CZ’s Giggle Academy Secures $1.3M Investment from Crypto Backers

Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, co-founder of Binance, has launched an innovative edutech initiative called Giggle Academy, which has seen remarkable early support—raising over $1.3 million in public donations within just half a day. The surge was largely driven by a memecoin named “Giggle,” created by the Giggle Fund, with trading fees from the token being funneled directly into the project’s donation address.

The donation wallet, monitored through the BNB Smart Chain explorer BscScan, currently holds over 1,311 BNB, valued at more than $1.3 million at the time of reporting. Since opening for contributions on Sunday, the fund has executed nearly 1,000 transactions, demonstrating strong community engagement.

Giggle Academy’s mission focuses on fostering community growth, incentivizing creators, expanding the ecosystem, and promoting its educational platform. The project’s concept paper describes a model where educators can upload educational content and reward top-performing contributions, encouraging a merit-based environment and peer recognition.

Community Sparks the Donation Drive

The initiative was sparked after an inquiry from an X user, RUNE, who asked CZ if the project would accept token donations, citing notable examples such as Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s contributions of $1 billion in Shiba Inu tokens to COVID-19 relief efforts. CZ clarified that memecoin donations are converted or sold for major cryptocurrencies, warning against potential sell pressure, but RUNE later explained that the memecoin functions differently—charging a fee in BNB and donating tokens directly, ensuring no one is adversely affected.

Data from BscScan indicates that the fund has conducted nearly 1,000 transactions, many of which are spent distributing funds to Giggle Academy, making the total transaction count close to 10,000 since launch. The volume on decentralized exchanges (DEXs) shows a 470% increase in the last 24 hours, reaching approximately $2.8 million, with the project positioning itself as a donation coin supporting the educational platform.

Educational Impact and Vision

Giggle Academy aims to deliver free, comprehensive education for K-12 students, emphasizing skills such as negotiations, finance, blockchain, and artificial intelligence—targeting children in underserved and developing regions. Its curriculum complements traditional subjects like math, reading, and science but intentionally excludes contentious topics such as history and religion, opting for a global-neutral approach.

CZ has expressed ambitions to scale this vision significantly, previously setting a goal to educate between 100 million and 1 billion children worldwide. The project exemplifies innovative use cases in the crypto markets—leveraging blockchain technology for social impact and educational outreach.