The SpaceX IPO made 4400+ employees and even former employees millionaires.
Imagine what @pudgypenguins IPO will do for early supporters and holders 🐧
Huge potential because most likely crypto native brand will be highly undervalued at launch but the potential of the most viral IP is unmatched.
It’s time for @AbstractChain bullposting ✳️
Unfortunately many NFT people left Abs but Abstract Chain is fun now as never before. So it’s time to change people’s mind, bring the old and the new users back 👀
Funny how that works.
About 1.5 years ago I was being clowned, disrespected, called greedy, and bullied for daring to speak up about the concepts of rarity and collectability – which are imho integral parts of NTFs (as they are collectibles at their core) – and warning about how badly structured artificial financial incentives were about to destroy those organic inherent aspects.
Similarly, I have been clowned when speaking about BTC all the way back in 2013/14 when I was picking up some in the three digit range. Nobody wanted to hear about my "funny internet fake money".
People asked me if I wanna die on that hill in both cases, and I decided to do so in both cases.
Fast forward to spring 2026, BTC sits at around 80k and is globally adopted and recognized by some of the biggest players in finance, "bringing back" collectability for NFTs and making "grails matter again". OTC desks for grails are being created, collector profile ideas that I tried to push all back when slowly being picked up by more collections.
In both cases, my opinion was verbatim called "wrong" but turned out to be quite "right" – it just took the wider mass of people a fairly long time to catch on. Reason why one should always be open minded towards what is not status quo or popular belief.
Happy to see the tides shifting finally, but the damage that was done is fairly significant. Artificial financial incentives such as blur farming and suboptimal distributions of token airdrops that treated inherently non-fungible collectibles as fungible (aka interchangeable) financial instruments made "buying stuff one really likes" subpar and punished vs "amassing as much of those assets as possible for as cheap as possible with no attention to detail or personal preference".
Blur's blend loans saw a rampant growth and huge interest due to this unhealthy narrative that has been created by those systemic factors. People begann "looping" floor NFTs (aka basically everything now since traits were pushed more and more into irrelevance) by taking out mass loans on just bought NFTs (which now were more speculative financial instrument than collectible" to buy even more of them (rinse and repeat).
As soon as the liquidity events hit (token drops etc.) those players – quite many of which vultures that long left NFTs now that they cannot extract from them as easily anymore – exited in size, which lead to harsh, toxic, and very extreme unwinds in the loan orderbooks. Sure one can blame those people, but the true issue have been the systems and their intricacies.
Hate the game, not the player!
Grateful and relieved to see that the "makers" of these games (marketplaces, teams, leaders) are finally waking up and addressing these issues now, going back to the roots of NFTs as collectibles and digital identities – instead of mere financial instruments.
Better late than never. Wish many of them listened to the warnings back in the day, over giving in to the sweet whispers of the extractors and "snake oil salesmen" over passionate collectors. But at least many of the latter are gone now and hopefully won't come back.
Cannot turn back time sadly, but can always be hopeful and forward looking for the future! I believe NFTs have what it takes to succeed as what they were always meant to be – despite all obstacles and hurdles along the way.
Lots of new faces joined us yesterday
I probably didn't catch every single one, there are just too many 😅 and my apologies if I missed you
But to everyone who just bought in: Welcome Home!!
Whether you're holding a Pudgy Penguins, a Lil Pudgys, a Rogs or just getting started, you're part of this now
The door's not just open. It's been waiting for you.
only added 3 lils to my collection those last couple of months, but i man did i pick them well ...Dollar Cost Averaging into grails over here. thanks to @Artheistic for helping with the latest pick up @LilPudgys
Let's REKINDLE THE INNER FLAME OF THE HUDDLE!
The year is 2026 A.D. Crypto twitter seems entirely ded and full of bears. Well not entirely! One small huddle of indomitable @pudgypenguins still holds out against the bears.
But they've been complacent and on the verge of being also overcome by the gloom and frustration that hold most of CT in their cold grip. However ... penguins thrive in winter, they made it through many cold ones before, and the huddle shall prevail again. It is always darkest before dawn!
There have been lots of sparks that illuminated the darkness lately: More twitter spaces, group chats waking up again, new collectors coming in, awesome commissions being created, funny copy pasta chains and memes being spread. Penguins refuse to be overpowered by negativity and try to make a difference. Also thank you to the community team around @ppmcghee for hearing out ideas and feedback.
Yet, the huddle is strongest when everyone holds together and pushes forward together – from the OGs, to the team members, to the newest holders, to everyone who joined along the way. You are all TRUE penguins.
I wanted to help to unify and excite people, so I've been thinking about ways to do so. What instantly came to my mind is art and the emotions it sparks in us – especially if it is something that is personalized, such as a commission and features things we love.
"I am my Penguin, and my penguin is me" – is one of the most passionate statements initially coined by legend @JoeyMoose many years ago when penguins were still in their infancy. It's the magic sparked from truly identifying with something that feels like "you", the magic of the 8888 original penguins and the 22222 lil pudgies (some of which still are waiting to see the light of this world) – with unique traits, characters, and vibes.
Seeing all the art pieces our new legendary collector @DohkoNFT commissioned after picking up his ice skin penguin – that he clearly adores – sparked a lot of excitement in me. Excitement that I first felt when @offshoot3D and @EtheriaChan gifted me my first NFT commissions for my penguins all the way back in 2021. I want all of the huddle to feel such excitement, but I know many are in a rough spot right now (including even myself to some degree due to being scammed ... yay) and cannot afford splurging money on commissions right now.
So I reached out to @FroggyCyborg, who is not only one of the most talented artists – especially when it comes to sparking emotions in people with his art – but also became one of my closest friends in crypto over the last half decade. Together we brainstormed many hours and came up with an activation that we hope is able to not only excite people but also make them feel appreciated, connected, included, part of an awesome unified and strong community, and most importantly "happy" in those dark and hard times ... and is something that captures the idea of the initiative of "rekindling the inner flame of the huddle".
Drawing from the concept of the Olympic flame that features a torch relay throughout the world, we want to create a set of weekly art pieces that connect into one huge unified artwork that features all holders of penguins or lils that want to be a part of it.
While passing on the flame from one penguin to the next, we want to – akin to the tradition of the Olympic flame that inspired us – traverse the world and feature all the awesome regions in which @pudgypenguins captivated people and found holders as well as all the amazing regional subcommunities that were formed over the years. If you are leading a subcommunity for a region, please reach out to us and we shall figure out an awesome way to include you in one of the backgrounds for the many pieces that will be made.
If you are a holder of @pudgypenguins and / or @LilPudgys and wanna be a part of the upcoming art pieces the process is very simple:
1. Quote tweet this tweet with "Rekindle the inner flame of the huddle", the artwork below, and whatever else you wanna include in your quote tweet.
2. Reply below this tweet with a picture of the penguin or lil that you wanna see included in the artwork.
There is no cost or any further obligation to be included, I prepaid @FroggyCyborg a decent chunk and he is a legend and willing to do the work for the community.
If you still wanna chip in after you were featured in one of the weekly art pieces, feel free to send some crypto to froggycyborg.eth (EVM only), but that is fully OPTIONAL. Please have some patience though, it's all gonna be handcrafted art so it is gonna take some time to get to all of you. Froggy – the goat – wanna aim for roughly one piece per week.
Primarily we'd be happy with as many of you as possible just joining the movement and helping us to bring positive energy and vibes to the gloomy twitter timeline and the huddle. We're grateful for all of you for being part of the huddle and everything all of you do. I cannot make an appreciation post for all of you, but I do appreciate you all!
@LucaNetz lighted the flame, @FroggyCyborg and me started passing it on, but we need all of you to carry it out in the entire world and make penguins be the universally and globally liked phenomenon we envision them to be.
Community matters, you all matter. Don't ever let anyone ever tell you otherwise! We hope this brings some joy to all of you over the weeks.
P.S.: A big thank you and kudos also goes out to @FoxyPenguinApe for helping us with ideation, her awesome community work for @PenguAsia, chipping in a big donation to @FroggyCyborg, and supporting us with already preparing the next piece of this art chain.
After starting out in wintertime and in the home of penguins – Antarctica – we gonna move to Japan for spring – featuring the beautiful Sakura season that is in full bloom right now! Beyond that our path is still open, let us know where you all wanna waddle to next!