Pudgy Penguins / PENGU

Submission 184

Part of a series on NFT / Non-Fungible Token / Crypto Art. [View Related Entries]

About

Pudgy Penguins is an NFT artwork collection launched on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain in August 2021. Similarly to Bored Apes, the NFTs consist of images of cartoon penguins wearing different outfits. As of January 2025, Pudgy Penguins is the number two top NFT collection by market cap on OpenSea, with a market cap of $710,520,131 (220,422 ETH). In December 2024, Pudgy Penguins launched the $PENGU meme coin on Solana. In January 2025, numerous memes featuring a Pudgy Penguin character began appearing on meme subreddits like /r/DankMemes, potentially as a form of covert forced meme marketing for the cryptocurrency and NFT collection.

History

The Pudgy Penguins NFT collection launched on OpenSea^[1] on July 21st, 2021. Their first NFT, "Pudgy Penguin #0," a winking penguin wearing a wizard's hat, was sold for 18 ETH.^[2]

In June 2022, The Verge^[3] published an article on a club night hosted by Pudgy Penguins at Art Basel Miami. On August 16th, 2023, the New York Times^[4] published a piece about joining a Pudgy Penguins club.

On January 4th, 2025, Crypto.news^[5] reported that Pudgy Penguins NFTs were declining in sales. On January 6th, Decrypt^[6] reported that they were back on the rise after announcing an Ethereum layer-2 network, Abstract, from their parent company.

Market Performance

The Pudgy Penguins NFT collection reached its peak price on December 15th, 2024, hitting a price of $34.80. By January 9th, 2025, the price had lowered to $24.70.^[7] $PENGU peaked on January 6th, 2025, at a price of $0.04556, lowering to $0.033 by January 9th.^[8]

Online Presence

Memes

The Pudgy Penguins website has a meme creator, which allows you to place Pudgy Penguins in well-used meme formats.^[9] They also have a section on the site for submitting memes featuring their characters.^[10]

In January 2025, several Redditors began uploading memes featuring the penguins to meme subreddits, namely /r/DankMemes and /r/Memes, with some gaining notable traction and engagement. For example, on January 9th, 2025, Redditor u/XDEC0DE posted a meme to /r/Memes^[11] that garnered over 1,400 upvotes in under a day.

That same day, Redditor u/alish_sapkota posted a meme featuring a pudgy penguin to /r/DankMemes,^[12] garnering over 3,300 upvotes in under a day.