Today we’re going to talk about PENGU, the Pudgy Penguins token that launched a few days ago on the 17th. Right now we’re looking at a 1.9 billion market cap and a 2.7 billion FDV, which includes the team supply that’s vested for 3 years. But honestly, it hasn’t performed like everyone hoped. I’ve seen a lot of people saying this was their worst trade in the past three years.

I actually made a video earlier saying that if you could get in below a billion market cap, that would be really good. I think that prediction helped stop some newbies from getting burnt, because as we can see, there hasn’t been much movement, and it might even go lower.

From what I can tell, the main issue was that it started way too high – there was just too much hype off the bat. This is what always happens with overhyped drops – it crashes right from the start. All the airdrop recipients sell instantly, and they’re out. The problem is, these airdrop recipients are usually the ones most likely to keep the price up since they also hold the NFT.

A lot of people were watching the airdrop claim percentage – we’re at 88% now, which is close to that 90% mark everyone was waiting for. But here’s the thing – if 88% of people have already claimed their PENGU, and that was supposed to be the main selling pressure, why isn’t the price going up? It probably means the market isn’t really feeling the token right now, or maybe everyone’s just distracted with Christmas.

Looking at the data, something concerning I’ve noticed is that 75% of the top holders – these are the people who owned the most NFTs and got the biggest airdrops – they’ve sold their entire allocation. Only two of the top holders are still holding their PENGU. That’s not a great sign.

I personally stayed on the sidelines because it never hit my target entry price, but I’m thinking about buying soon. I still think we could see a 2x from here, maybe up to 3-3.2 billion market cap. But I think we might need to see it drop to around 1.6 billion first.

One issue I want to point out is how they handled the airdrop distribution. They gave tokens to OG ETH users and ETH Diamond hands, and while I get wanting to make it a community thing, you’ve got to question this strategy. When you look at people who’ve held Pudgy Penguins for months, some who bought in at 2 ETH when Luke Belmar got involved – these are the people who believed in the vision. Why weren’t they given a larger portion instead of random ETH users who probably don’t even care about the ecosystem?

Compare this to what Hyperliquid did – they mainly rewarded people who actually held assets on their platform, not traders, because they knew holders were more likely to keep the token long-term.

But look, even with all these issues, I still think this is a solid project. The team is better than most NFT teams, they’re generating revenue, and that 3-year vesting shows they’re thinking long-term. Make sure to drop your thoughts in the comments below, and don’t forget to join our Discord. If you want my best DexSceener filters to find 100X’s, check the link in the description.