Pudgy Penguins Concludes PENGU Token Claim on Solana, Burns Unclaimed Tokens Worth Over US$150M

Web3 project Pudgy Penguins concluded its PENGU token claim on Solana this Wednesday after burning all remaining unclaimed tokens

Web3 project Pudgy Penguins concluded its PENGU token claim on Solana on Wednesday after burning all remaining unclaimed tokens — roughly 13.69% of the total supply — valued at over US$150M (AU$238M) at the time of the burn.

Although the original claim period was set to end on March 9, the team moved up the deadline, giving users only five additional days to claim their PENGU.

According to Pudgy Penguins’ project lead, Luca Netz, the expedited timeline was due to most Pudgy Penguins NFT holders already claiming their tokens, adding that the rest are just bots:

Shortly after the announcement, 10% of the remaining airdrop supply was claimed, leaving over 12 billion PENGU tokens unclaimed. These tokens were then transferred from an address labeled “Pudgy Penguins Airdrop” on Solana’s block explorer, Solscan, to the Solana burn address known as “1nc1nerator”, effectively removing them from circulation.

The token burning did the opposite of what it was supposed to do. Instead of boosting the price due to scarcity, the token has plummeted by over 14% in the past 24 hours, falling to US$0.0117 (AU$0.019).

This knocked the coin out of the top 100 tokens by market capitalization. The PENGU token is also down over 70% from its all-time high of US$0.057 (AU$0.091) in December 2024.

Meanwhile, Pudgy Penguins’ parent company, Igloo Inc., announced plans to attract new capital to PENGU and Pudgy Penguins NFTs by increasing institutional interest. But users are just not buying it. The broader NFT ecosystem has been on a downward spree for years now, with the Pudgy Penguins NFT collection dropping 14% over the past week, reaching a floor price of $29,840, as per CoinGecko data.