The recently launched PENGU token has taken center stage, emerging as the largest Solana-based memecoin by market capitalization. This impressive rally has piqued the interest of large-scale investors, leading to significant investments in the token over the past week.
December 17 marked the official launch of PENGU, an integral part of the Pudgy Penguins NFT project, on the Solana Blockchain. Within a mere nine days, the token climbed the ranks, outshining other Solana-based tokens and capturing extensive attention. Pudgy Penguins, renowned for its collection of 8,888 unique penguin cartoons, enjoys a market capitalization of 205,757 ETH.
Anticipation surrounding the token launch propelled the project to become the second-largest NFT collection, just behind CryptoPunks.
Since its inception three years ago, the Pudgy Penguins community has grown robustly, gaining a cherished place in popular culture, as per the project's team. Although a specific use case for PENGU has yet to be declared, it is poised to contribute to the project’s governance. The newly introduced cryptocurrency is set to expand the project’s community and increase its reach, welcoming both seasoned and new users to align with the penguins.
CoinGecko data reveals that PENGU's Solana-based memecoin debuted with a remarkable 500% surge, reaching a market capitalization of $3.5 billion but encountered significant volatility soon after. Just hours post-launch, PENGU's price fell over 50% before settling at a $1.4 billion market cap by December 20. Over subsequent days, the token stabilized within the $0.025-$0.037 range, firming up around the upper zone on Christmas Eve.
During the festive market uplift on Christmas Day, PENGU surpassed this range and hit the $0.042 mark by Thursday morning, achieving a $2.6 billion market cap. This 18% rally enabled PENGU to surpass dogwifhat (WIF) and BONK, ascending as the largest Solana memecoin by market cap and currently affirming its status as the sector leader. PENGU currently ranks fourth among memecoins by market cap, following Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, and PEPE. Market activity has surged 25% in the past day, with a trading volume of $1.92 billion.
According to on-chain data firm Lookonchain, PENGU’s rise has not gone unnoticed by crypto whales, leading to significant investment from large-scale investors over the recent week. On December 24, one whale that received an airdrop of 116.7 million PENGU, valued at $3.52 million, enhanced their position with an additional $1 million purchase.
The wallet invested 5,250 SOL to acquire an extra 34.42 million PENGU, summing to 151.12 million PENGU valued at $5.08 million. Another whale traded 500,000 ai16z, another prevalent Solana-based memecoin, for PENGU, spending $2.47 million in the past eight days to amass 79.9 million PENGU, accruing unrealized profits of approximately $835,000.
As of the current moment, PENGU is trading at $0.038, reflecting a 4.8% daily increase.