In Brief:
- Pudgy Penguins PENGU $0.00833 ▼ -8.4% will host Pengu Blooming Shanghai on Oct. 17 in a historic 1990s Shanghai salon, with partners @deepcoincn, @cbid_io, @JoinProxima and Figurobot.
- Attendance needs organizer approval, spots are limited and the exact address is shown only to registered guests.
- The meetup lands on the same day as a scheduled release of roughly 723 million PENGU and comes 11 days after Igloo said it would shut down Abstract.
Pudgy Penguins is taking its community events to Shanghai. The Pengu Blooming Shanghai meetup is set for Oct. 17 in a 1990s-era salon in the city.
“Pudgy Penguins are coming to Shanghai!” the project said in a post on X. “Join the Huddle on October 17th for Pengu Blooming Shanghai, alongside @deepcoincn, @cbid_io, @JoinProxima, and Figurobot as we take over a historic 1990s Shanghai salon.”
Pudgy Penguins are coming to Shanghai!
Join the Huddle on October 17th for Pengu Blooming Shanghai, alongside @deepcoincn, @cbid_io, @JoinProxima, and Figurobot as we take over a historic 1990s Shanghai salon.
RSVP and more information below.
Approval required
The event page lists Pudgy Penguins as presenter and Symphony Young as host. The event also carries the Chinese title 繁花上海.
Registration needs approval and spots are limited. The venue address is visible only to registered guests. When this article was written, nine people had registered on the event page.
The program includes live jazz and networking between Pudgy Penguins holders and the local community. Guests can also collect stamps to redeem for merchandise while supplies last, and there are Shanghai-themed photo backdrops.
“Breaking the ice worldwide, Pudgy Penguins events are in a league of their own,” the organizers said on the event page.
Token release on the same day
The meetup falls on the same date as a scheduled PENGU token release. About 723 million PENGU are due to go to the team and the company on Oct. 17.
At recent prices that’s roughly $6.3 million. It’s a little over 1% of circulating supply.
PENGU traded near $0.008 in the days before the event.
Abstract wind-down
The Shanghai date comes days after Igloo Inc., the company behind Pudgy Penguins, said it would shut down Abstract, its Ethereum layer 2, on Dec. 15. Igloo confirmed the closure on Oct. 6. It said it would move Abstract’s money and staff to Pudgy Penguins and PENGU.
Igloo CEO Luca Netz said the company funded Abstract for about 18 months and lost tens of millions of dollars over that time. He said the chain never found product-market fit.
Users were told to move funds off the network before the deadline through Abstract’s Migration Hub or its native bridge. The bridge has a three-hour delay. Assets still on the chain after Dec. 15 risk becoming permanently unreachable.
Igloo also decided against using more money from the Pudgy Penguins business to keep Abstract running. And it chose not to issue a token to fund the chain.
“Even after losing 8 figures, we could have launched a token or pursued an ICO. Ultimately we decided against this,” Netz said in a post on X.
Abstract launched on mainnet on Jan. 27, 2025, built on ZKsync’s ZK Stack. The network reported more than 325 million transactions, about 4 million wallets and $6 billion in decentralized exchange volume. It’s the second Ethereum-linked layer 2 to announce a shutdown in under a week, following Blast’s Oct. 2 decision.
Asia push
Shanghai follows the Pengu World Tour stop in Seoul, held Sept. 28 to Oct. 2 during Korea Blockchain Week.
Pudgy Penguins also has a collaboration with LINE FRIENDS, the character brand with stores in Seoul, Tokyo and Shanghai.
This isn’t the brand’s first event in mainland China. Last year it ran the Pengu Asia Tour China Edition, with events in Shanghai, Hangzhou and Shenzhen from Oct. 25 to 29.
The organizers’ own line for the Shanghai event is short. “From online PFPs to real-life friendships, we’re bringing the huddle closer together, one city at a time.”
