Open Campus Launches EDU Chain, a Layer-3 Blockchain on Arbitrum Orbit, to Power Education Apps

Open Campus, a decentralized education initiative backed by Animoca Brands and Binance Labs, has launched EDU Chain, a layer 3 blockchain on Arbitrum Orbit, to power educational applications and foster a thriving dApp ecosystem.

Announced by the team on Friday, EDU Chain is an EVM-compatible chain built on Orbit, inheriting Arbitrum One's security and infrastructure. At the same time, the platform also leverages Ethereum's security and liquidity and operates as an independent network.

One key feature of EDU Chain is the integration of the Open Campus (OC) Achievement system, formerly known as Verifiable Credentials, which enables educational institutions and training centers to issue decentralized and tamper-proof academic records.

With OC Achievements, each learner has complete ownership and control over their own learning data, Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, who is also a board member of the EDU Foundation, highlighted in a statement to Cointelegraph.

According to the project, over 100 decentralized applications are currently being built on EDU Chain, spanning trading, learning, gaming, and earning categories.

The EDU Chain ecosystem is powered by the native $EDU token, which functions as a utility token. According to Open Campus, EDU Chain has allocated 150 million $EDU tokens (15% of the total supply) for mainnet rewards, which will be distributed through EDULand NFTs over three years.

Moreover, EDU Chain has announced the launch of its mainnet, EDU Chain, which will serve as a layer 3 blockchain for educational applications on Arbitrum Orbit. The debut follows a testnet campaign that saw 86.2 million transactions and 358,684 active wallets. EDU Chain has also achieved a total value locked (TVL) of $162 million, as reported by L2Beat.

To further expand its ecosystem, Open Campus is hosting a hackathon series with a $1 million prize pool and a 12-week OC Incubator program, offering mentorship, funding, and support to winning projects.

The platform has also kicked off the "Yuzu: First Harvest" campaign, which will enable mainnet users to earn rewards by interacting with EDU Chain dApps during the first season.