The ousted co-founder of Pudgy Penguins raised $1.28 million through an NFT "money grab," sparking controversy as the smart contract code remains closed-source.

August 12, Cole Villemain, co-founder of Pudgy Penguins who was voted out by the community in January 2022, launched an NFT series called Spritehood on the Robinhood Chain on the 11th. The series, consisting of 44,444 NFTs, was sold out in less than an hour. According to on-chain analyst 0xlaplaced, the initial sale started at 06:17 UTC and lasted for 53 minutes and 48 seconds. During the sale, 37,430 NFTs were sold for $17 each, and 5,526 were sold for $117 each. After excluding 1,488 NFTs minted for free due to 20 zero-price transactions, the total revenue was approximately $1.2829 million. Villemain himself tweeted just 16 minutes into the sale, saying, "It feels good to be back. There will be FUD tonight, but I don't care."

However, the source code of the NFT contract has yet to be verified. As shown on the Robinhood Chain's Blockscout browser, the Spritehood Wisp ERC-721 tokens (code: WISP) have a total supply of 44,444, but there is no publicly available code for its pricing and distribution mechanism. User HanIsRich directly called out the issuance as a "pure money grab," claiming there is no infrastructure or mechanism development that justifies the 20% allocation for minting funds. On-chain sleuth ZachXBT, five years ago (August 11, 2021), published an in-depth analysis describing Villemain as a "speculator willing to deceive others at all costs." The 44,444 buyers from this sale are currently in the dark about the specifics of the future infrastructure and mechanisms, relying solely on Villemain's verbal assurances.