Enemies reconciled? CZ and former employees join forces to launch prediction platform predict.fun

Original Title: "Reconciliation with CZ, dingaling Returns to the Prediction Trend with predict.fun"

Original Author: Golem, Odaily

On December 4, Binance founder CZ announced that a brand new prediction platform, predict.fun, incubated by YZi Labs, will soon launch on BNB Chain. Unlike traditional prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi, predict.fun has achieved a key innovation: users’ funds used for predictions are no longer idle, but can generate additional returns during the prediction period.

Although the product has not been officially launched yet, this mechanism has already attracted widespread attention. Its core logic is likely a fusion of the "prediction market + DeFi" model—meaning the platform intelligently allocates users’ prediction funds into DeFi strategies, greatly improving capital efficiency. If the DeFi strategies operate steadily, users can not only enjoy the potential returns from predictions but also accumulate ongoing yields, which to some extent provides a buffer for possible prediction losses. This design is undoubtedly an innovation in the prediction track worth watching.

In addition to officially announcing the investment, CZ also revealed that the project’s founder once worked at Binance a few years ago, adding a layer of industry recognition to its background. Interestingly, this founder is none other than the well-known NFT figure dingaling, whose past experiences and community influence have actually dampened many people’s expectations for predict.fun.

"Who is dingaling" sparked heated discussion back in May this year. Although his real identity has not yet been revealed to the public, various stories circulating online have already outlined his persona. He is a serial entrepreneur who precisely seizes crypto trends, a renowned NFT whale, and also an employee who was fired from Binance for insider trading—a "longtime rival" of CZ.

When Uniswap was booming, dingaling launched PancakeSwap; when Opensea was popular, dingaling created LooksRare; when pump.fun was "raking in thousands daily," he initiated boop.fun in hopes of getting a share; and now, he has set his sights on the big cake of the prediction market.

At the same time, dingaling was once hailed by the community as an NFT investment guru. At his peak, dingaling held 113 Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs and over 70 Azuki NFTs. He was also an early investor in CryptoKitties and one of the largest investors in NBA Top Shots.

These identities and experiences have kept the name dingaling in the spotlight, but what made dingaling most valuable was his former role as Binance’s Head of Research (CRO)—at least before boop.fun was rejected by the community and personally destroyed by CZ.

boop.fun Ends in Disappointment, dingaling’s Persona Collapses

In mid-2025, pump.fun sparked public outrage, and competitors were eager to move in. As a sharp-sensed serial entrepreneur, dingaling launched boop.fun, a Meme launch platform touted as a revolutionary alternative to pump.fun. With all his various halos, investors were naturally willing to buy in. The token BOOP’s market cap soared to $500 million within an hour of launch.

boop.fun’s mechanism was also quite distinctive at the time (dingaling seems very adept at mechanism innovation). The core of boop.fun was incentive distribution: as long as a Meme coin created on the platform was successfully launched, both the creator and token holders could share a daily reward of 1 million BOOP; users who staked BOOP could also proportionally enjoy Meme coin airdrops and a share of trading fees.

Imagine, if a 1.1 billion-level Meme coin emerged from the platform, the Meme coin airdrops received by BOOP stakers would be quite valuable. Unfortunately, this daydream never became reality.

When boop.fun launched on May 1, the platform saw 10,877 Meme coins created in a single day, surpassing pump.fun. But things quickly went downhill. According to Dune data, although boop.fun has not "shut down," only one Meme coin was launched in the past 24 hours. The market cap of BOOP tokens has now dropped to $8 million.

Number of Tokens Created Daily on boop.fun

The entire incentive flywheel of boop.fun was based on active Meme coin creation on the platform. If "token launch groups" did not use the platform or the entire Meme coin market slumped, boop.fun would inevitably collapse. It’s just that the collapse came too quickly—perhaps, except for dingaling himself, no one made money from BOOP.

dingaling’s persona was also personally destroyed by CZ at this time. On May 5, a KOL complained that dingaling was using the title of former Binance CRO to hype his project, but Binance founder CZ replied, "There are only former employees fired from Binance for insider trading, no CRO."

After CZ publicly exposed dingaling, community investigations found that the insider trading incident CZ referred to was likely that after founding PancakeSwap, dingaling bought a large amount of CAKE himself but still asked CZ for a share of PancakeSwap’s profits, which angered both CZ and Ted Lin (former Binance CGO). Thus, a personal grudge was formed between the two.

Faced with CZ’s accusations, dingaling did not respond at the time, stubbornly keeping the title of former Binance CRO in his bio (now changed to former Head of Research at Binance).

But the community had already completely lost its illusions about dingaling. The so-called serial entrepreneur was just a "high-level speculator" who only knew how to copy products and cash in on trends, and the so-called former Binance CRO was just an employee fired for insider trading with a career stain.

Why should we let you profit from us?

Old Rivals Reconcile, Becoming Trendsetters Together?

On November 25, dingaling announced he would step back to serve as an advisor behind the scenes at boop.fun, with another partner leading the project forward. It seemed he was planning to retire, but unexpectedly, he turned to the next trend—prediction markets, making a final cut with boop.fun.

The most astonishing thing is that this time, dingaling is partnering not with anyone else, but with his former public adversary, CZ. Perhaps they had already reconciled in private, or perhaps it proves the old saying—there are no permanent friends, only permanent interests.

Although CZ’s tweet included a "disclaimer," in the face of the prediction market trend, YZi Labs (or CZ) could not afford to miss this ticket. They needed someone who knew how to dance in the spotlight, while dingaling needed a giant to endorse him and open the floodgates of traffic.

With common interests at stake, the two shook hands and decided to become trendsetters together. The stories of insider trading, the anger of investors when boop.fun collapsed—these are now just specks of dust, shattered at the table of interests and in the clinking of glasses.