I used the Fat Penguin airdrop to buy a school district house these days, as a Christmas gift for my daughter.
A few years later, she may no longer have to squeeze on a single-plank bridge with the huge crowds of people in Shandong. She is sincerely grateful to the fat penguin.
At this moment, it has been 1090 days since I joined the Penguin community. In the past three years, no matter how bad the market was or how tight my life was, I never thought of selling it, because Fat Penguin was another baby worth keeping for a lifetime.
The time goes back to December 2021. My daughter was just 6 months old, and I had just resigned from a job. I didn’t have much money and knew nothing about the future, so I took it one step at a time.
Even so, I still spent 0.7 E to buy the fat penguin (worth 2800 U at the time). The reason was very simple. I had a genuine love for these chubby little penguins. Even if they were worth zero, I still thought they looked good. I never expected this guy to issue coins, nor did I think I could get various airdrops.
Since then, I have had two children. One requires me to work hard to make money to buy milk powder and toys, and the other requires me to preach and help more new people join.
To be honest, neither job is easy, but it is very happy, because passion can withstand the long years, and gentleness can withstand the difficult times.
Today, standing at a new starting point of Fat Penguin, I would like to share some of the past three years, as an account of the past, and I hope it will be inspiring to you.
1. Fat Penguins first impression: an internet celebrity as soon as he debuted
Fat Penguin is a phenomenal NFT in 2021. It has celebrity endorsements such as Curry, was once reported in depth by the New York Times, had a short-term return rate of over 100 times, and its weekly trading volume exceeded Punk and BAYC at its peak.
When I first learned about Fat Penguin, it was less than 0.5 E, but I didn’t buy it, and watched the floor price rise to several E. Later, due to the bad market conditions and infighting in the Penguin community, the floor price once fell below 1 E.
For me, this was a great opportunity to get started, so I acted decisively, paid for my passion, and had a go at Web3.
During that time, I spent every day in Penguin DC, feeling the warmth and unity of the penguin family. It was a great feeling, and it still feels sweet when I think back on it.
2. Turning point: Luca took over with 750E
The good times didn’t last long, and the fat penguin faced its darkest hour.
First, the opening of the Penguin Egg box was criticized by the community, and then the team was exposed to have taken away all the ETH+ raised to prepare for the sale of the project. Opensea even temporarily removed the Fat Penguin for this reason.
This series of blows tested everyone in the community, and no one knew where the future would take them. Fortunately, many people chose to stick with the company and help Fat Penguin through the difficult times.
The turning point occurred in April 2022. At that time, Los Angeles entrepreneur Luca spent 750 E to take over Fat Penguin, reorganize the team and design a roadmap.
This event is a milestone, like a ray of light in the darkness, illuminating everyone in the community and illuminating the way forward for Fat Penguin.
I specifically asked a team to create a Chinese channel, but not many people were active in the Chinese area, so the channel was later hidden, which was a pity.
3. Counterattack: Web2 and Web3 develop simultaneously
Under the leadership of Luca, Fat Penguin started its counterattack. On the one hand, it expanded its territory in Web2 and maintained a stable cash flow through toys, clothes and other peripheral products. On the other hand, it continued to innovate in Web3 and cooperated with major projects on cross-chain, SBT, etc.
Therefore, throughout the NFT bear market, the Fat Penguin floor price did not fall but rose instead, becoming one of the very few blue chips that did not rely on a Ponzi scheme to maintain its floor price, and it is also the face of the entire NFT sector.
Here we have to mention Penguins team of consultants, who cover almost all tracks of Web3, including VCs, founders of top projects, etc. The combined influence of these big guys can be called a nuclear weapon.
Thanks to the efforts of the entire community, the fat penguin has become a model of successful counterattack, and the penguin spirit has been endowed with all the good qualities such as unity, optimism, bravery, and innovation.
As a result, various projects have extended olive branches during airdrops, including DYM, OMNI, ZK, L0, etc. Roughly estimated, a single penguin received at least 100,000 U of external airdrops.
4. Evangelism: Promote because of love
During the Penguin Counterattack process, I continued to promote it on Twitter, WeChat groups, Discord and other channels as an unofficial contributor. I also assisted the head of the Chinese community in operating WeChat groups and opening Spaces.
Let me share a set of data: Since 2021, dozens of Fat Penguin tweets/column articles have been published, with a total number of views of at least hundreds of thousands if not 1 million; thousands of Fat Penguin messages have been published in WeChat groups, and many group members have been persuaded to buy Penguin + brush L0 cross-chain.
Today, these group members have received returns far beyond their expectations through Fat Penguin, and have even achieved social class leaps. I am really happy for them. Being their guide is the most valuable thing I have done in the past three years.
The only regret is that I didn’t get the Fat Penguin Influencer SBT. What I value is not the reward behind the SBT, but the recognition of past contributions.
5. Gratitude: Exchange + Media Support
There are many people and things that Penguin deserves to be thankful for on its way forward. At this moment, the first things that come to mind are Binance and Daily Planet.
Let’s talk about Binance first. They announced the HODLer airdrop plan on the eve of the Fat Penguin TGE, including $PENGU. BNB holders can share 3% of the total tokens.
Binances move is consistent with the Fat Penguins philosophy, which is to attract more users to join the community. This is also very obvious in the design of the official airdrop rules. You will see that many NFT players and active addresses on the chain have received airdrops of good value.
In fact, Binance’s strategy has always been to introduce incremental users to Web3, which coincides with the Fat Penguin. In the future, I very much look forward to the two sides being able to work together in depth and jointly try some out-of-the-box activities to help Web3 prosper.
Another person I want to thank is @OdailyChina. In my opinion, they are the Chinese media that understands Fat Penguin the most. Not only does the team own Fat Penguin, but they also write a lot of in-depth articles about Fat Penguin, helping many Chinese users understand Fat Penguin.
By the way, let me share a little story. In December last year, Pudgy Penguin was preparing to expand its influence in Chinese, so they came to me for consultation. After a comprehensive evaluation, I brought Pudgy Penguin and Planet Daily together and assisted in completing Lucas first interview in Chinese media: Odaily Interview with Pudgy Penguins CEO: Pudgy Penguin is an image that everyone will love
6. Future: Fully participate in Abstract construction
$PENGU is the first step, Abstract is the second step.
As the L2 in which Fat Penguin is deeply involved, Abstract is building a consumer-grade network. Its target users are not limited to the traffic of Web3, but it is looking at the global market to help Web2 institutions, projects, and individuals enter Web3 with a low threshold.
Objectively speaking, many projects have used this narrative to hype themselves, but so far no successful one has been seen. The final outcome was just mutual roll-up within the field, which has no practical significance.
However, Abstract is different, because there is a fat penguin behind it. If the fat penguin cant do it, then other L2s are even less likely to do it.
Since September this year, I have published several Abstract participation tutorials intensively. If you copied the homework in time, you have actually received a lot of $PENGU airdrops.
Even if you miss out, it doesn’t matter. Abstract plans to launch the mainnet in January next year. It’s not too late to ambush now. Just search my past tweets for specific ways to participate. If you have any questions, you can also leave a message.
Finally, I would like to emphasize that the Abstract Chinese community has been established. It is said that there will be some exclusive activities in the future. There may be surprises if you continue to participate.
