Overview
Pudgy Penguins is a series of 8,888 unique, hand-drawn NFTs featuring cartoon penguins with various traits. Each Pudgy Penguin is algorithmically generated from a pool of over 150 attributes, ensuring distinctiveness among the tokens. The collection was launched on July 22, 2021, and sold out within 19 minutes at an initial mint price of 0.03 ETH.
Founding and Development
The project was created by four college students: Cole Villemain (ColeThereum), Clayton Patterson (Mrtubby), MickyJ, and Jonah. In April 2022, following internal challenges, Pudgy Penguins was acquired by entrepreneur Luca Netz for 750 ETH (approximately $2.5 million). Under Netz’s leadership, the project expanded its brand presence and introduced new initiatives, including physical merchandise and children’s books leveraging the Pudgy Penguins intellectual property.
Ecosystem Expansion
Beyond the original collection, Pudgy Penguins has developed additional NFT series:
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Lil Pudgys: Introduced in December 2021, this collection comprises 22,222 NFTs. Of these, 8,888 were distributed to existing Pudgy Penguin holders, with the remainder available through public sale. Lil Pudgys are considered
