The recent airdrop of Pudgy Penguins was not only shocking but also touching.

What is shocking is the wide user coverage, which is unparalleled among all NFT projects that have conducted token airdrops. What is touching is that this project, which was originally abandoned, was revived by an entrepreneur, and has steadily progressed to today, achieving new glory.

All of my Ethereum wallet addresses that I have used received rewards in this airdrop, which left me with a lot of emotions.

In the comments at the end of the article the day before yesterday, a reader also mentioned this project.

This made me reminisce about my past interactions with this project. I can't recall the exact times of these interactions, so today I will share these memories based on my recollection.

Readers who have followed my past articles know that I am a heavy enthusiast of NFTs, mainly within the Ethereum ecosystem.

During the NFT craze that emerged in 2021, I dealt with many well-known NFT projects in the Ethereum ecosystem, including Pudgy Penguins and the Lil Penguins mentioned in this airdrop.

However, at that time, my attention to Pudgy Penguins was far from high, definitely not comparable to my love for CryptoPunks and Bored Apes. Therefore, like many other blue-chip NFTs I bought, I sold it without any nostalgia when I later liquidated my NFTs.

After I sold it, a big news broke about the project: its founder was exposed for a dark history and "repeated the same old trick" by abandoning the project.

This huge blow quickly devastated the project, leading to a collapse in its floor price.

What impressed me deeply was that the project's community was very proactive and began a series of self-rescue measures.

But for me, I merely observed everything happening and felt fortunate that I had avoided the pitfall.

Not long after, the community announced the latest development: entrepreneur Luca Netz acquired the project entirely from the founder.

At that time, I had read about this entrepreneur and remembered that he had started businesses in multiple fields and achieved good results. However, based solely on these experiences, I couldn't see any particular highlights that could reshape the future of this project—there are too many such entrepreneurs in the U.S.

Then, the entire crypto market entered a bear market that we all witnessed together. In this bear market, not to mention Pudgy Penguins, even CryptoPunks and Bored Apes suffered significant declines—every project in the NFT space was not spared.

But I still paid close attention to the development of the NFT space, especially the series of actions taken by Bored Apes. Because I have always believed that if even Bored Apes cannot find a new direction for NFT development, then aside from CryptoPunks, other projects in the NFT space might go to zero.

During the most torturous period of the bear market, Bored Apes launched one new game after another. Although the results now seem less than ideal, at that time, they managed to retain some popularity for the NFT ecosystem and kept a glimmer of hope for the space.

From the actions of Bored Apes, although the games they launched ultimately had mediocre results, I believe that the future hope of the NFT space still lies in gaming.

During that time, Pudgy Penguins occasionally had some noteworthy developments. I remember that Luca began to focus on the IP, creating plush toys of the pudgy penguins, and it seemed that they achieved good sales performance on Amazon and in offline stores.

However, I did not quite agree with this.

I clearly remember mentioning Pudgy Penguins' marketing in a previous article. I believe that physical products and IP toys are a rather outdated marketing approach for NFTs.

I still believe that purely on-chain and purely online products are the future of NFTs.

Later on, I heard news about Pudgy Penguins again, seemingly because of the great sales performance of its toys, which reignited the community's hope for the project, even causing its NFT floor price to temporarily exceed that of Mutant Apes.

This rekindled my interest in the project. But when I found out that this was the reason, my enthusiasm quickly faded. However, I continued to observe for about a week or two. As a result, its floor price fell back again and lagged behind Mutant Apes once more.

So I thought it was just a passing trend, and this project was still just a second-tier project.

At that time, I did have the thought: should I buy one?

But then I thought, buying a pudgy penguin is not as good as spending a bit more to buy a top-tier project like a Mutant Ape. But if I buy a Mutant Ape, I already have some, and buying another one wouldn't make much difference to me.

So I quickly dismissed that thought.

Later, another once-famous project in the NFT ecosystem, 0N1 Force, reminded me of Pudgy Penguins.

That was a piece of news from the 0N1 Force community.

0N1 Force is the first side-profile NFT project of the anime type in the Ethereum ecosystem. This project was once very popular but was later abandoned by the project team. However, it was in a worse situation than Pudgy Penguins—after being abandoned, it was neglected for a long time, and its floor price plummeted to a pitiful level, almost equivalent to going to zero.

The news was that it, like Pudgy Penguins, had been acquired.

I remember that several well-known players came together to acquire this project. Among these well-known players were those who had worked in the entertainment industry in Hollywood, those who had previously consulted for Bored Apes, and others who had succeeded in entrepreneurship in various fields.

Seeing this news, I immediately thought of Pudgy Penguins and compared this team with Luca. From both background and experience, I felt this team was stronger than Luca.

Therefore, I thought if Pudgy Penguins could rise, 0N1 Force also had a chance.

More importantly, at that time, the price of 0N1 Force was significantly lower than that of Pudgy Penguins, so I felt that buying Pudgy Penguins was not as good as buying 0N1 Force.

After that, I no longer paid attention to Pudgy Penguins. It wasn't until this airdrop that it rekindled these memories for me.

A reader left a comment asking how to identify potential projects early on from the development of Pudgy Penguins.

From my experiences, if I couldn't identify the potential of Pudgy Penguins, I wouldn't have been able to seize this opportunity.

First of all, I do not quite agree with the operational methods Luca used to save the project.

Secondly, during the project's development, there were several times when I wanted to buy it, but I felt there were better projects worth buying than it.

If I had to say what factors in Pudgy Penguins' revival process are worth noting?

I believe it is what I have consistently emphasized: the key to investing in projects is investing in people.

Although I do not agree with Luca's operational methods, I have a very high regard for Luca as a person.

Therefore, in this process, if investors highly recognize Luca as a person and also agree with Luca's operational methods, then I think when Luca began to focus on the IP and started to see initial success with plush toys, it would be time to seriously consider this NFT.

Additionally, there is another situation where investors can firmly grasp this wave of dividends: that is, a heartfelt love for this NFT, without any regrets, not for profit, but for some sentiment or experience in their hearts—this kind of understanding can probably only be truly felt by players who have personally played and loved an NFT.

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