Cole Villemain, a co-founder of Pudgy Penguins, launched a new NFT project called Spritehood on Robinhood Chain on Aug. 11. The collection, released under the WISP label, had a total supply of 44,444 and sold out in 53 minutes, bringing in about $1.28 million, or roughly 684 ETH.
Paid mints totaled 42,956 out of 44,444 NFTs
The full sellout did not mean every NFT generated revenue. Of the 44,444 total supply, 1,488 had been distributed for free before minting started, so the number of paid mints came to 42,956.
Among those, 37,430 sold for $17 each. Another 5,526 sold for $117 each, with the additional $100 tied to an upgrade option.
Halfway through the mint, community estimates had put revenue in a range of $755,000 to $775,000. The final figure came in about 60% higher than that range.
Spritehood uses an RPG setup with a burn-to-customize mechanic
Spritehood is built around an RPG format. The project includes 10 classes: warrior, knight, priest, hunter, mage, monk, rogue, paladin, jester, and death knight.
Holders will later be able to burn their Wisp NFTs to summon sprites and customize names, appearances, equipment, and weapons. The roadmap described in the source also includes factions, dungeons, and taverns.
As described in the article, that burn-based customization design keeps the mint process from ending at the initial sellout and also reduces immediate supply on the secondary market.
Villemain’s return revived scrutiny over his Pudgy Penguins exit
Villemain’s reappearance drew attention because he was pushed out of Pudgy Penguins by community vote in 2022.
According to the article’s timeline, on Jan. 5, 2022, a Pudgy Penguins investor posted a Twitter thread accusing the founding team of draining the project’s ETH treasury. NFT commentator 9x9x9eth also posted that Villemain had asked for 4,000 ETH in exchange for a 20% stake in the project, which the article said was worth about $12.9 million at the time. The next day, the community voted in Discord to replace the founding team.
Earlier, in August 2021, on-chain investigator ZachXBT highlighted Villemain’s pre-crypto business, a dropshipping site called eBoy Outlet. The site’s review section contained complaints about undelivered goods, failed refunds, and unresponsive customer service. Villemain denied wrongdoing at the time and said customers who did not receive products had been refunded.
The article also noted that he was never charged or formally sued over those accusations.
X post topped 500,000 views as Villemain called it an old 2021 playbook move
A teaser post for the project on X drew more than 500,000 views, and the replies split into two camps.
One developer wrote, 「the same person who cashed in on early meme NFTs is now launching a new project on Robinhood Chain.」 Another user said, 「he was gone long enough that many people do not even know who he is, and now he is back doing the exact same thing.」
Villemain did not sidestep the criticism. He described the launch as 「rerunning the oldest trick in the 2021 NFT project playbook,」 and his X bio carried a disclaimer saying all of his posts were satire or performance and did not constitute investment advice. Even so, all 44,444 NFTs sold out in under an hour.
Robinhood Chain NFT volume moved above Ethereum on Aug. 13
The source article said Robinhood Chain recorded $1.05 million in 24-hour NFT trading volume on Aug. 13. During the same period, Ethereum was below $525,000, leaving Robinhood Chain ahead by more than double.
After Spritehood, StonkBrokers and Robinhood Punks helped sustain activity on the chain, and OpenSea had already added support for Robinhood Chain.
At the time of publication, Spritehood had a secondary-market floor price of about $22.61, still above the $17 mint price, though it was down 9.2% over 24 hours.
Spritehood is not affiliated with Pudgy Penguins
The article said Spritehood is a separate RPG-style NFT project launched by Cole Villemain and has no official connection to Pudgy Penguins. Villemain was removed from that community in 2022.
Robinhood Chain details cited in the article
The article described Robinhood Chain as an Ethereum Layer 2 built by Robinhood using Arbitrum Orbit technology. It said the public mainnet went live on July 1, 2026, with 100-millisecond block times, ETH-denominated gas fees, and an original focus on tokenized stock trading.