Pudgy Penguins Lead NFT Culture Shift, PENGU Token Hits Major Milestone

Pudgy Penguins (PENGU) is attracting significant in the broader cryptocurrency industry, aiming to surpass Pokémon and Hello Kitty as a global intellectual property (IP).

Launched in 2021 as an NFT, the Pudgy Penguins crypto project has rebranded over the years, evolving from a cultural NFT into a tokenized ecosystem.

Beyond being an NFT, the Pudgy Penguins project now issues meme coins, pursues various brand collaborations, and commercializes its intellectual property. Blockchain and crypto experts consider the Pudgy Penguin model an ideal example of the connection between blockchain and culture.

It is worth noting that, like many NFT projects of its generation, Pudgy Penguins is based on the Ethereum blockchain, with an original collection comprising 8,888 NFT avatars. However, holding a Pudgy Penguin NFT gives its user complete IP rights to that particular token, allowing them the flexibility of using the collectible for virtually anything.

Many Pudgy Penguins owners have printed and sold them as merchandise, used them across social media platforms, for marketing, and in some cases, have gone ahead to establish businesses around the NFT. Particularly, Pudgy Penguins’ dominant presence on social media, with over 50 billion global views, gives it an edge in the digital assets industry.

PENGU, the cryptocurrency associated with the Pudgy Penguins project, experienced a significant rally in 2025. The digital asset surged 1,275% in the second quarter of the year, rising from $0.00370 to $0.04663 in less than four months. However, the price has retraced following a broader crypto market pullback, trading for $0.02728 at the time of writing, according to data from TradingView.

Pudgy Penguins has displayed exceptional performance compared to other digital assets in the same category. However, its growing awareness and demand across the cryptocurrency ecosystem suggest that the crypto project could experience more growth. It also exemplifies how crypto projects can become integral parts of mainstream activities.