What Is PENGU (ETH - pudgypenguin.xyz) Crypto Coin? The Fake Pudgy Penguins Token Explained

There’s a crypto token called PENGU that’s popping up everywhere - on exchanges, in Telegram groups, on YouTube videos promising it’ll be the next Dogecoin. The website? pudgypenguin.xyz. It looks official. It has a logo that’s almost identical to the real Pudgy Penguins. But here’s the truth: PENGU is not real. It’s a copycat. A scam. A ghost of a popular NFT project, dressed up as a coin to trick people into buying it.

It’s Not the Real Pudgy Penguins

The real Pudgy Penguins are a famous NFT collection. Launched in 2021, there are exactly 8,888 unique digital penguin images. They’re owned by collectors, traded on OpenSea, and worth hundreds of millions. The official site is pudgypenguins.com. The team behind it, TheIglooCompany, has built a real brand - merchandise, games, events. They’ve never created a token called PENGU.

The fake PENGU token, however, uses the same penguin art, same name, same branding. It’s designed to confuse. People who don’t know the difference think they’re buying into the same project. They’re not. They’re buying a piece of code with zero value and zero connection to the real brand.

What Is PENGU Actually?

PENGU is an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum blockchain. Its contract address is 0x3D39e1F320D0468A8BAFFe77262A3f675F5B3F63. That’s the digital fingerprint of the token. You can look it up on Etherscan. The total supply? 88.88 trillion PENGU coins. That’s not a mistake. That’s intentional. A massive supply like that means each coin is worth almost nothing.

As of December 11, 2025, one PENGU token is worth about $0.000000134. That’s 0.0000134 cents. You’d need over 7 million of them to make one dollar. And even that price is unstable. Crypto.com lists it at $0.000000003892. Bitget says $0.000000134. That’s a 96% difference. Why? Because nobody’s really trading it. The numbers are made up, or manipulated.

Market Cap? Trading Volume? Don’t Believe the Hype

Some sites say PENGU has a $12 million market cap. That sounds impressive until you realize the real Pudgy Penguins NFT collection is worth $620 million. PENGU is just 1.9% of that. And it’s not even close to being a real competitor. The real project has a community, a roadmap, and real-world products. PENGU has a website with one paragraph copied from the original and no contact info.

Trading volume? Bitget says $638 in 24 hours. CoinMarketCap says $0. That’s not a glitch. That’s because there’s no real demand. The few trades happening are likely pump-and-dump schemes - small groups buying in, pushing the price up for a few hours, then selling to new buyers before it crashes.

Why Is It Still Listed on Exchanges?

Binance, Crypto.com, and others list PENGU. That doesn’t mean they endorse it. In fact, they all include warnings. CoinMarketCap says: “This token is not affiliated with the original Pudgy Penguins. Exercise caution while trading and always DYOR.” Binance even has a step-by-step guide on how to buy it - right next to a disclaimer that says it’s fake.

This is a dangerous gray area. Exchanges profit from trading fees. So they list tokens like PENGU to capture volume, even if they know it’s a scam. They’re not protecting users. They’re letting users get hurt while taking a cut.

How Do People Get Scammed?

New investors see a token with a cool name and a logo they recognize. They think, “This must be the official coin.” They buy it, hoping it’ll go up. But here’s what happens next:

• The price spikes briefly - maybe 200% in a day - because a group of people (often bots) buy it to create fake demand.
• They promote it on Twitter, Reddit, and YouTube with misleading claims: “PENGU will beat Dogecoin!” (It’s on Ethereum. Dogecoin is on its own chain.)
• When new buyers jump in, the original group sells their coins and the price crashes.
• Most of the supply is held by one wallet. That wallet is slowly dumping coins into the market, one tiny trade at a time, to avoid triggering alarms.

Reddit users have reported this exact pattern. One user said, “95% of the supply went to one wallet that’s now selling in microtransactions to pump the chart.” That’s textbook rug pull behavior.

Experts Say It’s a Disaster Waiting to Happen

Security firms like TokenSniffer give PENGU a 5% safety score. That’s worse than almost any other token. Why? The contract has hidden features that let the creators mint more coins anytime, or take control of all funds. That’s a red flag.

Delphi Digital rated it 12 out of 100 for legitimacy. Messari’s 2026 report says impersonation tokens like PENGU have a 98.7% failure rate within 18 months. That’s not a prediction. That’s a pattern. Every single one of these copycat tokens has collapsed.

And now there’s legal risk. The SEC filed a case in December 2025 against similar fake tokens, calling them unregistered securities. If you bought PENGU thinking it was an investment, you could lose your money - and have no legal recourse.

What Should You Do?

If you’re thinking of buying PENGU: don’t.

• If you already bought it: don’t hold onto it hoping it’ll recover. It won’t.
• If you’re just curious: look up the real Pudgy Penguins NFTs. They’re fascinating. They have history, community, and value.
• If you’re learning about crypto: use this as a lesson. Always check the official website. Always verify the contract address. Always ask: “Is this actually connected to the brand they claim?”

The crypto space is full of noise. Scammers rely on people being lazy, excited, or confused. PENGU is a perfect example of how easy it is to exploit that.

How to Spot Fake Tokens Like This

Here’s a quick checklist:

1. Check the official site. Does the token have its own website? Is it the same as the NFT project’s? If not, it’s fake.
2. Look for warnings. CoinMarketCap, Crypto.com, and Binance will label fake tokens. Read the fine print.
3. Verify the contract address. Search it on Etherscan. If the token has a supply of trillions and no clear team, walk away.
4. Check the trading volume. If volume is under $1,000 a day, it’s a ghost market.
5. Google the token + “scam.” If people are reporting rug pulls, you already know the answer.

What’s the Bottom Line?

PENGU is not a cryptocurrency. It’s not an investment. It’s not even a meme coin with a community. It’s a digital illusion. A parasite. A way for people to take money from those who don’t know better.

The real Pudgy Penguins are still out there - building, creating, growing. PENGU? It’s already dead. It just hasn’t stopped moving yet.