Penguins might be flightless birds – but their NFTs are taking off.

Even as crypto prices had a modest pullback today, the non-fungible token craze shows no signs of stopping.

The Pudgy Penguin project got a pump overnight courtesy of this flattering story in the New York Times following a purchase earlier in the week by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian (also known as Serena Williams’ husband).

The collection of 8,888 portly penguins “sold out” in just 19 minutes on July 23 sight unseen, with users paying just 0.03 Eth (less than A$100) to mint one.

This morning the penguins were selling for a minimum of 1.85 Eth (A$7,773) on Opensea.

This grey penguin — plain-looking compared to some others, but the only left-facing penguin in the collection — has been the top-selling penguin, changing hands on Monday for 150 Eth (A$631,500, or US$463,500).

The buyer, “Penguin Lover,” has re-listed the penguin for 1,000 Ether (A$4.2 million/US$3 million). The same account owns other 27 Pudgy Penguins they bought for between 0.5 and 14.8 Ether (US$1,544 to US$43,000). The same user may tweet under the handle @pudgyluver.

(As the NYT story noted, the biggest perk of owning a penguin “is getting to change your Twitter profile photo to your NFT, marking yourself as part of the in crowd”).

Dear reader, Penguin Lover may be a lot more clever than you are assuming. The same account managed to flip this “ghost” penguin (a Pudgy Penguin wearing a sheet) for a tidy profit this week, buying it Sunday for 28 Ether (US$86,000) and selling it Tuesday for 100 Ether (US$308,000).

Other top-selling penguins include this penguin with a hatched penguin chick on its head, which sold yesterday for 55 Ether (US$170,000) and a penguin in a shark suit that changed hands on Tuesday for 69 Ether (US$213,000).

Overall the penguins have been the top-selling NFT collection in the past 24 hours, with 1,265 trades for a total of US$9.7 million, according to NFT-Stats.

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