Hash (SHA1): 6c3f79c09df622502c6441beafddee076cd68d91
No.: Lianyuan Security Knowledge No.134
On the 17th, Penguins airdropped thousands of Us to old users of the Penguin ecosystem. At the beginning, a big positive line flew to the market value of $6.78B. Until today, the market value has stabilized at around 2.2B, surpassing almost all MEMEs on Pump in one fell swoop. What is so special about this fat and round penguin?
Who is the fat penguin?
Pudgy Penguins was created in July 2021. It is a collection of 8888 randomly generated penguins with unique attributes. The initial mint price was 0.03ETH and all sold out within a week.
In August of the same year, a viral article by New York Times reporter Kevin Roose brought huge traffic to Pudgy Penguins, helping the project's floor price quickly break through 3 ETH.
In the following period, Pudgy Penguins was almost the most popular new IP in the entire NFT market. The project accumulated a total transaction volume of over 100 million US dollars in just over a month.
The only rare penguin facing left (#6873) was sold for a whopping 225 ETH, and NBA superstar Stephen Curry also bought one for 3.5 ETH.
After the first batch of penguins were issued, the official conducted two airdrops for NFT holders: one is the penguin egg Pudgy Presents , which can be claimed by all short and fat penguin holders at a ratio of 1:1, and the other is Lil Pudgys , a group of very cute little penguins. All Pudgy Penguins holders can claim it.
Penguins prospered under the continuous efforts of community members and project teams, until the much-anticipated "penguin eggs" turned out to be a bunch of unrecognizable fishing rods. Later, it was revealed that the Pudgy Penguins team had taken away all the ETH raised and was hoping to sell off the project. This incident directly shook the consensus of the entire community; even during this period, OpenSea temporarily removed Pudgy Penguins.
After a long period of downturn, the Pudgy Penguin community finally saw a turnaround. In 2022, community member Luca Netz took over the entire project for 750 ETH and became the new CEO. He and the new team rebuilt Pudgy Penguins, giving it a new direction, focusing on IP development and cross-industry cooperation, such as making toys, animation, and even entering the game industry.
Does the Pudgy Penguins team have anything real?
The Pudgy Penguins project is currently led by Luca Netz.
- CEO Luca Netz; before entering NFT, he had successful foreign trade experience.
- Co-Owner and CCO Peter is also the founder of Bureaux, 404 Studio, and Samedays, and an angel investor;
- CTO Lorenzo Melendez, graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a degree in computer science;
- CMO Nicholas Ravid is an American entrepreneur and social media marketing expert. Ravid has become a leader in the influencer community through his meme page on Instagram with nearly 10 million followers.
Several core members, young and wealthy, were born after 1995. They wanted to build their own Web3 business landscape with Penguins as the starting point. In recent years, Luca Netz has not only built up the NFT community, but also promoted the entire IP around the world. The dynamic GIF has been viewed 13.8 billion times, Instagram has more than 1.23 million fans, and TikTok has more than 10 million views, truly making it a global IP.
In 2023, the team received $9 million in financing. In June 2024, the team acquired Frame and prepared to build its own Layer2.
Penguins' sunshine-style airdrop, what's the intention?
According to the official explanation, "The purpose of issuing PENGU tokens is to achieve growth of the project community by reaching a whole new audience group." The official also mentioned that "Although the token was first launched on Solana, it will eventually expand to Ethereum and Abstract , the latter of which is a consumer-centric Ethereum Layer 2 expansion network being built by Igloo Inc. "
Here is a translation of this long paragraph for you. We have issued coins on Sol, and we will issue coins on various other chains in the future. In fact, the most puzzling thing is that Penguins will obviously launch its own chain and issue its own tokens on its own chain. After reading this explanation, you may think, "Ah, is Penguins trying to make money by riding on the popularity of Solana?" In fact, it is not. Let's take a look at the distribution of Penguins' tokens:
47.87% will be used for community airdrops, 29.78% will be allocated to the team, investors and consultants, 12.35% will be used for liquidity, 4% will be allocated to public utilities, and 3% will be used for publicity and marketing.
Excluding the tokens of investors, the tokens allocated to the team are actually not that many, which is equivalent to the level of year-end bonus given to employees by a normal company after it generates revenue.
Then why do they still issue coins on the SOL chain?
The reason is very simple. The first is funding. Issuing coins can bring direct funds and benefits to team members and investors.
The second is popularity. SOL has been very popular recently. When the coins are issued and then airdropped, it can attract a large wave of traffic for your project.
The third is to facilitate project marketing. Imagine that the previous Penguins project had relatively scarce marketing methods and lacked some token rewards of its own. If a part of the tokens can be invested in marketing and promotion, and an event can be held to issue tokens, etc., it can increase the attractiveness of its own activities.
So when Penguins launches its own chain, will the price of Penguins tokens plummet? In fact, it is not certain, because the project team has mentioned that the token will be expanded to other networks. That is, a cross-chain bridge may be created, which can transfer tokens from different chains to other chains, so that the price of the token will not be affected.
Monsters and demons frequently appear during Penguins airdrops. How to prevent them?
During the Penguins airdrop, a Penguins imitation project on SOL launched Mint. The price of Mint was 0.01Sol. When the project was launched, it took advantage of Penguin's traffic and the floor price surged to 0.15Sol. However, as of today, in less than 7 days, the floor price has dropped to 0.02Sol, and there is no trading volume. The official Twitter account has also been blocked.
As you can see in the picture below, if you ignore the name, you will find that the NFT of this project looks exactly like Penguins, without any difference. It is purely relying on imitations to attract attention, and in the end it is also a one-time thing and will not survive for more than a week.
There are countless copycats of SOL tokens, which issue coins under the name of Pengu to attract uninformed retail investors to enter the market. They then smash every one that comes in until the retail investors are dizzy.
So, how can we guard against these imitations and how can we buy the right tokens?
First, pay attention to the official Twitter account of the project party, only read the official announcements, and do not read any third-party information.
Second, only copy contracts from official announcements from the project party.
Third, if the coin is relatively well-known, it may be simultaneously listed on a major exchange and can also be bought and sold on the exchange.
at last
Penguin is a relatively good project, and the sunny web3 spirit has also provided a lot of passion to the circle. But remember, no matter what, you need to protect your own funds. Copycat projects are extremely risky. Those who entered the market earlier may be profitable, but those who entered the market later to chase high prices will become "cavemen". Copycat projects of tokens are even riskier, and the results are all zero.
As Mencius said, "He who has not gained the upper hand in the world will surely bring disaster to himself." In the world of investment, being eager for quick success and instant benefits often brings devastating consequences. Staying calm and rational is the long-term strategy.
