Pudgy Penguins, one of crypto’s most recognizable brands, has announced its expansion to Solana with the launch of $PENGU, the ecosystem’s native memecoin.

In an exclusive interview with SolanaFloor, Pudgy’s Emperor Penguin Luca Netz outlined his thesis on why Solana offers an unrivaled consumer experience and defined the brand’s ambitions moving forward.

“It Has to Start in Solana”

While the Pudgy team is hard at work developing Abstract, an Ethereum Layer-2 designed to be the ultimate ‘Consumer Crypto Chain’, Netz acknowledged Solana’s accessible UX as a key factor to achieving critical mass.

Netz considers the $PENGU launch on Solana “an interesting unification moment”. NFTs across the industry have demonstrated how collectibles can help foster online communities and cultivate a sense of belonging, but illiquidity and a high barrier to entry still prevent fans from aligning with the brand.

“We have millions of followers and fans around the world, via the products we've sold and the content that we've made, that actually genuinely love the brand. Yet they have no way to actually align themselves and participate with it.”

Throughout 2024, Solana has emerged as the port of call for newcomers entering the crypto space. Commending the network’s smooth onboarding, Netz argues the “best consumer experience for that end normie user is on Solana”.

Despite launching on Solana, Netz admits “the whole plan for this was to always do it on Abstract”. However, after Abstract’s launch was rescheduled, the Pudgy team saw a serendipitous opportunity. 

“My gut tells me you're either going to do this now or you're never going to do it… Where I think this thing has to start, it has to start in Solana, I think the experience is too significant. It's too positive for the end consumer.”

Balancing Expectations

Cross-chain expansions and token airdrops tread a delicate path. Despite their best intentions, crypto teams often misjudge the balance between honoring their current community and attracting members.

Seeking to juggle everyone's best interests, the Pudgy Penguin team designed a generous tokenomics structure that offers the best of both worlds. While still fairly rewarding its existing holders,  25% of $PENGU’s supply has been allocated to Solana ecosystem participants from all walks of life. On top of prominent Solana NFT collections, potential recipients include Phantom and Moonshot users.

Beyond distributing an ample amount of Pudgy tokens to the wider ecosystem, Netz and the Pudgy team are empowering new community members to join the Pudgy community on the ground floor.

“We could launch this in a certain way and it could be billions of dollars day one… we're actually taking a complete contrarian take here. We're going to try to launch as low as physically possible… We could do this and this could easily be, you know, Pudgy's just cashing out, right? But we're actually not structuring that way. And I hope the space really sees that.”

“This is the Beginning of the Beginning”

A golden child of NFT history, Pudgy Penguins network effect needs no introduction. After waddling their way into Walmart and amassing over 1.6M followers on ‘normie-centric’ social media platforms like Instagram, Netz is adamant Pudgy Penguins are well positioned to be “the face of the industry.”

Beyond Pudgy’s industry-best brand recognition, Netz asserts that memecoins are a far greater IP distribution channel than traditional NFTs. Instead of having a finite number of community members aligning with the brand, the memecoin format allows enables the brand to grow at scale. 

“I think a million $PENGU holders creates exponentially more demand… If you actually look at the data, data of the last 12 months actually tells you that the token and NFT pairing is the most powerful pairing. They actually uplift one another in a really meaningful way.”

Contrary to popular opinion, which claims that memecoins are dilutive to NFT collections, Netz argues that the NFT/memecoin flywheel is vastly beneficial to both asset classes. With the bulk of Ethereum’s most dominant NFT collections launching memecoins in the coming months, Netz anticipates this format will become an industry standard. 

“In about three weeks time, the four biggest NFT projects in the world, with the exception of CryptoPunks, will all have a coin associated to it. Milady will have $CULT. Pudgy Penguins will have Pengu. Bored Apes will have Apes. So at that point, it's almost like it's either going to fall in line with the norm or you're going to be left behind.”

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