread. However, after several purchase offers from accredited investors in the nft space, Pudgy Penguins was sold to Luca Schnetzler (Netz) for 750 eth in April 2022, giving up its founders.
The network wall
Amid the unfavorable 2022 nft market, where several nft prices plummeted, Netz and his team managed to steer the Penguin ship on a favorable course, increasing its daily sales and average price to over 3 eth. Since then, the project has performed admirably in the bear market until reaching a price floor of 5.3 eth (at the time of writing).
How Netz Navigated Pudgy Penguin to Stay Relevant in the Bear Market Trend
The acquisition of Pudgy Penguins from its original founders turned out to be an exciting move for Netz, his team, and the entire Pudgy Penguin community. His leadership has managed to make lemonade out of the lemon bear market, reestablishing the project’s commitment to its objectives. Netz incorporated an exciting business model thanks to his business acumen and rebranded the Pudgy Penguin nft ecosystem through the following models.
Getting back on track
Netz and his team quickly sprang into action after acquiring the Pudgy Penguins. As a result, they reactivated the initial project objectives and proceeded to achieve them. First, Netz rebranded the company by securing and authenticating its official social media accounts on Instagram, Twitter, Discord, and TikTok. Additionally, he established the company’s brand colors, logos, voices and typefaces and reworded the mission statement. Within three weeks of the acquisition, the company hired key team members and began rolling out content and messaging to the community and potential customers.
Taking the bull by the horns
Netz was not joking when saying aims to dominate the nft space through innovative products, partnerships and storytelling. On August 26, 2022, chubby penguins Announced his plan to launch the planned penguin-themed children’s book. The company partnered with Green Kids Club to update and establish its narrative objectives.
Additionally, Pudgy Penguins established the Intellectual Property Rights in December 2022, allowing Pengus to use its NFTs for commercial use and earn up to a projected $500,000 annually. Intellectual property rights also allow owners to sublicense their NFTs to a third party for commercial purposes. However, these rights are transferable once the owners resell their nft to another buyer.
Association with renowned brands
On February 15, 2023, chubby penguins associated with Hologram Labs to incorporate 3D models into Pudgy Penguins. This historic partnership will allow Pengus to use its NFTs to create content on YouTube, TikTok, Twitch, and Vtube. It also allows owners to use their penguins on video calls.
On February 20, 2023, Pudgy Penguins also associated with Retail Monster in its commitment to expand the objectives of its project. This partnership paved the way for a novel Pudgy Penguins toy, placing Retail Monster as the official distributor upon its launch.
Community meetings
Pudgy Penguins took another decisive step by organizing physical gatherings for its community members in February 2023. This initiative encourages virtual and physical community bonding among its members, and was carried out In New York, Beijing, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Seouland Singapore. These meetings serve as makeup for the nft Winter Art Basel event in December 2022.
Add more to luggage
Netz has continued its ambition to extend the Pudgy Penguins brand beyond the nft space. As such, the company applied for brands on printed comics, trading cards, candy, snacks, board games, hoodies, caps, virtual products, multimedia, etc.
Another historic debut
On May 18, 2023, Pudgy Penguins introduced their Pudgy Toys and Pudgy Worldmarking its debut in the realm of Phygital collectibles.
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Pudgy World is a digital platform that connects newbies in the decentralized space with NFTs and blockchain; It’s more like an introductory portal to the decentralized landscape. PMI Toys and Retail Monster distributed the physical Pudgy toys, which can be purchased at reputable stores such as Amazon. Chubby toys are not random toys found on a store shelf; They represent another classy nft collection. Recently (September 26, 2023), Pudgy Toys, together with Pudgy World, expanded its market reach to 2,000 Walmart stores in the US, promoting Pudgy Toys and Pudgy Penguins to the physical world at large.
Unlike the failed updates to the Azuki and DeGods nft collections, the introduction of the toy was instrumental in raising the average floor price of Pudgy Penguins NFTs to 6.2 eth on May 20, 2023. Pudgy Unlock Toys effectively unlocks both Soulbound and tradable NFTs. Additionally, Pudgy Toys raised the bar for NFTs by incorporating physical items attached to each item; he reportedly sold more than $500 thousand worth of toys on Amazon in the first 2 days, claiming the first place ahead of other renowned brands.
The chubby bridge
What good is an exclusive item with a restriction?
Pudgy Bridge allows users to transfer penguin NFTs across multiple networks and interact with different ecosystems. Users can transfer their Pudgy Penguins nft from the ethereum network to Polygon via MetaMask, the Coinbase wallet, or WalletConnect with the bridge.
$9 million in financing
Every investor likes to put his money in a profitable investment basket. Such was the case of the multiple investors who raised $9 million in initial funding for Pudgy Penguins in May 2023. The funding was led by 1kx, with the participation of renowned brands such as Big Brain Holdings, Kronos, Ethersole, LayerZero , Shima Capital, Old Fashion. Research and more.
To stay relevant, Netz isn’t slowing down at all; The Pudgy Penguin team continues to revitalize their community and the entire nft space. In addition to the historical success recorded, such as the revitalization of the project from zero to millions of dollars, a total volume of more than 187,000 eth, the increase of its average minimum prize from 0.04 eth to 5.3 eth and the investment in seed funds , the company continues to present new projects to fuel its development. is oriented towards the projected goals. These include:
- Soul-Bound Tokens (SBT): PenguPins and truePengu
- almatransport
- Chubby clans
- Monthly Soulbound MVP Token for Featured Community Members
- High-end internal collectibles
- Chubby Penguin Metaverse Rumored
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*All financial/investment opinions expressed by nft Plazas come from the personal research and experience of our site moderators and are intended to be educational material only. People should thoroughly research any product before making any type of investment.
Technical writer, enthusiast of everything blockchain and the decentralized world.
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