blockworks.co
Pudgy Penguins, the NFT collection-turned-intellectual property brand, is launching a .pudgy top level domain through a partnership with Unstoppable Domains.
.Pudgy domains can be purchased via the Unstoppable Domains website or a landing page designed by Pudgy Penguins, the team said in an interview.
In a couple months, Pudgy Penguins hopes to integrate a feature whereby the accounts created with store-bought Pudgy Penguins create digital wallets with .pudgy domains rather than typical alphanumeric HEX addresses, the team added.
Read more: Pudgy Penguins CEO’s advice to Web3: Create ‘real products’ that ‘transcend’ NFTs
Following the collection’s acquisition by Luca Netz in 2022, Pudgy Penguins has set a major focus on its intellectual property rather than simply its JPEGs.
Netz called Pudgy Penguins a “transcendent [intellectual property] brand” while announcing its $9 million fundraise in May 2023.
The first part of this vision has been toy versions of some of the 8,888 Pudgy Penguins NFTs. The plushies and figurines went on sale on Amazon in May before being put on shelves in September at 2,000 Walmart stores. That figure was expanded to 3,100 this week. Walmart currently stocks 30 different Pudgy toys that sell for roughly $3-12 apiece.
Pudgy’s toys carry a QR code that unlocks certain traits in the brand’s open-world online game, Pudgy World. The game is currently in open beta mode, but it is slated to release more widely sometime in Q1.
“We do have toys, but we’re not a toy company. We will have a game, but we’re not a game company. You know, those are distribution mechanisms for the brand and the ultimate vision is: How can you make this the most popular penguin in the world?” Pudgy Penguins president Lorenzo Melendez said.
Amid all of this, Pudgy Penguins NFTs have seen rapidly increasing price interest in the past few months, nearly surpassing the once-vaunted Bored Apes collection in price floor, or the least expensive NFT available on secondary markets.
Read more: Pudgy Penguins approach Bored Ape floor prices, buoyed by CEO’s expansive approach
The .pudgy domains are enabled by Unstoppable Domains, a company that creates blockchain-based domain names.
Pudgy becomes Unstoppable Domains’ tenth top level domain partnership, according to a press release, following similar integrations with Blockchain.com and Klever Exchange, among others.