A popular NFT collection from 2021 that saw coverage from the New York Times suffered from months of little action and development on the roadmap and items promised by the founder. A new leadership team has bought the rights and is powering forward.
What Happened: Pudgy Penguins co-founders sold the collection and rights to a group led by Los Angeles entrepreneur Luca Netz.
The sale price was 750 Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH), or around $2.5 million.
Pudgy Penguins is a collection of 8,888 NFTs that launched in July 2021 and sold out at a price of 0.03 ETH. The collection had sales volume of over 49,000 ETH on OpenSea prior to this past weekend.
The founding team of the collection promised multiple items for holders including a game, a token and books.
The community behind Pudgy Penguins, known as “The Huddle,” voted out the founders from having control over the project back in January. A sale has been rumored since that time.
“This deal’s taken way longer than I thought,” Netz told CoinDesk.
Netz waited to announce the deal officially until Saturday, to make sure it was not taken as an April Fool’s joke Friday.
Pudgy Penguins were the first NFTs ever purchased by Netz. The new project leader told CoinDesk he bought his first Pudgy Penguin for 0.1 ETH last summer.
A New York Times piece profiling Pudgy Penguins last year brought attention to the collection and showed the power of a strong community.
Pudgy Penguin owner JoeyMooose is among the most well-known holders in the project, thanks to a rallying cry he gave on a Twitter Spaces in 2021.
“I am my penguin and my penguin is me,” JoeyMooose said.
Moose recently spoke with Benzinga on Pudgy Penguins and other NFT projects.
Related Link: How To Buy NFTs
Why It’s Important: The new leadership team will help push Pudgy Penguins forward and is already generating quite the response in sales volume activity.
Among items that could be coming in the future for Pudgy Penguins owners are airdrops and a token launch.
“Everything is aligned to make this one of the most prevalent projects of all time,” Netz said.
A Pudgy Penguin toy was also mentioned by Netz, who said he wants to make the NFT collection “a brand that’s known both in and outside of the NFT world.”
CoinDesk said Netz hinted at one potential retail partnership for Pudgy Penguins as well.
Netz threw a bit of cold water on the token rumor, saying a token that “respected the law” will eventually come to Penguin holders.
“If (Bored Ape Yacht Club) did it, we will do it. But it’s not something I want to tackle now,” Netz said, referencing the ApeCoin (CRYPTO: APE) launch connected to Yuga Labs.
A highly anticipated launch of the Coinbase Global Inc (NASDAQ:COIN) Coinbase NFT marketplace could also provide a boost as Pudgy Penguins is one of several collections highlighted by Coinbase as a launch partner.
The floor price began rising steadily on Friday, hitting a high of 2.5 ETH with the sale nearing an end. The floor price had been trading in a range of 0.7 ETH to 1.4 ETH prior to the past week.
Pudgy Penguins shot up the sales volume leaderboard, ranking 16th on CryptoSlam with $1.8 million in sales over the last 24 hours, up 26% from the previous day. Over the last seven days, sales volume has totaled $4.7 million, up 1,032% from the previous week.
The current floor price of Pudgy Penguins is 2.98 ETH at the time of writing.
Pudgy Penguins is also hinting at an upcoming airdrop after the sale announcement.
“If penguins can’t fly, how can we get high enough in the air to drop things? Asking for a friend…” Pudgy Penguins tweeted.
