Pudgy Penguin’s PENGU token is up 13% despite declining NFT sales.

Pudgy Penguin's native token, PENGU, surged 13 percent on January 5, emerging as one of the top performers in the crypto market.

At the time of publication, PENGU was trading at $0.040, a 250% increase since its launch on December 17. Initially starting with a market value of $2.8 billion, the token has since been lowered to $2.5 billion, according to CoinGecko.

Some big owners are cashing in on the rally. Blockchain analytics platform Lookonchain reported a new wallet withdrawal from Binance on January 4 worth 84 million PENGU – $3.13 million.

Despite Pengu's price growth, sales of Pudgy Penguin NFTs have fallen by 52% in the past seven days, according to data from CryptoSlam.

In the first few days of 2025, Pudgy Penguins had billions of GIF views, the Telegram sticker trial sold out in record time, hundreds of thousands of new penguins with real stakes in the game, viral Instagram and TikTok campaigns,” Berko Crypto, community leader at Pudgy Penguins, on January 3.

Pudgy Penguins' continues to capture the public's interest, thanks in part to its viral GIFs and sticker style. The project recorded more than 1.1 billion views for its stickers and GIFs in five days in January.

Related: Pudgy Penguin CEO Unfazed by SEC Actions on NFT Sector

Pengu Token Expansion Plans

PENGU currently runs on Solana but plans to expand to Ethereum and Abstract, an Ethereum layer-2 scale solution developed by Igloo Inc. The total supply of the token is 88.88 billion, 25.9% of which is allocated to Pudgy Penguin NFT holders by Air Requesters.

While no official use case for PENGU has been confirmed, the token is expected to have unique benefits in governance and ecology.

Crypto trader Pentoshi has teased the possibility of a future airdrop for PENGU holders.

“$PENGU holders to receive abstract (probably another 6 figs + airdrop. Pengu owner role and Pengu user roles can be qualified by getting them in Pudgy Discord.”

Pudgy Penguin NFT sales slide

Despite the token's rally, Pudgy Penguins NFT sales have fallen sharply.

Last week, total sales dropped to $5.5 million — a 52 percent drop from the previous week. NFT transactions fell by 51%, while buyers and sellers fell by 56% and 41% respectively.

In comparison, Azuki, another leading Ethereum NFT aggregator, saw sales fall by 17.65%, while DMarket on Mythos bucked the trend with a 10.43% increase in sales.

In the year Launched in 2021, Pudgy Penguin has grown to become the second-largest NFT collective by market cap, valued at $721 million, followed by CryptoPunks at $1.4 billion, according to NFT Price Floor.

Specifically, the project partnered with retailers Walmart and Target to stock Pudgy Penguin-licensed toys in stores, resulting in over one million toy sales.

Magazine: Crypto has 4 years to grow so big ‘no one can shut it down': Cain Warwick, Infinex