Conversation with Pudgy Penguins CEO: Abstract Major progress is coming, Ethereum and Solana have different missions

Author: Wenser, Odaily Planet Daily

At the beginning of the new year, the PENGU token has been online for more than one month, and the Abstract main network has just been launched. As the most closely focused crypto media with Pudgy Penguins, Abstract Ecosystem and its parent company Igloo.Inc, Odaily Planet Daily conducted an in-depth interview with Pudgy Penguins CEO Luca Netz, which discussed PENGU tokens, Abstract Ecosystem, L1&L2 network competition landscape, Topics such as Ethereum vs. Solana's vision dispute were exchanged in detail in order to gain more insights into the crypto industry from Luca's perspective.

The following is the transcript of this interview. Some of the contents have been deleted and adjusted for readers' reference.

Note: The questioner was Mandy, CEO of Odaily Planet Daily and Wenser, reporter of Odaily Planet Daily, and the answerer was Luca Netz, CEO of Pudgy Penguins. The interview date was January 31, 2025.

Q1: After PENGU issued the coins, has the focus of Pudgy Penguins and its parent company Igloo.Inc changed?

Luca:

Yes, change is happening. Although everyone in the crypto industry (especially those who received PENGU token airdrops) knows Pudgy Penguins, there are still many who don’t understand what special meaning we have to the crypto industry and what we ultimately want to do. What is the vision to be realized?

So, our center of work became - "How to impress new community members and the entire crypto world and show them our capabilities?" In other words, there are a lot of things we need to do, like getting hundreds of thousands of them. New community members understand what we are doing and show them our ideas. Of course, we will see our follow-up soon.

Luca appeared when PENGU token was launched

Q2: Abstract mainnet has just been launched. Is the data in all aspects consistent with expectations? Can you share the future ecological development and key layout?

Luca:

Simply put, in the Abstract ecosystem, what we want to do is turn it into "the most interesting place in the crypto world" and "an ecosystem that provides crypto-friendly experiences from 0 to 1". If you log in to the Abstract network and experience the current mainnet, we have done this in a phased manner.

Abstract ecosystem allows third-party integrated access and allows users to join in their preferred form. Unlike the on-chain ecosystem where other users can only join in specific processes and methods, our user experience process is more open and flexible. If users do not like certain fixed processes, they can be omitted.

In addition, in about 3-4 weeks, the Abstract ecosystem will cause widespread discussion in the field of encryption: we still have a lot of integration cooperation, many plug-ins embedded, bringing a lot of liquidity, trading volume and TVL here. It is worth mentioning that we have not made various optimizations for this purpose. On the contrary, we have made various optimizations for users and their families and friends around us. If they log in to the abs.xyz official website, they will gain a good user experience.

At that time, an extremely hot and active on-chain ecosystem will appear in front of the public. Whether it is the online competition at the L1 or L2 level, Abstract has the confidence to stand out.

When others choose to go left, we choose to go right - this is the story of Fat Penguin and Igloo. When everything is ready, people will be surprised to see: "It turns out that the Fat Penguin team has such a vision. "

Odaily Planet Daily: Can you reveal one or two of the "big events" 3-4 weeks later?

Luca:

Well, first of all, it is estimated that a large number of Web2 live bloggers will enter the Abstract ecosystem; secondly, an ecosystem composed of 40-50 active funds will also be gradually unveiled. Finally, I look forward to linking the Little Fox Wallet or voluntarily accessing the Abstract ecosystem and integration of more third-party projects in the form I hope.

Odaily Planet Daily: We found that the current UI and other designs of Abstract main network are very Web2, and the interactive experience is very silky. Are you interested in designing this way?

Luca:

Yes, because this is necessary if our purpose is to drive consumer adoption. Just like in the past 5 years, many projects have used the same method to build on-chain ecosystems, and they have chosen to go left; and we have chosen the opposite path - we want to capture new people who have not entered the on-chain world, although this is possible It will make the current on-chain group less adaptable, but if we tell those users that it will take several hours to piece together various fragmented information and figure out how to conduct on-chain transactions on Ethereum; now, it only needs to Log in to abs.xyz and they can master on-chain trading operations in 20 minutes.

We have taken a way that no one has tried yet to bring millions of new groups into the on-chain world.

Q3: This is also the purpose of NFT, but the overall vitality of the NFT market in this cycle is not good. How do you view the subsequent development direction of the entire NFT industry? Opensea recently released a 2.0 point system. Many people are looking forward to Opensea 's subsequent issuance of coins and airdrops. Will this bring any changes to the NFT industry?

Luca:

I think it will be difficult for the NFT industry to recover unless some kind of minimum royalty system is adopted.

Because what really makes NFT great is the action of "casting". As of now, the current living environment of top blue chip NFT projects is still good, including Fat Penguin, Doodles, BAYC, Azuki, Milady, CryptoPunks, etc., we are all still at the card table, aren’t we? If we failed, we might have disappeared long ago.

Therefore, people just choose a certain tribe or community that they claim to and put forward their own opinions. So, if you want to revive NFTs, low royalties are essential. Compared with other cryptocurrency tracks, the most interesting and competitive part of NFT is its "casting" and "opening". Then the problem becomes: if the project party has no other income after the NFT casting, then they have no motivation to launch a new project. This is an important obstacle that keeps many people away from NFTs. This is also the reason why many people choose to launch a token at pump.fun, which is what I think is the essence of competition. We must respect the will of most people.

Many leading projects in the market have their own opinions on success, but it is obvious that they do not consider the needs of more people, and of course, I respect those who are brave enough to try. But in the past, many people have been building protocols and blockchain ecosystems. They usually choose to start with an NFT project to expand their community core, rather than from core products (such as blockchain, exchange or related products). Things) start to expand. So, that's the direction we chose.

Odaily Planet Daily: Will OpenSea’s tokens change the NFT industry?

Luca: There is no doubt that, not.

Q4: You have positioned PENGU as a Meme currency many times before, so can you share some future plans for PENGU, such as staking, repurchase, destruction and other use cases?

Luca:

To be honest, we have quite a lot of things hidden in PENGU. The reason why PENGU is positioned as the Meme currency category is because Meme currency gives people a more interesting feeling without considering too much competition.

Judging from the market value of Meme coins, PNEGU is currently at 12th (here is the data at the time of the interview. According to Coingecko data, PENGU ranked 9th in Meme coins and 117th in cryptocurrency market value as of writing).

PENGU Token Market Value Ranking Meme Coin Track No. 9

Meanwhile, Pudgy Penguins-related Memes have hundreds of millions of views every day; Pudgy Penguins-related millions of physical toy products have entered millions of families, and no other Meme has achieved this. Fat penguins are arguably the cutest and widely used encrypted native image in the past few years, arousing the love and resonance of people from Asia, North America, Europe and even around the world. It is a completely original, never dying and constantly tested Meme, which is rare.

Fat Penguin-related emoji package views have exceeded 40 billion times

So, in short, no matter from any perspective, Pudgy Penguins and PENGU are not only ranked 12th in Meme currency, I personally think it should be at least in the top three.

At the same time, Meme coins that do nothing will be gradually eliminated, and it is unrealistic to look forward to ushering in changes while waiting. We can see that Trump has taken the lead in changing the game situation - Trump has launched his official Meme currency, and many people will follow suit. Many hot money is gradually gathering here, but just want to do nothing To win the Meme coins is a huge mistake.

How we view Fat Penguin and PENGU tokens is crucial, and we regard it as the "Meme Coin++" version of tokens.

You have to build a brand; you have to create more demand around IP; you have to break barriers and break boundaries; you have to become more popular; you have to become more infectious and contagious; you have to become a cultural phenomenon.

How to do it?

Games, movies, TV shows, content, social media, emoticons, gifts, toys, statues, and co-branding with well-known brands to embed yourself into the culture. You have to take the whole picture, and if you don't, it will be difficult for you to be the ultimate winner.

Second, the ever-deflated token economic model and telling a more persuasive story is essential. It is well known that PENGU is released in the United States, which is very striking. But how do people view PENGU's token economics, understand the supply and demand relationship of tokens and how they operate, and how to reduce the supply of tokens?

We have a lot of preparation and will be revealed gradually in the coming months. To be honest, the way BONK and BONKbot work gave me a lot of inspiration. If some projects are not good at doing this, they should be improved in time, otherwise we will replace them.

Gone are the days when a successful Meme coins were created through an animal picture and a so-called powerful community. Because Trump and TRUMP opened Pandora's box in an inevitable way - those animal-like Meme coins in the past could not stand the test of time and were safe and sound under the impact of hot money and new things that flocked to it. Every week and every few days, you must take the initiative to deal with, destroy tokens, get out of trouble, and you must remain competitive in the process of pushing the industry forward. Otherwise, the outcome is not good.

Therefore, the reason why PENGU is regarded as a Meme coin is because its technical architecture determines its Meme coin attributes; its token symbol has a penguin image with a very Meme attribute; it has been distributed to countless holder; its related elements have been embedded in cultural phenomena.

The reason why it is considered the Plus version of Meme coins is that we plan to put it in the world's largest retail chain to promote it; put it on the big screen of the movie to promote it; write it into a novel ; Put it on AppStore and countless online desktops in the form of games.

We will also bring more well-known partners that have never been seen in the crypto space, and we have to do so.

Sometimes, I would ask myself: How can we destroy some PENGU tokens and make it stand out in the market?

And as long as we do the above things, a positive "success flywheel" will be produced. This is our thinking path. PENGU's 12th place in the Meme currency category obviously cannot satisfy us, and many people will also have objections to this. On the other hand, if PENGU becomes part of content in the form of movies, games, etc., just like what we have achieved in the NFT field, we will also completely transform the Meme currency field.

Q5: Will the PENGU tokens have more connections or cooperation with Pudgy Penguins and Abstract in the future? Will Abstract issue its own tokens in the future?

Luca:

In this regard, I have received some news and feel that many people have misunderstood this over the past period of time. I have explained a lot to the members of the Western community before, and also tried my best to inform the partners of the Eastern community of the corresponding information.

(Odaily Note: Pudgy Penguins has previously stated that PENGU tokens will be linked to Abstract, allowing the market to speculate that it will become an Abstract chain token, but in fact they have no intention of this)

We are doing something for the PENGU token community, and there will be more surprises waiting to be announced in the future. Although not necessarily everyone is expecting this, we have been doing things, including getting more community members to join us and hold for PENGU People create more value, etc.

But sometimes manpower is exhausted, and a lot of information still only stays within a certain range. We may have reached 10,000 people, but there may be 1 million PENGU token holders, and many times we may have entered an information cocoon.

So, the current consensus is that my job is to do the best we can to integrate resources, but doing an integration does not mean that we only need to do integration. Just like in the past few years, we have been integrating resources with Pudgy Penguins as the center and constantly iterating and updating. But we have not integrated the Abstract ecosystem in the form of multiplier points or soft pledge and bridged capital liquidity here. This is not the case here, and its starting point and end point have nothing to do with it.

This is created for practical use cases, it is just a case, not a special right or benefit. In this regard, we must ensure that all information comes from official channels and that the information is clear and accurate, even a simple tweet must do this. Therefore, PENGU, Abstract and related news releases are all part of our work, not all of our work.

As for Abstract's tokens, as the competition gradually deepens, there is no doubt that I think it will have its own corresponding tokens. But it takes some time.

As for the way PENGU integrates with it, I can only say that I am looking forward to it and the community will be excited. There may be amazing convergence at that time, but the primary goal now is not this, but we have a lot of brand partnerships. How to show it to the world.

In the next few weeks, our focus is on highlighting the competitiveness of the Abstract ecosystem.

The future of fat penguins is the sea of ​​stars

Q6: What do you think about the launch of "Trump's genuine Meme currency TRUMP tokens"? Do you have any investments in person?

Luca: I know the people behind the project, and I am very familiar with them. We have known each other for many years, and we were already very familiar with them even before I entered the crypto industry. But I didn't get insider information and bought it first. I just took a little bit of a wave. When I saw the TRUMP token, its FDV was already $5 billion. So I bought $50,000 and sold it shortly after.

I had the opportunity to make money, but I didn't. Because I thought it was too expensive at the time, especially its FDV looked really too high, and Trump had some crypto projects with small market value before. My logic is to compare TRUMP on the same level as DJT stocks, which has a market value of about $5 billion. (Odaily Planet Daily: Although 80% of TRUMP tokens are locked) Yes, that's an obvious wrong comparison.

Q7: Trump chose Solana when he issued Meme, which made the discussion on Ethereum vs. Solana even more intense. You also chose to issue coins in Solana. In a previous interview, you once said, "Solana has proved that he is." Consumer Chain, can you explain the difference between "consumption chain" and "financial chain"? And if this choice is in line with expectations now?

Luca:

Yes, it is the right decision for us to choose Solana as the token launch ecosystem. In terms of guiding new users, Solana is at the forefront, and it can even be said that no ecosystem does better than it. We also hope that Abstract can bring the achievements of Solana ecosystem to the EVM ecosystem. From our perspective, the Solana ecosystem focuses on user experience, which is not achieved by the Ethereum ecosystem and is also a reflection of the different goals of the two.

Specifically, the Ethereum ecosystem is working to become a decentralized network country, and it is obvious that this vision is crucial to every human individual; on the other hand, Solana is working to build the best, performance A better blockchain ecosystem, and they are trying their best to win the competition.

So, they have different visions: Ethereum is committed to becoming an important, decentralized, censor-resistant ecosystem; Solana is trying to expand the capabilities of blockchain and constantly present and iterate new things. The latter undoubtedly emphasizes organizational leadership, executes more top-down, has clear instructions and strictly enforces them. So, this is "two cultures, two visions".

Therefore, it is difficult to compare the two outside the blockchain ecosystem. In this regard, in my opinion, they are more like indirect competitors than direct enemies, because their mission is fundamental. The difference.

Mandy: Yes, PENGU and TRUMP tokens have been launched one after another, and the Solana network is under huge traffic pressure, but it has still successfully withstood the test again and again. If other blockchain networks encounter the same situation, the possibility of network paralysis is extremely high. Just like no blockchain network ecosystem has ever had a DEX transaction volume of US$30 billion in a single day.

Q8: Abstract contributor cygaar previously had a conversation with Ethereum Foundation team member joshrudolf.eth on X, expressing that EF has insufficient contact with projects on the Ethereum chain, and EF people also acknowledged that there is room for improvement in their work. Vitalik has also previously published an article proposing the idea of ​​restructuring the EF leadership, which has also caused a lot of controversy. What do you think of all this? How do you view the relationship between L1 and L2? Have the EF team been in contact with you recently?

Luca:

No, the Ethereum Foundation has never communicated with me.

Although I personally would love to communicate with EF. Because of the achievements made by Pudgy Penguins in the past few years in the Ethereum ecosystem, Fat Penguin is even one of the best projects in the Ethereum ecosystem, but they have never been in contact with me.

To be honest, this feeling is not particularly good as an entrepreneur. On the contrary, when I entered the Solana ecosystem, I could communicate with Solana co-founders Toly and Raj at any time if I wanted to. I have discussed this issue privately with my tutor and friends before.

The conclusion is that Ethereum was not born for this (as we mentioned earlier, its mission vision is a cyber country); and Solana's mission is. Ethereum’s vision is not to reach out to builders and cultivate them, although these builders are the biggest driving force behind the greatness of this ecosystem. I personally don't agree with this way of doing things, but, you know, Ethereum's mission is above everything else, its goal is to resistant to censorship and resilient blockchain networks, even if no one uses them, it still serves this goal .

It doesn't exist to cater to me. Although, I think Ethereum will be more successful from a price level if they can make efforts in this regard.

Just as TRUMP Meme coin boosted Solana ecosystem development and SOL prices rose, just like a few years ago, don’t underestimate the NFT hype boosted Ethereum prices soaring – the bull market of NFT has brought ETH’s all-time highs. Today, not so many people are pouring into Ethereum to trade NFTs because nothing is ready for the average person. This is why Solana has achieved such results today; and the Ethereum ecosystem still turned a blind eye to NFT projects that had been built for several years a month ago. When I put Pudgy Penguins-related physical toys on Walmart shelves, it still struggled to get any form of recognition from these people. I have to say that this feeling is terrible.

Because I am contributing value to a network that does not value my value, but as I realized after communicating with my mentors: there is nothing to complain about, because the Ethereum Ecology is not here.

Communication with Solana's official top figures is much smoother, which is why I think Solana will reach the top today. Until this situation changes, the Ethereum ecosystem may still be in a difficult situation. This is not even a special case of the NFT track. People at the Ethereum Foundation have even seriously underestimated the value of DeFi. This view is really crazy. Although in terms of historical time, NFT is earlier than DeFi. So, I think they are probably opening a new page and understanding the importance of DeFi and NFT.

Of course, the reality is that EF developers are not teams familiar with business operations, and that is not their capabilities. So, understand them, and I also have a lot of respect for them all. After all, they are an important cornerstone for creating the Ethereum ecosystem.

Q9: How do you view the competition at the blockchain network ecosystem? There are so many L1 and L2 networks now, how to define and build your core competitiveness?

Luca: I think there are only 4 blockchain networks that are highly competitive and have a tangible vision and adoption, including ETH, Solana, Base, SUI (maybe it will give SUI more recognition than many people imagine, although many people may ignore it , but it does in this list).

Because I do know that something is happening in the SUI ecosystem. To be honest, it's really hard to judge and filter. Networks including ZKSync, Arbitrum, Optimism, etc. are more like superchain or elastic chains or other core layers, rather than real blockchain network ecosystems. This is my personal perspective.

Because these networks prefer others to build L2 and L3 networks based on their technology stacks rather than becoming the central destination for everyone to pour in, they don’t care about how consumer adoption rates are, but rather about achieving a relationship with Azuki or Pudgy Penguins Collaborate, and then these projects drive consumer adoption.

Simply put, they don’t care about individual users, whether it’s your family or friends, they just want to be the center of their own ecosystem. So this is a completely different business model.

Between these four, Ethereum is loyal to its mission; Solana, Base, and SUI may be in the same competition, ranking first, second and third. The problem between them is that Base may not be uniquely different from Solana, and even its competitiveness in the EVM system is not good, while the territory of the EVM system is still shrinking.

This is what Abstract wants to do, opposite to Base and other networks, but our user interface and user experience are somewhat differentiated. Interface innovation is the direction of Abstract's efforts, and it is also the means for us to win in terms of user experience, brand, community, etc.

In addition, it remains to be seen that Base cannot just do common things like the Solana ecosystem. If you adopt a follow-up strategy, Base, as the expansion ecosystem of Ethereum network, will fail in this ecological competition for capital. Ethereum's capital is not the same as Base's capital, you must have something unique.

Of course, it must be admitted that the Base ecological team is really amazing, especially after the few months of the Abstract network construction, I can better understand how incredible their work is. They are constantly launching orders Amazing product. So we have learned a lot from their shoulders, and we also hope that the above words can be supplemented as a perspective for their reference.

So what is the most challenging part of building a blockchain network? Especially the part that unexpected?

So far, the most difficult thing should be ecological management. We should and can do better on the release date of Abstract. Intuitively, we have about 120 excellent applications that can be embedded in the EVM architecture, but for various reasons, only 5 applications are ready on the release date. As we all know, there is too much to do for a blockchain network. . But this matter is also easy to solve because we have various communication channels, so what we need to do now is to promote each channel to gradually advance. This is actually a management and operational issue, especially when it comes to trying to treat all builders equally.

Q10: AI is undoubtedly the hottest topic at the moment. Are you considering integrating AI technology or exploring other emerging fields? What are the specific directions currently in preparation?

Luca:

We have prepared some AI-related things for the PENGU ecosystem and the Fat Penguin ecosystem. We are about to deploy an AI project with a senior AI industry person on the Abstract Network. She is from Japan and is also a friend of mine. She has been deeply involved in the digital incarnation of the Web2 field for many years. She has 4 years of experience in AI digital human production. This is it A pioneer in the industry. He has had in-depth cooperation with LV and Balenciaga, and his digital image has appeared on stage as a supermodel.

In the future, she will launch new AI projects and corresponding tokens on Abstract. I think this will be the hottest token in Abstract Eco so far, and I am looking forward to her projects and products. So, there is no doubt that our ecosystem is about to usher in a big explosion in AI projects. The specific time has not been determined, but I can reveal that the name of this AI is Miria AI. This may be the coolest AI project in the short term, because it is different from those AI Agents that are full of X platforms. It is more like luxury brands such as LV and Balencia in the AI ​​field.

Q11: What new progress has Pudgy Penguins made in large-scale adoption? Such as online and offline toy sales, IP cooperation, etc.? How to extend the life cycle of an IP? How did the Fat Penguin team balance traditional IP services with encryption native services?

Luca:

Yes, we will announce some latest news this week, including several Korean offline store sales. A few days ago we just announced our partnership with Candy Pez, a super-recognized, super-recognized retail brand (Odaily Planet Daily Note: This is an Austrian company specializing in the production of candy and manual candy dispensers. In 1927, the Chinese name is Beth Candy). We have been promoting brand cooperation. Last year, Fat Penguin Toy sales exceeded 2 million, with excellent sales. In December 2024 alone, we sold about 400,000 toys, setting the best record yet.

Regarding business balance, our team currently has 65 people, 20 members in the encryption field team; and 45 people in the IP field. A clear division of labor brings a better business balance.

Q12: Can you share your outlook for 2025?

Luca:

I think this year will be the year for Igloo; PENGU's market position will not only stay at the 12th place in Meme's market value, and is expected to hit the top three; Abstract will become the only market competitor, especially in driving user adoption. Will compete with Base directly. I believe that Pudgy Penguins NFT will become the number one project in the NFT market by the end of this year.

Q13: As a creator, how should we contribute our own strength to the Abstract ecosystem and obtain corresponding rewards and incentives?

Luca:

Yes, the live streaming mechanism is the most exciting part of the Abstract ecosystem, and I hope everyone can participate. For personal content creators, we will have a large number of rewards and rewards, which account for a very high proportion.

Personally, and the Abstract ecosystem, I respect content creators to the greatest extent. Especially live bloggers, such as sports bloggers, can get rewards by playing basketball by themselves, although this is not particularly large. The key point is that users can transfer content by fixing an Abstract live broadcast application and create content around this action, thereby enhancing user stickiness, expanding network effects, finding their own PMFs and subsequent growth flywheels, for the top live broadcast bloggers In other words, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

If a token in the Abstract ecosystem achieves this goal, the corresponding reward will be very considerable. But the premise is that you must contribute to ecological development. In other words, your live broadcast and sports content on Twitch or other platforms doesn't mean much to me, but if you live broadcast on Abstract and continue to produce ecological related content, your returns will be maximized. So what you have to do now is to apply for creators and complete the corresponding process operations. We will gradually release more news in the next few weeks.

Odaily Planet Daily: It sounds like Abstract may become a competitor to social media such as YouTube and Tiktok in the future?

Luca:

Yes, that's right.