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By Francisco Rodrigues|Edited by Aoyon Ashraf
Jul 12, 2025, 2:22 p.m.
- Coinbase changed its profile picture to a Pudgy Penguins NFT on X, leading to a surge in the PENGU token’s price.
- PENGU, the native token of the Pudgy Penguins ecosystem, surged by over 60% before a correction, but remains up over 35% for the week.
- Coinbase hired AlexOnChain, a prominent Crypto Twitter personality, as their first full-time “CT Lead” to improve social media engagement.
Coinbase broke with its usual blue logo on X, posting a Pudgy Penguins non-fungible token as its profile picture alongside the quip “new pfp, who dis.”
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Minutes later, PENGU, the native token of the penguin-themed ecosystem, started surging. The token rose more than 60% in the rally before enduring a correction, but it’s still up more than 35% for the week.
The official Pudgy Penguins account mirrored the move, sending matching ice-blue avatars gliding across feeds and leading to talk of a partnership between Coinbase and Igloo Inc., the startup that steers the collection. Various crypto-related firms, including VanEck, MoonPay, and AwakenTax, have since changed their profile pictures to pudgy penguins.
The stunt has also lifted the floor price of Pudgy Penguin NFTs, which was earlier this week around 9 ETH, and quickly jumped to 11.58 ETH according to NFTPriceFloor data. The volume for the project’s NFTs grew nearly 690% in the last 24 hours.
Coinbase changed its profile picture during a short account takeover from pseudonymous Crypto Twitter personality AlexOnChain, who previously led the social media account of leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance for four years.
After the takeover, Coinbase revealed they’re hiring AlexOnChain as their first full-time “CT Lead.”
“The new focus is making comms more social native – direct, transparent, and engaging. That’s the path to building a bigger appreciation for everything they’ve contributed to this space (which is a lot), and to help reconnect with ct,” Alex said in a post. “It’s a big job, it won’t be easy, and that’s why I took it.”
PENGU’s price rise also comes as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) acknowledged Canary Capital’s filing for a spot PENGU ETF.
Francisco is a reporter for CoinDesk with a passion for cryptocurrencies and personal finance. Before joining CoinDesk he worked at major financial and crypto publications. He owns bitcoin, ether, solana, and PAXG above CoinDesk’s $1,000 disclosure threshold.
