THELOGICALINDIAN - Are the beautiful NFT avatars aloof a fad or actuality to stay
Are butterball penguins aloof addition busy money grab hustle freeriding the NFT advertising alternation or a accepted activity seeing well-deserved success? While some high-profile influencers in the amplitude acquaint that the activity may be a pump and dump scheme, others besom off the concerns, arguing “they’re aloof the cutest memes on the internet.”
Unpacking the Penguin Hype
Pudgy penguins are demography over the metaverse by storm.
“Located in the freezing cold, chill arena of the metaverse you can acquisition 8,888 beautiful ample Pudgy Penguins sliding about on the ETH blockchain.” — If you were apprehensive what Pudgy Penguins is, this is it. That’s the project’s absolute pitch. And there’s absolutely annihilation added to it. It’s jpegs of ample penguins minted as different non-fungible tokens (NFTs) recorded on the Ethereum blockchain. The accomplished recorded auction for a distinct one of these penguins is 150 ETH or about bisected a actor dollars at accepted prices. Now the aforementioned penguin is listed at 500 ETH, according to $1.6 million.
The accepted attic amount for a distinct butterball penguin NFT is 2.16 ETH or almost $7,000, and in the aftermost seven canicule alone, the activity surpassed $53 actor in trading volume, overtaking Crypto Punks to become the top traded accumulating on NFT exchange OpenSea.
So, what gives? Why is anybody on Crypto Twitter aback so bedeviled with pictures of penguins? Is it because they’re rare? If so, again so are endless added NFT collections, some alike rarer, so why butterball penguins specifically? Is it because they’re so cute? Sure, they’re cute, but bisected a million-dollars for a tokenized jpeg cute? Debateable.
Or is it all conceivably an elaborate, influencer-orchestrated get-rich-quick scheme? Several high-profile crypto traders and NFT collectors took to Twitter aftermost anniversary to acquaint penguin connoisseurs that the accomplished affair looked coarse and prices ability be heavily manipulated.
One of the founders and arch associates of the Pudgy Penguins team, ColeThereum, additionally came beneath abundant blaze on Twitter for allegedly actuality “an charlatan who deceives people.” The NFT association dug into his accomplished and apparent that COLE ran a apprehensive dropshipping business abounding with abrogating reviews and comments from annoyed barter afore abutting the crypto space.
To accomplish things worse, COLE was additionally bent amiss appearance an NFT betrayal to advance a accepted NFT activity alleged FameLadySquad. Specifically, he said he’d accord abroad Lady #500 to a accidental actuality who followed and retweeted his column but he never did, alike announcement the aforementioned NFT for auction on OpenSea canicule later. After actuality called out on Twitter, COLE added admitted to shilling accidental NFT projects for money after advice he was actuality paid to do so.
The catechism bugging NFT collectors now is whether one person’s mistakes are abundant to discredit the accomplished project. While COLE absolutely fabricated some mistakes in the past, this doesn’t prove that Pudgy Penguins is a betray or a pump and dump scheme. To the point, there’s no affirmation anybody accommodating in the activity got scammed in any way, and $54 actor in account trading aggregate can hardly be attributed to an influencer-orchestrated pump and dump scheme.
The cutting majority of the Pudgy Penguins association loves the activity and doesn’t assume too agitated by COLE’s accomplished actions.
While Pudgy Penguins’ acceleration in acceptance looks genuine, the changing catechism remains: for how long? Pudgy Penguins NFTs are hardly any altered from added animal-based NFT avatars, and anticipation by how bound they overtook added accustomed projects like Crypto Punks and Bored Apes, annihilation suggests Pudgy Penguins can’t be replaced by addition NFT activity aloof as easily.
Disclaimer: At the time of autograph this feature, the columnist endemic Ethereum.
