MJ ✪ 🇺🇸

bro pudgy hit huge numbers before abstract existed. it’ll do it again. abstract was a distraction at best

Today, Abstract announced that it is winding down. As someone who supported @AbstractChain for almost two years, and who has held Pudgy Penguins since 2021, this is difficult to process. I understand the explanation: @IglooInc suffered substantial losses, and continuing to fund Abstract would have put further pressure on the @pudgypenguins business. Businesses can fail. Sometimes, shutting down an unsustainable operation is a necessary decision. But the way this journey is ending deserves a more serious conversation. Some people came to Abstract to farm a token and leave. But many who stayed were people who believed in @LucaNetz and Igloo’s vision. People who bought into ecosystem projects, encouraged their communities, and sincerely wanted Abstract to succeed. I was one of them. When I heard “farmers will get smoked,” I did not believe that warning described me. I saw myself as a longtime supporter helping build an ecosystem I believed in. That is why this hurts. What we invested included money, time, trust, and the belief that we were building something together. The reason we stayed cannot be reduced to the idea that we should have simply enjoyed the chain and expected nothing more. The team continued to speak about the future: Project Quantum, “baby of Abstract,” Phase 2 and Phase 3, and bigger things that needed more time. Those statements were not contractual guarantees of a reward. But they influenced people’s decisions to stay, support, and keep believing. That influence cannot simply be dismissed now that the outcome has changed. I do not want to assume anyone deliberately misled us. There may have been real plans that ultimately could not be delivered. If that is what happened, we deserve an honest explanation. - What were those plans? - What changed, and when did winding down become a realistic possibility? - Why was there such a gap between the future being communicated to the community and the decision ultimately announced? Whenever warning signs appeared, I researched more deeply. I looked into the publicly documented cooperation with @_openworld and considered the possibility that there was a next chapter we could not yet see. My interpretation may have been wrong. I also need to acknowledge where my own expectations went beyond the available facts. But the community cannot bear all the responsibility for expectations that the team’s own messaging helped create. Even in the worst outcome, I expected a thoughtful effort to recognize the contributions of those who had stayed and consider what could be done for them. So far, I have not heard a sufficient answer to that question. If this decision was necessary to protect @pudgypenguins, then the hurt experienced by Pudgy holders who supported @AbstractChain must also be part of the conversation. These were not entirely separate communities. Many of us supported Abstract precisely because we already believed in Pudgy Penguins. To everyone who sincerely supported this journey: you have my respect and sympathy.🙏 This outcome does not diminish the time, effort, or care you gave. I do not yet know whether I can continue trusting Luca and Igloo in the same way. I hope the leadership treats this as more than a business closure. That means an honest account of the expectations they helped create, meaningful recognition of the community’s contributions, and a serious effort to repair the trust that has been damaged. A company can wind down a business. The trust of the people who helped sustain it cannot be closed out with a shutdown announcement.

Abstract is winding down. Starting today, all of @IglooInc's focus will go towards taking Pudgy Penguins, Pudgy NFTs, and $PENGU to the next level. When we acquired Frame in the summer of 2024, the vision was to build the blockchain for consumer crypto. Pudgy Penguins had shown us what it meant to reach the masses, and we believed we could bring that same approach to building a chain. Abstract achieved a lot in a short period of time; we built the Portal and AGW, onboarded major global brands, amassed over 300 million transactions, and grew a vibrant onchain ecosystem.  The journey became stifled by the lack of a DeFi ecosystem, insufficient liquidity, minimal institutional cross-over, and prohibitively high costs that impeded growth in winning areas. Unknown to most, Igloo, Inc. had been funding Abstract over the last 18 months. After losing tens of millions of dollars over two years, building consumer products, assembling an all-star team, onboarding some of the biggest brands in the world, and building a community of millions, we still had not found product-market fit. In combination with the market's reduced appetite for what we had built and not being able to find a scalable path forward, we could no longer justify taking from the Pudgy Penguins business. Igloo, Inc. has always been a community-first company. Even after losing 8 figures, we could have launched a token or pursued an ICO. Ultimately we decided against this. A token only works if there is something driving demand to it, and launching a token that we don’t have conviction in would have been a disservice to our community. The entire team at Abstract has worked tirelessly with a tremendous amount of passion to make the consumer crypto vision come true. I cannot fault a single one of them for this outcome. To the Abstract community, I want to thank all of you for sticking by our side on this long journey and for continuing to champion us. You supported us through all of the ups and downs, and I wish the result could have been different. There will be many that will find satisfaction in seeing this shut down, and that is fine. I take a great amount of pride in having the ambition to venture into the chain business, notoriously one of the most difficult to make work, and the only regret I have is not being able to celebrate a win alongside the Abstract community. As we wind down Abstract, our full focus shifts to making Pudgy Penguins into the global & cultural phenomenon I know it can become.  Return to Pudgy Penguins.