Pudgy Penguins’ PENGU token rallies as its NFT project suffers collective sales decline

Pudgy Penguins’ native token, PENGU, has joined the ranks of the best-performing assets after registering a 13% climb. At the time of writing, the token is trading at $0.049, up by 250% since it was launched on December 17.

According to CoinGecko, the token presently has a market capitalization of $2.5 billion, dropping from a $2.8 billion high.

According to reports, traders have taken advantage of the rally, cashing out on their positions. In a report by blockchain analytics platform LookonChain on X, a newly created wallet withdrew 84 million PENGU, worth $13.13 million on January 4.

However, despite the token’s obvious growth, its NFT project sales have gone in the opposite direction. According to data from CryptoSlam, sales have dropped 52% over the last seven days.

Pudgy Penguins teases PENGU expansion plans 

The NFT project’s community lead Berko Crypto took to X to list out the NFT’s achievements in the first few days of 2025. According to the post, the project sold out Telegram stickers, among other achievements.

“In just the first few days of 2025, Pudgy penguins had billions of GIF views, Telegram stickers experiment sold out in record time, hundreds of thousands of new penguins with an actual stake in the game, viral Instagram and TikTok campaigns,” he said.

The NFT has continued to garner public interest due to its viral gif and sticker strategy. Over the first five days of 2025, the project has recorded over 1 billion views of its stickers and gifs.

Meanwhile, the team behind the NFT project is mulling plans to expand its token to other platforms. The move will see the token, currently on Solana, move to Ethereum and Abstract, a layer-2 scaling solution on Ethereum designed by Igloo Inc. The token has a total supply of 88.88 billion, with about 25.9% allocated to airdrops given to NFT holders.

While the project is yet to confirm a use case for the token, there are rumors that it could play an important role in its ecosystem. According to Bybit, the token could be used for governance, and allow holders exclusive access to the ecosystem.

Rumor has also grown about the possibility of a future airdrop exclusively for token holders.

According to X user and crypto trader Pentoshi, the project may decide to reward token holders this month. “$PENGU holders to receive Abstract (potentially another 6 fig + airdrop. You may potentially qualify by getting the token holder role and the token enjoyer roles in the Pudgy discord,” he said.

Pudgy Penguins NFT sales slides

Meanwhile, Pudgy Penguins’ NFT sales have declined drastically. According to data from CryptoSlam, the total sales dropped to $5.5 million, a 52% slide from last week. Overall, NFT transactions are struggling, falling by 51%.

In addition, buyers dropped by 56%, while sellers dropped by 41%. Aside from Pudgy Penguins, another leading NFT on Ethereum Azuki dropped by 17.65, while the DMarket NFT project on Mythos escaped the slide, seeing a 10.43% increase in sales.

According to NFT Price Floor, Pudgy Penguins is now the second-largest NFT project by market cap in the crypto industry, with a value of $721 million. The project is only behind CryptoPunks, valued at $1.4 billion. The project secured a partnership with retail firms Walmart and Target to add Pudgy Penguins-licensed toys in their stores. The move has helped the project sell more than one million toys.

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