How Radical Penguins raised 2.24 Million USD for charity.

March 4, 2022

Celebrating the success of the Radix community is a big focus for us this year. We are only in Q1, and we have already seen a monumental achievement from a project building on Radix.

This is the story of how Radical Penguins raised 2.24 Million USD for charity and cemented their place in Radix history. Carry on reading below for the full story of how this monumental success took place!

On February 27th, 2022 an NFT project called Radical Penguins showed incredible initiative by starting a fundraising campaign to help charities supporting those affected by the war in Ukraine.

The story starts simply, with the Radical Penguins team creating a 1/1 Peace Penguin Tribute. and starting an auction in their Telegram channel. The Radix and Penguin community responded with vigor, coming together to raise money for a deserving cause.

What followed has to be seen to be believed, and will surely become Radix lore.

Shortly after the auction starts the bidding got to $15,060, with a nice addition of $7,500 from an anonymous donor, and $1,500 thanks to Radix veteran Bobby Flay.

As more people piled into the channel, the bids were consistently matched or bettered.

Within 2 hours, the highest bid was USD 17,500.

For the next 12 hours, the bidding was fierce. Bobby Flay was going head to head with an anonymous Radix whale. Both were determined to walk away with The Peace Penguin, and do their bit for charity.

Before anyone knew what was happening, the bidding had gone parabolic.

$120,000 became $150,000, and $185,000 fell just 10 minutes later.

Surely this was the end? But no, it was just getting started.

A 2nd mystery whale had breached the surface and slammed back down with a massive bid of USD 300,000.

And just like that, two whales were locked in a philanthropic duel, neither wishing to concede defeat, both determined to walk away with what is now likely an iconic piece of the Radix NFT ecosystem.

$300,000 became $350,000, then $380,000, and $500,000.

The whales fired bids back and forth before reaching USD 1,000,000 in a matter of minutes.

Surely this was the end, right?

Nope.

To the complete shock of everybody watching from the sidelines, the bidding teleported to over 2 MILLION US Dollars.

Going once, twice, SOLD.

Radical Penguins had just raised Two Million Two Hundred Thousand US dollars for charity.

To put this in perspective, this sale would fall within the top 50 NFT sales of 2021*.

With this sale, Radical Penguins are playing in the same ballpark as Crypto Punks and Bored Ape Yacht Club**. While the method of sale wasn’t on-chain and could be contested, the value of their contribution can never be denied.

Through their actions, they will likely change the lives of people in desperate need of help. Radical Penguins have set the bar for the RDX Works team and every other project on Radix.

In total, the Penguin crew raised 2,476,119 USD, with the funds donated to a range of charities. $2,205,229 was paid by a single donor.

The runner-up whale voluntarily donated $250,000. Other members of the Radix & Penguin community donated $20,890.

RDX Works has sighted documents confirming the above donations have been made to the following charities.

I caught up with the Founder of Radical Penguins to discuss this amazing set of events.

Q. This is an amazing achievement, what prompted the idea?
A. We have ringfenced an insanely short supply of highly bespoke Penguins NFTs (never more than 100) which are called “Tributes”. Those Tributes were always intended to be released one at a time, as and when we decide we should. Primarily to respond to significant global events, emerging humanitarian needs, or even, on the lighter side of things, pop culture shifts. So, given what’s on the news today, it was a very easy decision to do our bit and support any charity seeking to alleviate the current humanitarian crisis. In private, we also do a lot of charity ourselves, so we find doing this close to our Penguin hearts.

‍‍
Q. Tell us what was going through your head as this unfolded?

A. A roller coaster of emotions, at first we were excited when we saw that we had reached a couple of thousands, thinking this was surely the top. Then we were gobsmacked when hundreds of thousands were reached, those already exceeded our wildest dreams.

Then we were stunned when the first million cropped up. At $2,2m we couldn’t believe this was actually real! We felt like we were going to faint!

Q. What suggestions do you have for anyone looking to do something similar?

A. We have a ton of learning points and we certainly could have handled so many aspects better, but we were rushing to urgently raise money for charity and it was an honest day's work.

But three things helped:

The community (and you can’t find a better one in the crypto world) who pushed the message
The artwork quality (and we have a deep story behind every design feature that we'll release soon)
Timing - when it’s the right time, just do it!

Have we mentioned luck and majestic sea creatures otherwise known as whales?

Q. What are your plans for the Radical Penguins going forward?

A. Plenty of genuinely exciting things are coming soon:

Artwork unveils (hopefully every week)
Finishing the full artwork (10,000 Radical Penguins)
Actively working in the background to form partnerships to provide the Penguins some utility after Smart Contracts are enabled

‍Also, stuff like making Radical Penguin merch & swag available for order and many others. Most importantly we will listen to the community and see what they like and strive to offer that!

Generally, that's our secret recipe for success "focus on amazing artwork and community engagement".

Thank you to the heroes of this story