If you were to ask the average person what they think of when they think of ‘crypto’, they’d probably say Bitcoin. And for ‘web3’, probably NFTs. But what if the first thing they thought of was something friendlier, cuter, and cuddlier?

That’s what Pudgy Penguins is trying to do, with the goal of becoming the ‘face of crypto’. It might not make sense to natives or people who care about the tech. However, for onboarding new consumers, it’s certainly more digestible than reading a whitepaper or looking at a number go up and down.

The multi-year evolution of Pudgy Penguins from NFT collection to company with $40-$50M in annual revenue (projecting $100M+ in 2026) is a case study for every IP and consumer brand out there, even outside of crypto and web3. Here are 4 themes that have bolstered the continued proliferation of Pudgy Penguins across the industry and beyond in the past couple of months.

In mid-July, brands across the industry started to change their PFP to a Pudgy Penguin version. I don’t know who kickstarted the trend, but it seems Coinbase was one of the more notable brands that did this in the early days of the movement.

And we all know brands love to dogpile on trends that get engagement. Over the next few days, dozens of companies started to rock a Pudgified PFP while still sporting the core parts of their brand identity. They even got Popeye the Sailorman, wtf?!

Was this some coordinated campaign? Did the Pudgy team pay each company to rock it for a specified period of time? Nope, it was all organic.

What’s notable about this PFP takeover was that each of these Pudgified PFPs was custom to the company and the Pudgy team helped create it for them. Many of the accessories for each PFP are inspired by the original collection’s traits, and we also see versions that adopt the brand’s mascot if there is one.

Here we can see the two approaches with the custom PFPs. Metamask’s custom PFP uses the Pudgy NFT traits stylized with their brand. Meanwhile, Whale Insider’s PFP with a custom onesie trait based on their Whale logo and character.

The multiple approaches and variety of traits to choose from help make each custom PFP feel…custom. Some of this process can be automated, but the details are what really make them shine.

The Pudgy PFP fervor has subsided for the most part, but several companies have kept it on, especially if their product is based on Pudgy IP. This move was mutually beneficial for Pudgy Penguins and the participating companies, with the biggest winners being the people in charge of social media for these accounts. One pudgified PFP post and your weekly/monthly targets are hit 🎯

Some brands that stopped reppin’ their penguin on X made sure that they persisted on other social platforms, turning the PFP into an evergreen asset.

This type of mindshare and trust can’t be bought, only earned. The key here is that the Pudgy team manifested that trust into a PFP movement thanks to quick responses and creative personalized touches.

Another theme I caught onto only recently is the team’s PENGU custom listing announcement images:

• Tokero - Romanian exchange

• Rain - Middle Eastern exchange

• Coinsquare - Canadian exchange

• Bitbuy - Canadian exchange

• Hyperliquid - popular onchain exchange

• Webull - global exchange

• eToro - global exchange

• Gemini - global exchange

• Coindisco - exchange aggregator and on/offramp

• Young Platform

It doesn’t matter if the exchange is big or small, or where they’re based. They get the same treatment with an announcement and custom graphic.

Along with the custom PFPs, this exchange announcement effort amplifies an intangible aspect of business: goodwill. The Pudgy team could have used a less intensive and generic design template and instead went the extra mile to make each announcement personalized (and cute).

Both of these efforts lead to longer term advantages:

• Pudgy team now has the social lead contacts of many of the industry players

• Partnership conversations will start off warm by default (“they did that custom PFP last year, loved that!”)

• Exchange editorial decision makers will look more fondly upon PENGU and may prioritize them

The team doesn’t need to do this, but if I wanted to earn extra credit with all these partners and take it one step further, I’d create physical framed prints of the custom PFPs and exchange announcements and mail them to each company’s HQ, with a handwritten note signed by Luca (CEO) and several other members of the team. This would create a secondary wave of content coming from the partner and its team members while creating even more goodwill towards Pudgy Penguins.

Now that’s a surprise and delight moment I have a sneaking feeling that no one has done yet.

Although Pudgy’s approach is hard to replicate, we can all take notes on how they go the extra mile to make their partners feel special and spin that in our own respective ways.

Are Pudgy Penguins cute? If so, share or subscribe!

As a general principle, everyone knows that showing > telling, and Pudgy Penguins has taken this to heart in a few ways.

World of Pengu

The team recently introduced The World of Pengu, a page that highlights stats, social accounts, partnerships, community efforts, history, and news.

This serves as a great resource hub for both newbies and veteran community members alike. For example, I initially thought Purgy Pengoon, a rougher around the edges account with hilarious twerk-themed (SFW I promise lol) posts was created by some random person/team. In reality, the account was created and managed by them and has its own dedicated fanbase of 1.2M+ followers across its social accounts.

These types of landing pages that highlight stats and info are always helpful for the community to share, reference, and post about for different audiences with different goals. Other teams that do a good job of this in their own way:

• Pump.fun’s PUMP token buyback dashboard

• Tether’s USDT Insights

• Helium’s Helium World

Pudgy Penguins GIF views

Luca also recently shared an internal chart showing the daily average GIF views approaching 1B per day 🤯

This stat is notable because it shows the rate of growth, is measured on a daily average basis, and highlights big numbers. 1 BILLION daily GIF views a DAY hits kinda different…

To illustrate this in a different way:

Conference swag

Pudgy Penguins has an unfair advantage when it comes to conference swag since they can always give away their toys. However, they don’t settle for just the tried and true.

During San Diego Comic Con, the Pudgy booth gave away 10k oversized bags which also served as a promotion for the upcoming Pudgy Party mobile game.

At first glance the bag seems impractical, but we’re talking about an event that is all about swag, collectibles, and IP. This bag can hold all that on top of being a bag for all the other bags collected throughout the conference floor.

Although crypto is a digital-first industry based on shared universal principles, there are cultural differences and physical limitations across geographies.

Global crypto exchanges are no stranger to this, as they have regional and/or country-specific hubs due to regulatory and operational reasons, reminding me of my Uber days where there are boots on the ground teams in every country and city they operate in.

But when it comes to NFT communities, that geo expansion looks different and is more a liability than necessity until it’s painfully obvious that it’s needed.

Last week Pudgy Penguins announced Igloo APAC, the first regional arm of the Igloo parent company, focusing on growing the brand in a localized way.

What I imagine helped the team make this decision beyond the data was that numerous country-specific communities have popped up, many for multiple years, and supported by one person leading the charge (back at Uber we called launchers).

Meanwhile, these communities are doing their own activations such as a takeover of a skyscraper in Malaysia or running digital billboards in Gangnam, a popular district in Seoul, Korea.

Just like a popular website or service that needs to support multiple languages or carry different products, popular brands need to do the same and Pudgy Penguins has reached the point where an investment in localization is justified.

So with all these recent developments, is Pudgy Penguins the face of crypto? It’s hard to say that they’re THE face, but their silhouette is starting to be chipped away at if there was a Mt. Rushmore of consumer crypto.

See you next week!