Frenemies Reconcile? CZ Teams Up with Former Employee to Launch Prediction Platform predict.fun

Original Title: "Teaming Up with CZ, dingaling Returns to the Prediction Crest with predict.fun"

Original Author: Golem, Odaily Planet Daily

On December 4th, Binance founder CZ announced that the brand-new prediction platform predict.fun, incubated by YZi Labs, is set to launch on the BNB Chain. Unlike traditional prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi, predict.fun has achieved a key innovation: funds no longer remain idle when users participate in predictions but can instead generate additional returns during the prediction period.

Despite the product not yet being officially launched, this mechanism has already sparked widespread attention. Its core logic likely combines the "prediction market + DeFi" model—whereby the platform intelligently allocates user-predicted funds to DeFi strategies, significantly enhancing capital efficiency. If the DeFi strategies operate soundly, users can not only enjoy potential returns from predictions but also receive continuous accumulated gains, providing a buffer for potential losses in predictions to some extent. This design is undoubtedly an innovative development worth noting in the prediction field.

In addition to the official investment announcement, CZ also revealed that the project's founder had previously worked at Binance several years ago, adding an extra layer of industry recognition to their background. Interestingly, this founder is none other than the well-known figure in the NFT space, dingaling, whose past experiences and community influence have, unexpectedly, dampened many people's expectations for predict.fun.

"Who is dingaling" stirred up a heated discussion in May of this year. Although his real identity has not been publicly revealed, various deeds circulating on the internet have already outlined his image. He is a serial entrepreneur who accurately seizes crypto trends, a renowned NFT whale, and notably, he was fired by Binance for insider trading, becoming 'CZ's old adversary'.

During the Uniswap craze, dingaling launched PancakeSwap; during Opensea's peak, he created LooksRare; during the pump.fun era of 'making a fortune in a day,' he initiated boop.fun to try to get a piece of the pie. And now, he has set his sights on this prediction market, a lucrative opportunity.

At the same time, dingaling was also a renowned NFT investment guru who was once highly praised by the community. During dingaling's peak, they held 113 Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs, 70+ Azuki NFTs, and they were also an early investor in CryptoKitties and one of the largest investors in NBA Top Shots.

These identities and resumes have always kept the name dingaling in the spotlight, but what elevated dingaling's status the most was their former role as the Chief Research Officer (CRO) of Binance, at least until boop.fun was scorned by the community and personally ruined by CZ.

The Tragic End of boop.fun and the Fall of dingaling's Image

In mid-2025, pump.fun sparked outrage, and various competitors began to stir. As a keen-sensed serial entrepreneur, dingaling then launched the so-called revolutionary Meme launch platform boop.fun, riding on various halos of their identity, investors naturally bought in. The platform's token, BOOP, saw its market value skyrocket to $5 billion within the first hour of trading.

boop.fun's mechanism was also quite distinctive at the time (dingaling seemed to excel in mechanism innovation). The core of boop.fun was incentive distribution, where creators and token holders could jointly share a daily reward of 1 million BOOP tokens if the Meme coin created on the platform successfully launched. Users who staked BOOP could also receive airdrops of the platform's Meme coin and a share of trading fees proportionally.

Imagine, if the platform launched a Meme coin worth billions, then the Meme coin airdrop received by staking BOOP would also be quite valuable. But unfortunately, this daydream did not become a reality.

When boop.fun was launched on May 1st, the platform saw a daily creation of 10,877 Meme coins, surpassing pump.fun. However, it went downhill from there. According to Dune Analytics, although boop.fun has not yet "shut down," only 1 Meme coin was launched in the past 24 hours. The market value of the BOOP token has now plummeted to $8 million.

boop.fun Daily Token Creation Quantity

The entire incentive flywheel of boop.fun is built on the premise of creating an active platform Meme coin community. However, if the "Coin Issuance Group" does not launch a Meme coin on it or if the entire Meme coin market languishes, boop.fun will inevitably collapse. It's just that this collapse came too quickly, and perhaps apart from dingaling himself, no one made money from BOOP.

At this moment, dingaling's persona was also personally destroyed by CZ. On May 5th, a Key Opinion Leader criticized dingaling for leveraging his previous role as CRO of Binance to promote his own project. In response, Binance founder CZ stated, "There is no CRO, only a former employee dismissed from Binance for insider trading."

After CZ publicly exposed dingaling, a community investigation revealed that the insider trading incident CZ mentioned was likely related to dingaling buying a significant amount of CAKE after founding PancakeSwap but still demanding a share of PancakeSwap's profits from CZ, which ultimately angered CZ and Ted Lin (former Binance CGO). Thus, a personal grudge between them was formed.

Facing CZ's accusations, dingaling did not respond at the time and stubbornly continued to display his identity as the former CRO of Binance in his bio (which has now been changed to former Head of Research at Binance).

However, the community has completely seen through dingaling's facade. The so-called serial entrepreneur is nothing more than an "advanced opportunist" who only knows how to copy products and make money at the right time. The so-called former CRO of Binance is just an employee with a professional stain who was dismissed for insider trading.

Who gave you the right to rug pull on us?

Old Enemies Reconcile, Becoming Pigs on the Crest of the Wave Together?

On November 25th, dingaling announced that he would step back behind the scenes at boop.fun to serve as an advisor, while another partner would lead the project forward. What was initially seen as a retreat turned out to be a shift towards the next trend—a prediction market, in collaboration with boop.funz for one final cut.

Most astonishingly, this time dingaling joined forces with none other than his old enemy CZ, who had previously publicly criticized him. Perhaps the two of them had already reconciled in private, or perhaps it just proves the saying, "There are no permanent friends, only permanent interests."

While CZ's tweet was labeled with a "disclaimer," in the prediction market trend, YZiLabs (or CZ) cannot miss this boat ticket. They need a helmsman who knows how to dance on this trend. Dingaling, on the other hand, needs a giant who can endorse him and open the floodgates of traffic for him.

Under common interests, the two shook hands and decided to become pigs on the trend. Those past events about insider trading, the resentment of investors when boop.fun collapsed, are now nothing but a speck of dust, shattered on the table of interests, in the clinking of cups.

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