Panda Coin from China Sparks Global Meme Showdown With Penguins
Pudgy Penguins has had an incredible year so far, but a new rival is emerging in Asia that could end PENGU’s dominance over the meme sector.
Pudgy Pandas is going viral on Chinese social network WeChat, simultaneously reaching an audience of billions while remaining largely undiscovered by Western audiences.
However, as it continues to grow in popularity, raising over $300k in the first day of its limited-time presale, it’s sure to start popping up on the radars of Western traders any time now.
This wave of virality, coupled with its impressive fundraising so far and its incredibly low current price of $0.021, sets up a showdown with Pudgy Penguins, which could see PANDA unseat the current $2.2 billion king of meme coins.
The pudgy wars: PENGU vs PANDA
Pudgy Penguins leads the race at present thanks to a year-long head start, but Pudgy Pandas is already making serious ground in its quest to overtake its rival.
PENGU has dominated 2025’s meme landscape, with a 10x rally leading to a potential ETF launch later this year, but PANDA offers something penguins can’t—resonance with the most important market segment in crypto.
Pandas are loved across the entire Asian region, home to the majority of crypto users worldwide and the main actors in the meme coin market, with Asia pushing up to 80% of meme trades.
It’s no surprise, then, that Chinese and Korean bidders have been the driving force behind PANDA’s astonishing $300k presale raise so far. The buy-in from Asian traders likely stems from the fact that pandas are more than just a mascot for PANDA: they are genuinely the reason the project exists.
Pudgy Pandas is deeply committed to panda conservation, pledging a portion of revenue to its #FreeThePandas campaign, and it’s this mission that gives meme traders something tangible to hold on to—a real-world factor that PENGU simply cannot match.
Whether it’s flipping the stock market or saving the pandas, all successful memes have a mission, and in PANDA’s case, it’s a mission that has captivated a whole continent.
Pudgy Pandas: Built to pump
Beyond the Asia-first design and creation of Pudgy Pandas, which has already pulled in a total of $300k in the PANDA presale, the newcomer is filled with features that set it up for long term price appreciation, giving buyers at the current price of $0.021 plenty to look forward to.
When the 33-day presale ends on 18th October, PANDA will list immediately on exchanges, kickstarting open market price discovery. Upside no longer be limited by fixed presale pricing, and day-one buyers will be able to realise gains of 288%, but the ceiling is much higher.
As part of Pudgy Pandas’ conservation efforts, tokens are burned every time a panda is born—an incentive to protect the panda population, which is now as low as 1,864 worldwide. This is not just a conservation incentive, but also a built-in deflationary mechanism that ensures the supply of PANDA shrinks over time, as demand prepares to go vertical.
This combination of goodwill towards Asia’s most beloved animal with market engineering tokenomics creates a perfect storm of high demand and ever-shrinking supply, meaning that the endgame market cap for PANDA could easily be in the billions.
PANDA presale: 2025’s biggest winner?
With $300k already in the bag, Asian markets are already responding. Western traders are largely blind to the signal so far, with most of the motion taking place on Asian social media, but as soon as the trend crosses the Pacific, the current price of $0.021 could never be seen again.
Pudgy Pandas has a real shot at unseating PENGU from atop the meme charts, and the latter’s $2.2 billion market cap is a snapshot of where the challenger could end up once it lists on exchanges on 18th October.
For traders who understand that Asia sets crypto trends while the West follows, PANDA is potentially the biggest meme coin opportunity of 2025, and at current prices, it simply cannot be ignored.