An unidentified user swiftly turned $10,298 into approximately $5.4 in a bid to profit from the PENGU token airdrop initiated by the NFT project Pudgy Penguin.
somebody bought $PENGU @$14T mc turning his $10k to $5 in seconds lmfao pic.twitter.com/R9X9tOu2fn
— bx1 (@bx1core) December 17, 2024
According to The Block, the smart contract and tokens were created at the end of November. Somehow, the trader discovered the active address and placed an order to exchange 45 WSOL for PENGU before the official distribution of the coins began.
He likely anticipated acquiring tokens at the initial price, which typically surges immediately following an airdrop.
Due to the nature of price formation on decentralized platforms, the price was inflated due to the market’s low liquidity. The swap occurred at rates implying a PENGU capitalization of approximately $14 trillion (Bitcoin’s is just over $2 trillion).
“Somehow, part of the tokens leaked into other wallets, allowing someone to spin up the liquidity pool prematurely. And trading began,” commented an anonymous trader familiar with the meme-coin ecosystem to the publication.
In his view, the user was not deliberately engaged in sniping using bots. Rather, he believed the official PENGU trading had commenced and was not the only one to purchase the asset at an inflated price.
The NFT project announced the token airdrop on the Solana blockchain in early December. Of the total issuance of 88,888,888,888 PENGU, 25.9% is allocated for community distribution. Another 24.12% will reward participants in various collaborations.
Following the distribution’s start on December 17, users have 88 days to claim the coins. Unclaimed PENGU will be permanently locked in the smart contract.
$PENGU is now live.
CA: 2zMMhcVQEXDtdE6vsFS7S7D5oUodfJHE8vd1gnBouauv
Learn more & how to claim your PENGU below. pic.twitter.com/ROWgq02YbF
— Pudgy Penguins (@pudgypenguins) December 17, 2024
After the official launch, major centralized exchanges such as Binance, Bybit, and OKX listed the token. At the time of writing, the asset is trading near $0.03, with a market capitalization of about $2.1 billion.
In September, a trader managed to turn approximately $80,000 into more than $1.2 million on the meme-coin AURA, before losing nearly all his profits.