NFT Project Pudgy Penguins Takes Over Las Vegas Sphere in Holiday Campaign

Tech Share Share this article Copy link X icon X (Twitter) LinkedIn Facebook Email NFT Project Pudgy Penguins Takes Over Las Vegas Sphere in Holiday Campaign The NFT brand’s animated segments will air on the Sphere across Christmas week, signaling the crypto company's move into real-world consumer markets. By Helene Braun | Edited by Cheyenne Ligon Dec 13, 2025, 4:10 p.m. What to know : Pudgy Penguins will run an ad campaign at the Las Vegas Sphere during Christmas week, one of the few crypto brands to secure a spot at the high-profile venue. The NFT project, which launched on Ethereum in 2021, has expanded into physical toys and digital gaming as part of a broader consumer push. Pudgy Penguins briefly overtook Bored Apes in floor price earlier this year and recently launched its PENGU token on Solana, now trading on major exchanges. Once a breakout non-fungible token (NFT) project during the 2021 crypto boom, Pudgy Penguins is turning to real-world visibility with a high-profile ad placement at the Las Vegas Sphere during Christmas week. STORY CONTINUES BELOW Don't miss another story. Subscribe to the The Protocol Newsletter today . See all newsletters Sign me up By signing up, you will receive emails about CoinDesk products and you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . Only a few crypto-related brands have secured ad space at the Sphere, a massive LED-covered venue known for its immersive displays and performances by acts like U2 and the Eagles. A bitcoin-focused activation ran in July, but other examples have been rare. Pudgy Penguins’ ad will run for several days starting December 24 and will include multiple animated segments, according to a person familiar with the deal. The brand spent roughly $500,000 on the placement — standard for a run at the Sphere. “It’s sort of showing that a crypto project can exceed and go out of crypto, touch the hearts and minds of everyday consumers,” Vedant Mangaldas, chief of strategy and brand at Pudgy Penguins, told CoinDesk. He said that the deal was made possible because the project has a “real business” behind it. Launched in 2021 on Ethereum, Pudgy Penguins is best known for its collection of 8,888 cartoon-style penguin NFTs, each with unique traits. Under new leadership, the project has since expanded into physical toys sold at major retailers and a browser-based social game called Pudgy World. The most popular Pudgy Penguin was reportedly sold in August 2022 for 400 ETH — valued at around $650k at the time. Today, the NFT would be worth over $1.2 million at ETH’s current price of $3,086. The project fought to stay relevant during the recent years-long NFT bear market — not without success. Last December, it made fresh headlines when it said it was planning to launch a token called PENGU on Solana SOL $ 132.99 . A few weeks later, the NFT set became the world’s second most-valued NFTs with a minimum — or floor — price for any of the 8,888 comic penguins topping $100,000 and flipping the collections' value above its comic monkey forerunner, the Bored Apes Yacht Club. PENGU, which is listed on major exchanges such as Coinbase (COIN) and Robinhood (HOOD), is down about 80% over the past year and about 74% from its all-time high of $0.042 in July. NFTs More For You Protocol Research: GoPlus Security By CoinDesk Research Nov 14, 2025 Commissioned by GoPlus What to know : As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M. GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month. Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B. View Full Report More For You Most Influential: Jesse Pollak By Margaux Nijkerk | Edited by Cheyenne Ligon Dec 12, 2025 Base, the layer-2 network incubated by Coinbase, exploded in popularity this year. 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