The Pudgy Penguins-themed meme coin, PENGU, has surged over 100% in the past week, fueled by ETF chatter and a push on social media—but analysts are questioning whether the rally is built to last.
PENGU is currently trading at just under $0.031, up 9.7% in the last 24 hours and 101% on the week, according to CoinGecko data.
The rally comes just weeks after the U.S. SEC added new filings to its docket, including a 19b-4 application from Cboe to allow trading of the Canary PENGU ETF.
Canary Capital first filed for the product in March as the SEC weighs over two dozen altcoin ETF proposals, including for Solana (SOL), XRP, and Dogecoin (DOGE).
Despite its impressive gains, experts remain divided on whether PENGU can maintain its momentum.
Min Jung, an analyst at algorithmic trading firm Presto Research, said that even though fundamentals remain thin, PENGU’s price action hasn’t been entirely erratic.
Jung told Decrypt that PENGU’s gain is “likely fueled by potential ETF approval hype and major crypto players like OpenSea and Coinbase changing their profile pictures to Pengu NFTs."
PENGU received an extra boost last Friday when major crypto exchange Coinbase changed its X profile picture to a Pudgy Penguins NFT, triggering bullish sentiment.
The profile change came during a brief account takeover by Alex A., who previously spent four years leading social media and community at Binance and now serves as Coinbase’s Crypto Twitter Lead, tasked with strengthening public messaging and community engagement.
“The rise in Pengu has been relatively steady rather than a sudden spike on news," Jung said, suggesting the rally extends beyond mere ETF speculation.
However, the analyst remained cautious about long-term sustainability, saying the meme coin "appears well-positioned to ride the current wave as long as Bitcoin and the broader crypto market maintain their bullish momentum."
Meanwhile, Bitcoin (BTC), which broke past $123,000 on Monday, has dipped 4% in the last 24 hours to $117,000, per CoinGecko data.
Yet institutional flows remain strong, with spot Bitcoin ETFs logging $2.7 billion in inflows last week, per Farside Investors data.
Will a PENGU ETF happen?
Arjun Vijay, founder of crypto exchange Giottus, questioned the fundamental value proposition behind the proposed PENGU ETF.
"I see limited practical use for an ETF in this context, as ETFs typically cater to large institutional investors,” Vijay told Decrypt. “Given that even established cryptocurrencies like Dogecoin lack an ETF, the case for a PENGU ETF seems tenuous.”
On prediction markets platform Myriad, developed by Decrypt’s parent company DASTAN, users don’t expect a PENGU ETF to be approved before October, with 58.5% voting against it, while 41.5% believe it will pass in time.
“I don’t think so,” said Vijay, when asked whether the PENGU coin can maintain its trajectory.
“The coin lacks fundamentals or use case,” he said. “It is just another meme coin which is creating narratives. Narratives are temporary in nature.”
Still, he cautioned, trading on hype alone doesn’t always lead to collapse, with “zombie coins like Ethereum Classic, LTC, BCH still at billion-dollar valuations.”
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