Key Takeaways:
Justin Jin, 19, raised exactly $1,234,567 from crypto VC 1kx for meme prediction market app Giggles on April 7, 2026. Giggles has 450,000 waitlist sign-ups, letting users bet “aura points” on whether short videos will go viral. The app plans to convert aura points to real cryptocurrency, putting Giggles in direct competition with platforms like Kalshi. Crypto VC 1kx Backs 19-Year-Old Founder’s Meme Prediction Market GigglesAccording to the report, Jin, born October 5, 2006, in Vancouver and now based in San Francisco, dropped out of Babson College to build Giggles alongside co-founder Edwin Wang. The two met years earlier running an in-game Minecraft marketplace that was eventually shut down for violating monetization rules.
1kx called Giggles “a compelling new design space at the intersection of social behavior, market design, and crypto-native coordination” in its announcement congratulating Jin, Wang, and their eight-person team.
Techcrunch’s reporting says that Jin has framed Giggles as high-risk but not extractive. He has compared it to gambling in the sense that users bet on outcomes, but argued it differs from lotteries because the underlying content carries entertainment and informational value.
