How Pudgy Penguins Landed the Las Vegas Sphere—After Dogwifhat Couldn't
The Las Vegas Sphere is currently adorned with the cartoon creatures of crypto-native brand Pudgy Penguins. Here's how it happened.
In brief
- Pudgy Penguins characters are currently appearing on the outside of the Las Vegas Sphere.
- The activation follows the Dogwifhat meme coin community failing to accomplish the same earlier this year.
- The Pudgy Penguins campaign doesn't spotlight its crypto elements, which include NFTs and a meme coin.
Pudgy Penguins will wrap the Las Vegas Sphere for Christmas after debuting on the glowing venue on Tuesday.
The crypto-native brand's recent announcement sent some traders into a meltdown, as the community behind Solana meme coin Dogwifhat (WIF) failed to advertise on the venue earlier this year despite raising $700,000 in an attempt to do so—funds the team later refunded to contributors.
A Sphere spokesperson previously told Decrypt that it would only accept crypto advertising from exchanges or in relation to Bitcoin. Despite this, the Dogwifhat backers announced in January that they were set to appear at the Las Vegas venue.
For that reason, a Sphere representative told Decrypt that they were “distressed” that the Dogwifhat team was using their name for “fraudulent purposes.”
So, how can Pudgy Penguins—a brand that started as an NFT profile picture collection, has created a Solana meme coin called PENGU, helped launch an Ethereum layer-2 network, and more—advertise on the Sphere?
“This activation celebrates specifically our physical products, like toys, animations, and merch. It has nothing to do with the crypto side of our business,” Vedant Mangaldas, director of strategy and comms at Pudgy Penguins, told Decrypt. “We fully realize Sphere’s guidelines on crypto-related things.”
Prior to Tuesday's rollout, a Sphere spokesperson confirmed to Decrypt that Pudgy Penguins would wrap the Sphere, and that its crypto policy has not changed, as this activation specifically relates to physical products.
This means that during the seven-day wrap, the Pudgy Penguins NFTs, the Pengu meme coin, or any other crypto-related ventures will not be mentioned on the Sphere. Instead, the exosphere animation focuses on the cartoon creatures that drive the brand, and briefly mentions the availability of merchandise.