Solana's Network Activity Spikes as Pudgy Penguins NFT Project Debuts Native PENGU Token

Solana's network activity lit up on Tuesday as the Pudgy Penguins NFT project debuted its native token, PENGU, on the programmable blockchain.

Solana's (CRYPTO: SOL) layer 1 blockchain network lit up on Tuesday as the Pudgy Penguins NFT project natively launched its token, PENGU, on the programmable blockchain.

Solana's Chain Activity: The blockchain, touted as a low-cost alternative to Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH), processed a total of 66.9 million transactions on Tuesday, marking the highest daily transaction count since Solana's inception in 2020, as per data from Artemis. To put things into perspective, Solana's transaction count was higher than the combined total transactions of all other major chains.

Solana also led other blockchains in terms of daily decentralized exchange (DEX) trading volume and daily active addresses. However, it lagged behind Base (CRYPTO: BASE), Ethereum and Tron (CRYPTO: TRX) in the stablecoin transfer volume.

Solana and Retail Investors: Solana has emerged as the preferred blockchain for retail investors seeking to quickly capitalize on memecoins, NFTs and other smaller tokens, especially since the beginning of the crypto bull run in early 2024.

The Pudgy Penguins' Native Token Airdrop: On Tuesday, holders of original Pudgy Penguins, Lil Pudgys, Rogs, and Soul Bound Tokens (SBT) eagerly participated in the PENGU airdrop, which commenced at 08:00 ET. The project announced that over 100,000 claims were made within the first hour, and the project's website recorded over 4.7 million views.

According to data from Coingecko, PENGU debuted with a market cap of $2.3 billion, which has since decreased to $2 billion.

Solana's SOL Token Price Action: On Tuesday, Solana's SOL token price increased by 3.2% to $229, following the rise in the price of the market-leading cryptocurrency bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC). However, the token encountered resistance at the $220 level and dropped to $217 as of this writing, possibly indicating caution ahead of the Federal Reserve's interest rate decision.