PENGU token loses 20% in August amid Pudgy Party game launch

Pudgy Penguins’ native token slipped on Friday despite the project’s new title ranking among Apple’s top downloads.

The $PENGU ($PENGU) token fell by nearly 4% on Friday, following the launch of Pudgy Party, a battle royale game released on Android and iOS, regardless the game recording over 50,000 downloads on the Google Play store and landing in the top 10 most downloaded games on Apple’s App Store.

Pudgy Penguins is a popular non-fungible token ($NFT) project in the crypto space. The project supplements its onchain digital presence with trading cards, plushy penguin-themed toys, video games and other physical merchandise.

According to CoinMarketCap, the token declined by over 20% over the past 30 days.

The price retrace comes amid a broader downturn in the $NFT market, which saw other blue-chip $NFT projects such as Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and Doodles post double-digit losses in August.

$PENGU token declines by over 20% in August. Source: CoinMarketCap

Despite price fluctuations, Pudgy Penguins continues to be a cultural phenomenon within the crypto community and showcases mass appeal to non-crypto users through the project’s focus on physical merchandise, drawing both adults and children to the franchise.

Related: $NFT market cap drops by $1.2B as Ether rally loses steam

$NFT markets suffer as Ethereum retraces recent gains

The Ethereum network hosts the most $NFT trading activity of any blockchain ecosystem, and, following Ether’s ($ETH) recent decline from an all-time high of about $4,957, the $NFT market took a hit.

CryptoPunks, a blue-chip $NFT collection of pixelated characters often used as profile pictures (PFPs) by crypto industry executives and investors, demonstrated more resilience, rising by nearly 3% during August, according to NFTPriceFloor.

$NFT projects take a hit during August. Source: NFTPriceFloor

Meanwhile, BAYC recorded losses of over 11% in August, and Pudgy Penguins recorded declined by over 20% in US dollar terms.

The $NFT market cap hit $9.3 billion at the beginning of August during Ethereum’s historic bull rally to new all-time highs. However, the $NFT market cap has since dropped to just $7.4 billion at the time of this writing and continues to correlate with $ETH prices.

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