Pudgy Penguins Waddles Into Target, Pushing NFT Brand Further Into Retail

Pudgy Penguins rolled out Vibes Series 3, its largest retail expansion to date, placing the trading card game in Target stores nationwide across the US this week and lifting total cards in circulation to around 15 million as the NFT project presses to become a mainstream consumer brand.

The card game, developed in partnership with Orange Cap Games, spans both physical and digital play. Series 3 follows two earlier sets and introduces new gameplay mechanics, original street-artist artwork, and appearances from characters in the Moonbirds NFT collection. 

The set also adds new card types and tiered Soulbound Tokens for holders of digital Pengu Cards, tying the physical product back to on-chain ownership. Placing the line in Target stores nationwide widens its shelf reach well beyond the specialty and crypto-native channels where blockchain-linked collectibles usually sit.

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Building a Retail Empire

The Target launch builds on a steadily expanding physical footprint. Pudgy toys entered more than 2,000 Walmart stores in 2023, with more than one million units sold in the 12 months to May 2024, before the brand expanded to Walgreens. The trading card line now extends that shelf presence into a third major US retailer.

Chief executive Luca Netz, who acquired the project in 2022, has framed the rollout as a step toward building a global entertainment brand rather than a digital-collectibles project. The company has paired the retail drive with gaming, launching Pengu Clash on The Open Network in 2025 and the Pudgy Party mobile game, which passed one million downloads before a discontinuation announcement. The mixed results underline how the brand is still testing which formats carry beyond its original audience.

Pudgy Penguins ranks as the fourth-largest NFT collection by market capitalisation, and the consumer business is wired back to it. Holders of the underlying NFTs receive 5% of net revenue from physical products featuring their individual penguins, an arrangement that rewards on-chain ownership as shelf sales grow.

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