Just three years ago, Impossible Token (NFT) brand Pudgy Penguins was approaching bankruptcy. It is currently projected to close the year with revenue of $50 million.
CEO and owner Luca Schnetzler (known as Luca Netz) built his fortune through Instagram and invaded the toy industry. In the blockchain world, he was one of the biggest stocky penguin owners, but like many in the community, he was not satisfied with the price performance of the collection. In April 2022, the project was the lowest ever. He decided to acquire parent company Igloo with $2.5 million ether (ETH).
But soon, the Nets had some difficult options. The collapse of Terra in May 2022 caused a long-term bear market. The NFT assets increased in value and threatened to turn Netz’s acquisition into a failure.
In a recent interview with Cointe Legraph, Netz explained what he thought at the time. “This company will run out of money in six months if you don’t start making real money. It’s clear that you’re not going to make any Web3 money… physical products were the only thing I knew how to do.”
Netz has expanded its NFT business into the physical toy industry and extended its runway. Initially, “to pay the bill” was enough, but it expanded to millions of dollars of cash cows.
Meanwhile, the physical collectible trends have spilled over digital assets, setting up a collection of stocky penguin-like for the next surge in NFTs.
Pudgy Penguins is Netz’s next Instagram hit amid the NFT struggle
The Nets have spoken about him many times. His family struggled to find stability in his childhood. He moved frequently, causing high school to become frustrated and eventually sought opportunities outside of school.
According to Netz, he made his first million at age 18 through his dropshipping business on Shopify, selling gems he promoted on the Instagram fan page of popular hip-hop artists. He became Chief Marketing Officer for Gel Blaster, a toy gun that shoots water gel pellets sold at major stores such as Walmart.
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When NFT revenue and the larger blockchain ecosystem spiralized, Netz relied on his background in consumer products to expand his sagging penguins into a physical toy brand.
At the time, it was enough to just keep the company financially floating around, but it also grew into a broader cultural brand.
“Toys are a high-profit, but low-profit margin business. Today we sell millions of dollars and we’ve expanded to that,” says Netz.
“At the time, we needed it to keep the company up without paying the bill, closing it or asking for money from the community.”
Most cryptocurrency projects build communities on social media platforms familiar to the industry, such as X, Discord, and Telegram. Instagram, a platform known for its visuals, is often degraded by cryptographic projects. For the Nets, this “means nothing.” Pudgy Penguins is also featured on a typical crypto social channel, but Netz focuses more on Instagram than most other projects.
“When you go to Walmart or Target, [they don’t care about] Large crypto numbers such as NFT market capitalization, price, volume, etc. “It’s social media that really moved the needle with a traditional brand in terms of getting big box distribution.”
As of Monday, Pudgy Penguins had 1.9 million followers on Instagram and 728,100 followers on X.
A wealth of penguins shine when collectibles bring NFTs to life
There is a social media brand and toy line, but at the heart of it, Pudgy Penguins is an NFT project. The NFT market has been declared dead several times in multiple media outlets. According to Dappradar, NFT trading volume continued to decline after its death to less than $1 billion in the second quarter of 2025.
For example, the boring APE Yacht Club (BAYC) gained support from global celebrities and public figures during its peak hours as it rose to a peak floor price of 153 ETH just days before the May 2022 TerraCrush. This collection has dropped to floor prices on the 13.44th floor.
Cryptopunks is today’s top NFT collection, measured by market capitalization, with floor price of 52.97 ETH. It reached an all-time high of 125 ETH on August 29, 2021, and then reached 124 ETH on October 18th of that year, a few weeks before the FTX fiasco.
However, recently, the excitement of the NFTS has risen, with collections like Cryptopunks and MoonBirds documenting spikes in sales and deals.
This comes with the increase in popularity of Collectibles. Online resale platform eBay reported a 6% revenue bump reported in its second quarter revenue call to $2.7 billion, resulting in successful interest in collectibles such as Pokemon cards.
“Pokemon is hot right now. You can buy Pokemon cards for a week. In two weeks, it’s twice as worth. That’s insane,” the Nets said.
“It’s a good signal for me that people are starting to explore with collectibles again. When physical collectibles work, digital collectibles continue.”
Labubu Frenzy is also engaging the world in a storm. These cute and creepy creatures have become special in mystery packages (blind boxes) to seduce repeated purchases. One rare Labubu reportedly was sold on eBay for $10,500.
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Digital collectibles follow. Courtyard, a blockchain platform that allows users to access to tokenized physical collectibles, is one of the top NFT projects this year. This includes the vending machine features where users can randomly purchase booster packs such as Pokemon cards and sports cards and play gold like Lovebu’s Mystery Box.
“Of the past four years, this is the most promising,” Netz said of the momentum in the NFT market. “My view is that when retailers come in, there’s nothing more fun than minting and collecting NFTs with crypto, and I always believe it,” he added.
The stubborn penguin wants to become a code mascot beyond NFT
The stubborn penguin is planning to become a code mascot. In December 2024, Solana-based Memecoin Pengu was launched, and distributed it with a $1.5 billion airdrop.
The token cratered its price in the first few weeks after launch, but has since recovered. This is supported by Canary’s momentum from the Greater Pussy Penguin brand, NFTS, and even the Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) application. Netz is looking at Pudgy Penguins, a growing franchise across the crypto ecosystem.
“Arch, penguin,” the Nets said.,’ It is a biopic based on McDonald’s Ray Clock, but it illustrates the future of stocky penguin assets in the ETF and corporate finance ministry.
The NFT market is still far from its peak in 2021, and bursts of enthusiasm of the past quickly faded away. Meanwhile, digital collectors with physical counterparts are growing as one of the few segments showing consistent growth in the stagnant NFT market.
Pudgy Penguins’ toy line and social reach keeping most NFT projects alive with a decline in brand, but the market where it grew is still vulnerable. For Nets, betting means building a cultural brand will last longer than the blockchain cycle that nearly kills it.
“It worked in our favor because everything else exploded and the crypto project was taking millions of people to their community, so we built the brand the right way when no one else was doing it,” Nets said.
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