New Solana Memecoin Leader? PENGU Flips BONK Amid Whale Accumulation

The newly launched PENGU token has stolen the spotlight after becoming the largest Solana-based memecoin by market capitalization. The token’s rally has gathered massive interest from large-scale investors, who have heavily invested in the token over the last few days.

On December 17, the Pudgy Penguins Non-Fungible Token (NFT) project launched its official token, PENGU, on the Solana Blockchain. The token has moved through the ranks, flipping other Solana-based tokens and gathering massive attention in nine days.

Pudgy Penguins, one of the largest NFT collections, consists of 8,888 unique cartoons of cute penguins and has a market capitalization of 205,757 ETH. In anticipation of the token launch, the project surged as the second-largest NFT collection, only falling behind CryptoPunks.

Since its launch three years ago, the project has seen its community significantly grow and “cemented itself in the hearts and minds of everyday people and culture,” according to the project’s team. Additionally, it is expected to contribute to the project’s governance despite not having a specific use case announced yet.

As such, the newly launched cryptocurrency aims to “expand its community and further widen the reach” of the project by allowing old and new users “to align” themselves with the penguins.

According to CoinGecko data, the Solana-based memecoin debuted with a 500% surge to a market capitalization of $3.5 billion but registered massive volatility in the following days.

Just hours after launching, PENGU’s price retraced over 50% before descending to a $1.4 billion market cap on December 20. The token hovered between the $0.025-$0.037 range over a few days, stabilizing around the range’s upper zone on Christmas Eve.

Amid the market’s momentary Christmas Day gains, the token broke above this range and climbed to the $0.042 mark on Thursday morning, hitting a $2.6 billion market cap. During this 18% rally, the token flipped dogwifhat (WIF) and BONK to become the largest Solana memecoin by market cap, currently holding its position as the sector’s leader.

PENGU became the fourth largest memecoin by this metric, just behind Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, and PEPE. Additionally, in the last 24 hours, the token has seen a 25% increase in market activity, with a daily trading volume of $1.92 billion.

According to on-chain data analysis firm Lookonchain, Crypto whales have also noticed PENGU’s rally, with several large-scale investors filling their bags over the past week.

On December 24, a whale that had received an airdrop of 116.7 million PENGU, worth $3.52 million, increased its holding with a $1 million purchase. According to the post, the wallet spent 5,250 SOL to buy an additional 34.42 million PENGU, holding a total of 151.12 million PENGU, valued at $5.08 million.

Similarly, another whale exchanged 500,000 ai16z, another trending Solana-based memecoin, today for PENGU. In the past eight days, this investor has spent $2.47 million to buy 79.9 million PENGU, having unrealized profits of around $835,000.

As of this writing, PENGU is trading at $0.038, a 4.8% increase in the daily timeframe.