The NFT collection based on the cute, flightless seabirds has grown in popularity and value since Luca Schnetzler became CEO in April 2022.

The floor price of Pudgy Penguins, the popular non-fungible token (NFT) collection, temporarily surpassed that of the iconic Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) over the weekend, another sign of growth for the NFTs based on the cute, flightless seabirds since Luca Schnetzler became CEO of the project in April 2022.

Data from blockchain analytics firm Nansen showed on early Saturday that the lowest available price to acquire a Pudgy Penguin was 22.7 ETH (roughly $66,500), significantly higher than its roughly one ETH floor price level on March 31, 2022, several days before Schnetzler stepped in as CEO of Pudgy Penguins. 

On the other hand, BAYC’s floor price hit 22.15 ETH (around $64,900) on Saturday, which is a roughly 78% decrease from 97 ETH at the end of March 2022. 

Floor price refers to the lowest available price to acquire one NFT item in its collection. It is a popular metric among NFT traders and art collectors because it serves as an indicator of overall market value, demand, and popularity. 

At presstime, the floor price of the Pudgy Penguins and BAYC collections have settled at 20.15 ETH and 21.45 ETH, respectively, according to NFT marketplace Blur. 

Momentum for Pudgy Penguins

In April 2022, Schnetzler led a group of Pudgy Penguin holders to buy control of the project from its founders. Since then, the collection has raised $9 million in a seed funding round, begun selling physical toys at Walmart stores located in the U.S., and announced the launch of its interactive digital world on layer 2 blockchain network zkSync.

Pudgy Penguins briefly taking the lead in floor price even garnered praise from the BAYC community. “Proud of @pudgypenguins. I remember the feeling the team must feel today, and it was beyond surreal. I miss working with that singleness of purpose. Miss the hustle…Finally, a worthy opponent,” wrote Wylie Aronow, co-founder of Yuga Labs, the parent company of the BAYC collection, early on Saturday.

Celebrities have helped fuel the rise of the BAYC collection. For example, in Jan. 2022, Jimmy Fallon and Paris Hilton revealed on “The Tonight Show” that they were “apes,” token holders of the NFT collection.  

However, the BAYC collection has been involved in some controversies in 2023, ranging from attendees of ApeFest reportedly suffering from eye-related medical injuries to Aronow publishing a 24-page letter to address accusations of Nazi imagery in the NFT project.

The “flappening,” as some Pudgy holders on X have called it, also occurred one day after Yuga Labs became an even bigger player in the NFT space by acquiring Proof, a collective widely known for its Moonbirds NFT collection. 

Despite  Pudgy Penguins catching up to BAYC, the BAYC collection is still under the Yuga Labs’ umbrella, which contains some of the best-known NFT collections in the crypto ecosystem, such as Mutant Ape Yacht Club, CryptoPunks, Meebits, and Otherside.

NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are a type of cryptocurrency known as digital art collectibles. They are different from fungible tokens such as BTC, ETH and SOL because each NFT is unique, carrying properties that make a single NFT different from others. 

Fungible tokens, on the other hand typically designed to conduct transactions, do not possess any uniqueness from each other. One token of ETH is not any different from another token of ETH, and the same goes for BTC and SOL, among others.