NFT project Pudgy Penguins left with nothing after funding, major buyer OpenDAO founder accuses lack of transparency

The founder of OpenDAO, @9x9x9eth, posted a tweet to address rumors about his takeover of the NFT project Pudgy Penguins, urging people not to make investment judgments based on rumors.

9x9x9 owns 242 Pudgy Penguins NFTs, most bought at 2 ETH, with one purchased at 100 ETH, totaling around 600 ETH invested, and none have been sold to date. He mentioned that owning so many Pudgy Penguins gives him the liberty to be biased in his opinions.

9x9x9 expressed disappointment in the team's behavior of distributing funds after releasing two NFT projects without retaining capital for further development.

Advertisement - Continue scrolling for more content

Pudgy Penguins Incident

9x9x9 revealed that a few months ago, he contacted the Pudgy Penguins team in an attempt to purchase a portion of the company's equity. The team requested a price of 4000 ETH for a 20% stake, valuing the company at 20,000 ETH. Although he did not agree to the terms at the time, he continued to purchase their NFTs and assist the team in their development. For example, he facilitated an AMA in the Asian market, spent money to support the floor price at 2 ETH for several months, and listed the NFTs on the Binance NFT marketplace.

9x9x9 also minted 540 lil pudgy NFTs for another project of the company and agreed to become an official advisor under the condition that his name not be used for credibility but rather to maintain information transparency within the community, which the company failed to do.

On January 5th, 9x9x9 stated that the Pudgy Penguins team contacted him again, inquiring if he was interested in further investing in Pudgy Penguins. He mentioned his current focus on OpenDAO but expressed willingness to assist Pudgy Penguins. However, there was a problem...

According to 9x9x9's findings, all the ETH received by the team had been distributed, and the company they wanted to sell had no ETH or USD holdings, despite undergoing two NFT fundraisings and promising game development. The royalties from secondary market NFT trading were not used to hire more people, and it was unclear what their plans were.

9x9x9's Response and Conclusion

9x9x9 made a new proposal to the Pudgy Penguins team, offering to take over the sinking ship but without any additional payment. He would invest his own funds in the project, allowing Pudgy Penguins to take all the money raised and leave him to clean up the mess. However, the Pudgy Penguins team did not agree to this proposal.

9x9x9 also warned that if any NFT project promises to issue tokens, it falls under the regulatory scope of securities issuance, especially in the United States.

9x9x9 stated that he would not buy a company after two rounds of financing, pocket the money, and then try to resell the company for millions of dollars. Although the community initiated a vote to remove Cole, a key member of the team, 9x9x9 believed that some members played good cop while others played bad cop, and the key issue was the team's lack of transparency.

He concluded by suggesting that the best solution would be to establish a DAO, where the founders would refund all ETH, and the community would vote to allocate salaries and expenses based on working hours, as well as shape the brand and community direction. He hoped his suggestions would bring about change for the team. To demonstrate that he was not fabricating facts, he attached a partial record of the conversation: