Key Takeaways
- Month veteran project Beefy Penguins has change into the tip traded sequence on NFT market OpenSea.
- The project has encountered controversy, with some accusing one of many founders of being a scammer.
- Nevertheless, passion in the project looks trusty and demand for pudgy penguin NFTs continues to grow.
Are pudgy penguins lawful one more give an explanation for cash elevate hustle freeriding the NFT hype practice or a sound project seeing no longer easy-earned success? Whereas some excessive-profile influencers in the condominium warn that the project would be a pump and dump draw, others brush off the troubles, arguing “they’re lawful the cutest memes on the net.”
Unpacking the Penguin Hype
Beefy penguins are taking on the metaverse by storm.
“Located in the freezing chilly, arctic self-discipline of the metaverse you are going to be in a position to finding 8,888 dazzling pudgy Beefy Penguins sliding around on the ETH blockchain.” — If you occur to had been questioning what Beefy Penguins is, this is it. That’s the project’s total pitch. And there’s in fact nothing extra to it. It’s jpegs of pudgy penguins minted as queer non-fungible tokens (NFTs) recorded on the Ethereum blockchain. The supreme recorded sale for a single the kind of penguins is 150 ETH or about half 1,000,000 dollars at recent prices. Now the same penguin is listed at 500 ETH, equal to $1.6 million.
The recent floor note for a single pudgy penguin NFT is 2.16 ETH or roughly $7,000, and in the rest seven days on my own, the project surpassed $53 million in shopping and selling volume, overtaking Crypto Punks to vary into the tip traded sequence on NFT market OpenSea.
So, what presents? Why is all americans on Crypto Twitter with out note so fervent about photos of penguins? Is it because they’re rare? If that’s the case, then so are endless diversified NFT collections, some even rarer, so why pudgy penguins specifically? Is it because they’re so dazzling? Determined, they’re dazzling, nonetheless half 1,000,000-dollars for a tokenized jpeg dazzling? Debateable.
Or is it all in all likelihood an give an explanation for, influencer-orchestrated procure-rich-quick draw? Several excessive-profile crypto traders and NFT collectors took to Twitter remaining week to warn penguin connoisseurs that the final thing looked sketchy and prices will almost definitely be heavily manipulated.
One in all the founders and main people of the Beefy Penguins crew, ColeThereum, also came below heavy fire on Twitter for allegedly being “an opportunist who deceives folks.” The NFT community dug into his past and came upon that COLE ran a suspicious dropshipping alternate flooded with unfavourable experiences and comments from dissatisfied potentialities sooner than joining the crypto condominium.
4/ Why the unfavourable experiences you are going to effect aside a effect aside an explain to to?
The comment and review sections are stuffed with cases of customers no longer receiving orders, refunds, or responses from enhance.
Show he deleted the Instagram net page in the present day after he bought called out. Fortunately the Facebook net page was once there. pic.twitter.com/GOv6juNXL0
— Zach (@ZachXBT) August 11, 2021
To affect issues worse, COLE was once also caught crimson-handed faking an NFT giveaway to promote a preferred NFT project called FameLadySquad. Particularly, he acknowledged he’d give away Woman #500 to a random particular individual that adopted and retweeted his put up nonetheless he by no technique did, even posting the same NFT on the market on OpenSea days later. After being called out on Twitter, COLE further admitted to shilling random NFT initiatives for cash with out disclosing he was once being paid to realize so.
The effect aside an explain to bugging NFT collectors now is whether or no longer or no longer one particular person’s mistakes are ample to discredit the final project. Whereas COLE admittedly made some mistakes prior to now, this doesn’t expose that Beefy Penguins is a scam or a pump and dump draw. To the level, there’s no proof any individual participating in the project bought scammed in any technique, and $54 million in weekly shopping and selling volume can infrequently be attributed to an influencer-orchestrated pump and dump draw.
The overwhelming majority of the Beefy Penguins community loves the project and doesn’t seem too tormented by COLE’s past actions.
Hilarious that folks mediate @pudgy_penguins are a pump and dump. Uhh no dude they’re lawful the cutest memes on the net!
— Adam Levy🍌 (@Roothlus) August 11, 2021
Whereas Beefy Penguins’ upward push in fame looks trusty, the unanswered effect aside an explain to remains: for how prolonged? Beefy Penguins NFTs are infrequently any diversified from diversified animal-primarily based entirely mostly NFT avatars, and judging by how hasty they overtook extra established initiatives love Crypto Punks and Bored Apes, nothing suggests Beefy Penguins can’t be changed by one more NFT project lawful as with out pain.
