Author: Weilin, PANews

The well-known NFT project "Pudgy Penguins" has recently been frequently discussed, and even appeared in the ETH ETF promotional video of the asset management institution VanEck. In May, Pudgy Penguins announced a partnership with the game studio Mythical Games to develop an immersive mobile game, set to be launched in 2025; in June, Pudgy Penguins announced the establishment of a parent company named Igloo in collaboration with its NFT authorization platform OverpassIP.

Subsequently, even more significant news arrived. On July 23, Pudgy Penguins announced the creation of a new Ethereum Layer 2 blockchain called "Abstract." This Layer 2 is consumer-centric and has secured a $11 million investment led by Peter Thiel's Founders Fund. Prior to this, Pudgy Penguins had acquired the Web3 creator platform Frame, claiming to leverage its technological advantages in blockchain construction and utilize its own community and user resources.

Building a Consumer-Centric L2, or Airdrop

The new L2, Abstract, is a Layer 2 built using Matter Labs' ZK Stack and EigenLayer's data availability layer EigenDA, making the development process of decentralized applications easier, cheaper, and more secure. In addition to building this chain, Pudgy Penguins also plans to establish a developer incubator aimed at helping applications go from 0 to 1.

The strategic financing round for Abstract was led by Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, with other investment institutions including Fenbushi Capital, 1kx, Everest Ventures Group, and Selini Capital. Pudgy Penguins will use these funds to establish a new company, Cube Labs, to oversee the development of Abstract and provide contributions and support. Michael Lee, former Senior Vice President of Development at Matter Labs, the developer of Ethereum Layer 2 ZKsync, will serve as the CEO of Cube Labs.

Abstract is currently running on the testnet, and the mainnet is planned to be launched around the end of this year, but the token issuance time is not yet clear. The Abstract team currently has approximately 30 members globally, and Cube Labs has an office in Miami.

Pudgy Penguins CEO Luca Netz hopes to "shake things up" with Abstract, expressing ambitious goals to bring 100 million users onto the chain. According to a recent interview on the YouTube show "Milk Road," Luca Netz stated, "Consumer crypto revolution" will happen on one chain, and that chain is Abstract. The three pillars to achieve these goals are 'community, culture, and distribution.' Based on current achievements, Pudgy Penguins can do very well. He even emphasized, "Abstract will be the representative noun of Layer 2, not just one of the Layer 2s, or one of the thousands of Layer 2s."

Pudgy Penguins' entry into L2 is not surprising, as there are already a number of NFT projects in the market building their own L2, such as Apechain from Bored Ape Yacht Club and AnimeChain from Azuki.

In fact, in terms of technical implementation difficulty, the difficulty and cost of building Layer 2 have already decreased. Lugui Tillier, Chief Business Officer of Web3 infrastructure company Lumx Studios, recently wrote that launching and maintaining an L2 is actually very quick and relatively inexpensive. Rollup as a Service (RaaS) companies can launch and maintain a rollup in up to six minutes, with monthly costs of less than $1,000. However, he also pointed out that the current development of L2 faces many challenges. The first is the fragmentation of market liquidity, requiring users to constantly switch wallets and bridge assets. Second, the instability and unpredictability of L2 transaction costs are very detrimental to the development of various applications. Furthermore, these new chains will further fragment the market. Of course, part of this issue is being addressed by the same L2s that provide CDK, with Polygon, Optimism, and ZkSync building liquidity aggregation layers to make thousands of application chains and industry chains look like a whole. "Thousands of application chains and industry chains are coming, and they will be crucial for financially sustainable on-chain development."

To better achieve technical development, Pudgy Penguins recently acquired the on-chain creator economy platform Frame. Last December, Frame announced the completion of a new round of financing on the X platform, with the specific amount undisclosed. Subsequently, in January of this year, Frame released an airdrop query link, but then fell into months of stagnation. The previous Frame chain would have a solution for mandatory royalties and native ERC-6551 support, allowing for the creation of smart contract accounts for every ERC721 type of NFT, giving the bound NFT the composability of Ethereum accounts.

According to the latest official tweet, Frame stated that if users were previous airdrop claimants of Frame, the related rewards will be confirmed in the incentive system of Abstract.

Involved in L2 Battle Raises Controversy, CEO Awaits NFT Comeback

Pudgy Penguins' current advantage lies in understanding the community and users, and being able to achieve good commercialization. For example, Pudgy Penguins' NFT-based physical plush toys have achieved significant success in offline markets such as Walmart. As of early July, the retail sales of these physical toys amounted to $13-14 million, with 1.2 million units sold. This has become one of the foundations for their company's good economic operation.

However, against the backdrop of the underperformance of many NFT projects in the market, Pudgy Penguins' L2 plan has sparked community ridicule. Goose Wayne (GOFX) @usgoose commented, "But why? Is the promotional material really just 'we fork an L2, hype the release, and then airdrop tokens on a large scale'? There are already over 50 L2s, why can't Arb/OP/Base solve any problems Pudgy Penguins is currently facing?"

However, there are also users expressing support, such as Steve@SteveKBark, who stated that Luca Netz has shown "major character energy" and "he believes that his team and the Pudgy Penguins community are his competitive advantage, so he doesn't want to bring that magic to another L2. So he continued to acquire his own company."

In fact, CEO Luca Netz also has his own reflections and outlook on the recent market performance of NFTs. "I actually believe that if you look at the NFT space today, the execution speed of top projects is unprecedented in NFT history. This mechanism is still effective… The crypto market is a financially driven market, and anything that offers huge returns from a financial perspective will experience fluctuations. Despite the volatility, it will not disappear completely. Therefore, I believe that NFTs will make a comeback."

He stated that if you understand the advantages of digital collectibles and compare them with physical collectibles, another reason for optimism will emerge. The current market value of collectibles is approximately $450 billion, while the market value of NFTs, i.e., digital collectibles, only accounts for 1% of that. This means that the ratio of physical collectibles to digital collectibles is 99:1, and digital collectibles have many advantages over physical collectibles. "It is obvious that the current 99:1 market value ratio does not reflect the true advantages of digital collectibles. I believe this ratio should be closer to 50/50, indicating that digital collectibles still have a lot of room for growth."

He further pointed out that digital collectibles, especially in Asia and China, are in the most popular state and have strong growth potential from the perspective of consumer products. "It is obvious that NFTs will continue to exist. The world is moving towards a digital future, and digital ownership is obvious to anyone who understands the direction of the internet and our society's development. NFTs are at the core and foundation of this transformation. People want to collect, crave valuable items, and pursue status symbols. I believe the worst period is behind us."

It seems that despite the ridicule received for Pudgy Penguins' construction of Layer 2, the new developments have also brought some stimulation to the NFT and broader market. We will closely monitor the subsequent trends.

免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。