Sotheby's is offering a variety of pieces from the collection, showcasing a wide range of rarity, including the most well known piece in the collection. When you buy a Pudgy Penguins NFT, you buy a piece of emerging history. Pudgy Penguins is a groundbreaking NFT collection launched as part of the first wave of NFT collections. Moreover, it is the most successful collection in history taken over by its community. Generating over $200M in trade volume, the brand IP of the Penguins has proven to catch the hearts of many with its positive ethos and cute appearance. Its community has thrived through innovations of digital ownership, identity, and community empowerment. As part of its very first collaboration with Sotheby’s, Pudgy Penguins will be offering the first ever soulbound token to accompany an auctioned NFT item. With this sale, Pudgy Penguins seeks to push the Web3 space forward by showing you everything that digital ownership and identity can mean. When you join the huddle, you not only own a piece of history, you actually become a part of history unfolding. The online auction will open for bidding on Sothebys.com at 2pm November 18–30.
The Pudgy Penguin NFT collection harbors a unique allure that celebrates the rich history behind digital collectibles. Born from the creativity of four college friends during the boom of 2021 crypto-summer, this iconic collection arrived in impeccable fashion to captivate the PFP market. These flightless birds are not only uniquely joyful and welcoming, but their chubby and humorous appearance perfectly encapsulate the meme-culture rooted in Web 3. The Pudgy Penguin collection offers something unique to its holders: the opportunity to join a community dedicated to spreading positivity throughout the web3-space.
Following the launch, the collection catapulted in popularity, generating over 60,000 ETH in transaction volume within the first 12 months and witnessing individual sales as large as 400 ETH. Boasting renown celebrities such as Stephen Curry, Tory Lanez and Lil Baby as collectors, the Penguins forged their path into becoming a standard-bearer for digital collectibles.
In the first half of 2022, the penguins encountered The Great Blizzard. Struggling to realize a clear path forward, the founders soon transferred ownership to Luca Netz, an avid community member to lead the huddle. Following months of hard work under new leadership, the collection realized increased sales volume and higher prices, testament to the positive, inviting ethos of its strong community. A true story emblematic of enduring commitment.
Pudgy Penguins original founder, Cole Thereum transferred his iconic Penguin #4609 to Luca Netz and his team following the sale of the collection.
One of the most sought after digital collectibles, Penguin #4609 now remains an important piece of the collection's history—symbolic of the collection's rebirth and resilience of its community members. This iconic Pudgy Penguin is offered alongside other rare Penguins including the highly anticipated line of Pudgy Toys (Penguin #7315) as well as an ultra rare gold piece (Penguin #6615).
The story of the Pudgy Penguin NFT collection is centered around community engagement and resilience. This is why a large portion of this auction’s proceeds will be going to launch The Cozy Horizon Fund, to support community-focused initiatives for Pudgy Penguin NFT holders. The remainder of the funds will be allocated to Oceanites, as part of Pudgy Penguin’s first charitable giving initiative supporting the science-based conservation efforts in Antarctica. Founded in 1987, Oceanites is a nonprofit that embeds itself within the Antarctic penguin populations, studying how those populations adapt to our rapidly changing environment.
For its one year anniversary, Pudgy Penguins announced a soulbound token (SBT) initiative within the Pudgy Penguins ecosystem. A SBT is a non-transferable token that lives in a wallet and cannot be bought, sold or traded, thus opening up new lanes of creativity for projects such as Pudgy Penguins and their community. Pudgy Penguins was the first NFT project to use a soulbound token in a tangible use-case.
SBTs add a new and verifiable layer to one’s digital identity; they can be used to record transactions and ownership in an immutable way. Keeping this in mind, Pudgy Penguins will provide each winner of a Pudgy Penguin NFT at auction a special edition Sotheby’s X Pudgy Penguins soulbound token. The SBT will act as an ironclad certificate of authentication, recorded in the NFT’s metadata, that will memorialize and record the new Pudgy Penguin NFT holder’s participation in the auction and historic acquisition, forever.
Unlock the cave of wonders.
Reference Links:
