What’s Pudgy Penguins?
Pudgy Penguins is a collection of 8,888 NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain. The collection of Penguins launched on Jul. 22, 2021 with a mint price of 0.03 ETH. The Pudgy Penguins are set apart from many PFP collections by “over 150 hand drawn traits”, which make each adorable and chubby penguins unique. These traits and accessories include hats, sunglasses, monocles, scarves, jackets, fur color, background, and the like. And like with many other NFT projects (a la Bored Apes, CryptoPunks, etc), certain traits are rarer, which become deciding factors of a penguin’s value.
The Pudgy Penguins collection has been involved in a bit of controversy since the start of 2022. While the collection’s initial launch has been celebrated and revered as successful, the start of the year looked bleak for the project. As of April 2022 though, there seems to be hope again.
Here is a look at the team that leads the Penguin Huddle:
Who Are the Lead Penguins? (Meet the Team)
Each member of the Pudgy Penguins team is pseudonymous, meaning that we don’t know the real names or identities of the users behind the project. Despite this, the team is believed to be made up of nine core contributors, which are active in the community.
At the creation of the project, these were the founding members according to the original website (which has since been updated):
- MrTubby: Co-Founder. Director and Operations Manager.
- MickyJ: Co-Founder. Design Lead and Managing Member.
- Jonah: Co-Founder. Positions Manager.
- Cole: Co-Founder. Lead Community Manager and Marketing Specialist.
- MIINDED: Team of 4. Smart contract & Website devs.
- LiViXi3: Artist.
As of April 2022 the new leader of the Penguins’ Huddle is Luca Netz, a Los Angeles based entrepreneur. Here is a list of the new team members according to the Pudgy Penguins medium:
- Luca Netz – CEO.
- Drew Koven – President.
- Nicholas Ravid – Chief Marketing Officer.
- Peter Lobanov – Chief Creative Officer.
- Lorenzo Melendez – Chief Technology Officer.
- Ulysses Atkeson – Chief Blockchain Officer.
- Dr. Kaizu – Chief Operations Officer.
- Asset Bender – Senior Advisor.
- Maxi Kozler – Investor Relations.
- Charles Kieu – Event Coordinator.
- Nathan Nakhmanovich – Marketing.
- Paolo Moreno – Strategy.
- 0xFocus – Advisor.
- Zach Friedman – Advisor.
- Berko – Community Leader.
- Mingo – Artist.
What’s the History of Pudgy Penguins?
Many of the earliest projects in the Ethereum ecosystem were quick to cash in on the NFT craze. Pudgy Penguins is no exception. Launching in the middle of the Summer 2021, the Pudgy Penguins found great success immediately on launch.
The 8,888 NFT collection launched on Jul. 22, 2021 with a list price of 0.03 ETH. It took just 20 minutes to completely sell out. Not long after, the Pudgy Penguins rose to great fanfare — fetching a showcase on CNBC, Bloomberg, and even a feature in the New York Times.
Probably nothing – @pudgy_penguins @kevinroose @nytimes
Article: https://t.co/joM8APyave pic.twitter.com/EHFnXyrTDp
— Franklin (@franklinisbored) August 13, 2021
Since the initial launch of the Pudgy Penguins, community growth has been the name of the game. However, the team’s venture into airdropping NFTs would quickly lead to drama between the developers and the community.
Controversy Around the Penguins
Around Christmas 2021, the Pudgy Penguins development team airdropped a Pudgy egg to Penguins NFT owners. These eggs could be used to “unwrap” a new NFT around the holidays. However, upon “hatching” their egg, the community received a “fishing rod NFT” which was misspelled as “fishing rog.” This started a downward spiral — namely because the community viewed it as a lazy mistake.
NFT collections tend to promise a lot, and the Penguins have not been much different. Members of the community have complained that the core team “promis[ed] a game, an ETH-based token, and education material.” According to the pseudonymous Twitter user @9x9x9, a serial collector of the Penguins, the Pudgy Penguins team reportedly tried to sell the project. The team has also distributed proceeds from the project’s Treasury to its team, leaving the project with virtually no resources to continue.
I m gonna talk about the recent rumours about me taking over pudgy penguins, I did not want to talk about it first, but with so many DMs, I felt responsible for keeping everything as transparent as possible. So people will not make any investment decisions based on rumours.
— 9x9x9 (@9x9x9eth) January 6, 2022
In an attempt to pay recompenses for their transgressions, the Pudgy Penguins launched a secondary collection, the Lil Pudgys. This collection offered a free Lil Pudgy NFT to all Pudgy Penguin holders. Beyond the 8,888 free Lil Pudgy’s available for holders, the remainder of the 22,222 piece collection went up for auction. However, with this new collection the team sold out on auction, and the remaining Lil Pudgy’s remain unclaimed on the official website.
Despite the team’s best attempts to rebuild lost trust with the community, some of the community have resorted to wrapping their assets (see: Wrapped Penguins on OpenSea) in smart contracts, which denies the original development team the ability to reap any royalties. Once wrapped in a new smart contract, a Pudgy Penguin no longer is bound by the previous royalty contract of the original development team. This has been utilized by the community that is not pleased with the dev team in order to start a fund for a DAO. Wrapped Penguins can be unwrapped from this new contract at any time by the owner of the Penguin, according to the official Wrapped Penguins Metadrop website:
“Wrapped Penguins is a decentralized smart contract that can be used to wrap Pudgy Penguin NFTs. By wrapping your Pudgy Penguin NFT, you lock up that NFT in the Wrapped Penguins smart contract, and receive a corresponding Wrapped Penguin NFT in return. At any point, you may swap between a Wrapped Penguin NFT and the corresponding Pudgy Penguin NFT.”
I have wrapped my penguin and join the @WrappedPenguins. This is the least thing I can do to the community, a way to show my support to @Pudgy_Penguins DAO.
Let's make PP 🐧 great again! Shall we?#WAGMI #SaveThePenguins @Pudgy_HongKong @9x9x9eth @Vince_Van_Dough @loomdart pic.twitter.com/1wi76o8tqw
— den.pudgy🐧 (@DegenDen_eth) January 17, 2022
Stocktwits is unable to verify the validity of any of these claims from pseudonymous users. However, 9x9x9’s comments appear credible because of his contributions to other DAOs and crypto projects. This drama is likely to remain troubling for the future prospects of the collection.
Solution to the Problem?
On April 2, 2022 it was made known to the world that Pudgy Penguins’ control rights were sold from the original founding team to Luca Netz for a whopping $2.2 million in ETH.
In January, as previously discussed, tensions were high amongst the Pudgy Penguins community members and the founders – who seemingly had little interest in continuing the work that they had begun. Netz, who spoke with CoinDesk in January about a potential acquisition, can be cited as stating that “this deal has taken way longer than I thought.” Apparently it continued to work in the background in the favor of the Pudgy Penguins community.
Since the acquisition the website of the Penguins has been marked “under construction,” and the new team seems excited. Their next chapter begins with a “new team, new roadmap, and new heights.” Some future expansion noted by the new team includes a quest map (roadmap), rebranding the company, hiring key players to encourage positive growth, vision planning, Pudgy media, events, merchandise and retail partnerships. Nothing is finalized, but their plans indicate a positive direction for the team and the project.
The blizzard has passed, and the snow is settling. The Huddle has shown its resilience. It's time to waddle to the promised land.
We’re ready to announce the worst kept secret in Web3. Our next chapter has begun: new team, new roadmap, new heights.
Penguins, our time is #NOW 🐧 pic.twitter.com/IqcG697ULW
— Pudgy Penguins (@pudgypenguins) April 3, 2022
What’s the Future of the Pudgy Penguins?
Beyond the controversy, the project has over 18,000 members in their Discord, 4,400 individual owners of the original collection, 56,000 followers on Twitter, and 4,700 followers on instagram. The controversy also prompted an outpouring of support, especially on Twitter where the hashtag #SaveThePenguins trended in NFT circles.
Conclusion
Pudgy Penguins is considered by many to be one of the great early projects using Ethereum’s famous ERC-721 NFT framework. Although we were not able to fully vet the teams and the intentions and direction of the project, they have garnered a strong presence and community from their success.While it was unknown where the project would lead, the recent acquisition by Luca Netz as well as the updates being presented, there are encouraging signs that the community is not done with their Pudgy flightless birds!
Last updated May 3rd, 2022