There's a cartoon penguin sitting in the toy aisle of 2,000 Walmart stores, and it has one of the strangest origin stories in retail. Pudgy Penguins started life in 2021 not as a toy, but as
There's a cartoon penguin sitting in the toy aisle of 2,000 Walmart stores, and it has one of the strangest origin stories in retail.
Pudgy Penguins started life in 2021 not as a toy, but as an NFT (non-fungible token) collection — digital artworks of chubby penguins that people bought and sold with cryptocurrency.
Quick refresher on what that means. An NFT is a digital certificate of ownership. Anyone can download a picture of a penguin; the NFT is the record proving you own the original, stored on a blockchain — a shared digital ledger that can't be altered or deleted.
The NFT market peaked in 2021 and crashed soon after. Most penguin, ape and pixel-art projects died with the hype. Pudgy Penguins did something no one expected: it waddled out of crypto and into real stores.
Exclusive: Rarible co-founder says NFT bubble is over, names two major narratives (5:02)The company turned its cartoon characters into a toy brand.
In September 2023, it partnered withWalmart to launch Pudgy Toys — plushies, figurines, games and collectibles — in 2,000 U.S. stores and on Walmart's website.
Pudgy Penguins soft toys on Walmart website
The plushies became a hit with shoppers who had no idea the penguin ever lived on a blockchain, and last month the company announced its toys will feature in Walmart's holiday shopping season catalog.
While the toys thrived, though, the company was pouring money into a second, far more ambitious project.
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In January 2025, Pudgy Penguins' parent company, Igloo Inc., launched its own blockchain, called Abstract.
The idea is to turn the penguin's millions of fans into crypto users, giving them a network of their own for games, apps and digital collectibles.
On Oct. 6, Igloo CEO Luca Netz announced it's shutting down.
Igloo funded Abstract for 18 months and lost tens of millions of dollars building products and signing up brands, he said — but the project never found enough people who actually needed it.
The company could have raised money by launching its own crypto token, he added, but chose not to, because there was no real demand for the product.
"The entire team at Abstract has worked tirelessly with a tremendous amount of passion to make the consumer crypto vision come true. I cannot fault a single one of them for this outcome."
Abstract processed over 325 million transactions, generated $40 million in revenue, and attracted brands like Red Bull Racing and Disney for digital experiences that brought in over 400,000 users. But the team said thin activity, slow interest from big institutions and limited budget left no path forward.
Abstract's journey since its launch in January 2025Abstract shuts down on Dec. 15, and users holding funds on it need to move their assets off the chain before then, through the project's Migration Hub or its native bridge.
Any funds not moved by the deadline will become inaccessible.
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