PENGU: From NFT Dominance to Solana Memecoin Dominance

PENGU launched on 17th December 2024 amidst a rollercoaster of price action. Shortly after airdropping the token to Pudgy Penguins NFT holders

After airdropping the token to Pudgy Penguins NFT holders, it encountered a 50% decline despite an initial market cap of $2.3 billion.

However, by 25 December 2024, it had quickly rebounded, showcasing remarkable resilience by overtaking BONK.

Most recently, in January 2025, PENGU overtook Optimism, a Layer 2 scaling solution built on top of the Ethereum blockchain. This makes it the 50th largest cryptocurrency by market cap.

Solana’s meme coin ecosystem surged to $22.5 billion, an increase driven by PENGU’s performance in the last 24 hours. This highlights the significant importance of meme coins to the blockchain.

The success showcases the possible synergies between NFT projects and token launches. This is because the launch of the token has increased sales volumes of the Pudgy Penguins NFT collection, reaching $6.2 million in 24 hours.

It also highlights the complex relationship between tokens and their associated NFT collections because of the price decline shortly after launch.

There’s also been significant investor interest, including whales, signified by daily trading volumes reaching $1.27 billion.

Finally, its success may accelerate its planned expansion to other blockchains, including Ethereum and layer-2 solutions like Abstract. This could drive increased interoperability and liquidity across different blockchains.