Open Campus
Open Campus (EDU) is a governance and utility token that serves as the native gas token of EDU Chain and the governance token for the Open Campus DAO, a community-led protocol building financial and credentialing infrastructure for the global education sector.[1] The project describes itself as a decentralized ecosystem connecting learners, educators, content creators, and educational institutions, with the stated aim of "returning control to educators and learners" within what it calls a $5 trillion education industry.[2] The token and protocol are operated by EDU Services Limited, an education company headquartered in George Town, Cayman Islands, and the project began in 2023 with backing from launch partners Animoca Brands, The Sandbox, and TinyTap.[3][4]
Overview
Open Campus is a community-driven protocol that uses blockchain technology to address structural problems in education, particularly the undervaluation and underpayment of educators and the limited control parents have over their children's educational content.[2] The protocol positions itself as an ecosystem that enables educators, learners, and institutions to issue verifiable credentials, access on-chain education finance—which it calls "EduFi"—and build consumer-facing education applications on shared, open infrastructure.[2] The project's user documentation frames Open Campus not only as a platform but as a community intended to facilitate interactions and value creation among stakeholders in the education sector.[5]
The EDU token is designed as a fungible asset intended to facilitate collaboration, incentivize high-quality content creation, and support the long-term growth of the protocol.[2] Within the ecosystem it performs two core functions: it acts as the gas token that pays for transactions on EDU Chain, the network's own blockchain, and it serves as the governance token through which holders participate in the Open Campus DAO.[1] The primary token contract is deployed at the address 0xbdeae1ca48894a1759a8374d63925f21f2ee2639, with an additional contract beginning 0xf81...284d11 present on Ethereum and Arbitrum One.[4]
History
Open Campus started in 2023 with support from launch partners Animoca Brands, The Sandbox, and TinyTap.[4] The protocol was tagged as a Binance Launchpad project and forms part of the portfolio of YZi Labs, the investment firm formerly known as Binance Labs.[4] In June 2023, Open Campus introduced its Genesis NFTs on the BNB Smart Chain, an early component of its authentication and ownership system for educational materials.[2]
The most significant milestone in the project's history was the launch of the EDU Chain mainnet in January 2025. Reported as a Layer 3 network built on Arbitrum One, EDU Chain was announced on 17 January 2025 as an infrastructure to "democratize" the global education system.[3] Coverage of the mainnet launch reported it opened with US$150 million in total value locked, the amount of assets committed to the network.[3] The project's earliest flagship product, an NFT publication format called the Publisher NFT, was adopted by TinyTap and produced an auction that the project reports sold for 243 ETH.[4]
EDU Chain and Products
EDU Chain is described as the first blockchain for education built by Open Campus, and it underpins the protocol's suite of education-focused products.[1] Technically, the network is a Layer 3 solution built on top of Ethereum through Arbitrum that provides an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)–compatible environment, meaning developers can deploy smart contracts using existing Ethereum tools and workflows.[6] The documentation states the network inherits Ethereum's security while using cryptographic techniques to offer higher throughput and reduced transaction costs.[6] Development takes place against a testnet called Open Campus Codex, which uses ChainID 656476, carries EDU as its currency, and is under active development; to interact with it, developers bridge assets from Arbitrum Sepolia to the EDU Chain testnet.[6]
Around the network, Open Campus operates several products. Open Campus ID provides on-chain learning profiles that store educational credentials minted using the EDU token, giving learners a portable and verifiable record of their achievements.[1] Publisher NFTs are tokenized educational course content minted with EDU, allowing content creators to own and sell their material, while Genesis NFTs serve alongside them as components for authentication and ownership.[1][2] The protocol has also announced an OC Wallet, promoted through a launch waitlist.[1]
To grow its developer and startup ecosystem, Open Campus runs two structured programs. OC-X is a six-week accelerator that provides funding, network access, and growth resources for education-focused startups, while OC-Incubator is a twelve-week, equity-free, remote incubator that helps developers secure traction and investment for their decentralized applications.[1]
Token Economics
Open Campus has a total supply and maximum supply of one billion EDU tokens, with no additional issuance possible beyond the cap.[4] The initial token allocation was divided across nine categories. The largest share, 25 percent, was assigned to the Ecosystem Fund, followed by 15.5 percent to Advisors and 13 percent to the Strategic Sale. Liquidity, Team, and Treasury each received 10 percent, while Early Contributors were allocated 7.5 percent. The Binance Launchpad sale accounted for 5 percent, and the remaining 4 percent was reserved for Operational Expenses.[4]
The token is distributed and unlocked over time according to a vesting schedule, with a portion of the total supply held back in the Ecosystem Fund and other reserves.[4] Within the ecosystem, EDU is used to mint credentials through Open Campus ID, to mint and trade Publisher NFTs, to pay transaction fees as EDU Chain's gas token, and to govern the protocol through the DAO. The project has stated it plans to use the token to power further EDU Foundation activities, including a peer review system, "Smart Donation," Scholarship Grants, and a marketplace for content creators.[4]
Founders, Team, and Funding
The founders of Open Campus are listed as Alex G., Jack Chorowsky, Yogev Shelly, Jay Varkey, Yat Siu, and Oren Elbaz. Yat Siu is the co-founder and chairman of Animoca Brands, one of the protocol's principal backers.[2] The operating company, EDU Services Limited, is a privately held education firm that employs seven people distributed across five countries—Singapore, India, the Philippines, the United Arab Emirates, and Israel—with the largest concentration in Singapore.[3] Marie Nordbjærg is listed as the company's Project Director.[3]
Open Campus reports total funding of US$8.2 million (US$8,150,000) raised across two seed rounds. The first, closed on 27 November 2023, raised US$3.1 million and was led by YZi Labs, the investment firm previously known as Binance Labs.[3] The second seed round, closed on 10 November 2025, raised US$5.0 million from eight investors; the project separately publicized this as securing US$5 million in strategic financing.[3][4]
Governance
Governance of the protocol is exercised through the Open Campus DAO, described as "governance for education on-chain," where EDU holders discuss and vote on proposals that shape the ecosystem.[7] Proposals are numbered sequentially with an "OCP" prefix and progress through stages such as ideation, in-process, amendment, and completed. The foundational proposals OCP-1 ("Proposing the DAO") and OCP-2 ("Voting Process") established the DAO and its voting mechanics and are marked as completed.[7]
Governance activity has covered ecosystem funding, partnerships, and product decisions. Completed proposals include OCP-3, the first batch of a Global Educators Fund; OCP-4, the establishment of a US$10 million Open Campus Accelerator; OCP-5, the OC100 competition prize pool; OCP-6, TinyTap TV-style content development; and OCP-7, the adoption of the Open Campus Protocol by the European Students Blockchain Coalition.[7] Several proposals concern the network's node infrastructure and rewards, including OCP-8 and its amendment OCP-14 on rewards distribution to principal node operators, OCP-9 for a US$10 million strategic node validator fund, and OCP-10 for a developer ecosystem fund and node-lease program. Other active or ideation-stage items include OCP-11, a second cohort of DAO Council elections; OCP-12, a proposal for "Open Campus U"; OCP-13, establishing the Capy Friends NFT collection as a flagship; and OCP-17, the deprecation of EDULand, which drew the most discussion of the listed proposals.[7]
Partnerships and Developments
Open Campus states it works with more than 60 partners and currently impacts 20 million learners, with a stated goal of onboarding 100 million learners into Web3 and migrating the education industry onto the blockchain.[3] Its named partners include Animoca Brands, TinyTap, Forbes Web3, and NewCampus, and the core contributors to the Open Campus DAO are listed as Animoca Brands, TinyTap, NewCampus, RiseIn, and HackQuest.[3][2]
A significant strand of the project's activity has been on-chain education finance through Pencil Finance, a decentralized lending initiative for student loans. In April 2025, Pencil Finance announced US$10 million for student loan financing backed by Animoca Brands and Open Campus, and reporting that year described the deployment of US$1 million in student loans to the Philippines and Indonesia.[3] The project has also expanded through educational and credentialing partnerships, including work reported in Vietnam on job matching, student credentials, and academic record digitization, and a collaboration with Binance Academy to launch a free course.[4] In late 2025, the Nasdaq-listed company ANPA invested in EDU tokens as part of a partnership involving Open Campus and Animoca Brands.[4]
More recent activity has centered on partnerships in Vietnam and community programming. On 15 July 2026, Open Campus and Corelia Academy signed a memorandum of understanding at the University of Economics and Finance in Ho Chi Minh City to expand access to Web3, AI, digital learning, and practical builder education for students across Vietnam, supporting workshops and community programs for student builders.[3] Open Campus also served as the official community partner for Creative Minds Jam, a four-week hackathon for agentic AI run by SANDchain and Animoca Brands.[3]
