Launched on 13 Nov 2014, SmileyCoin is designed for education and charity. It is affiliated with (a) tutor-web, a freely accessible educational system with SmileyCoin rewards and (b) Education in a Suitcase, which distributes tutor-web and other educational material (on donated servers and tablets) to schools and students in low-income regions.

Charity efforts are coordinated by the Smiley Charity and the African Maths Initiative (AMI, Kenya), while technical development is coordinated from the University of Iceland and Shuttle Thread Ltd (England). These parties nominate members of the Board of the SmileyCoin Fund, which accepts grant applications for educational technologies.

The SmileyCoin coinbase is split: miners receive 10%, 45% become automatic donations in 10 income streams handled by the Smiley Charity, and 45% are automatic dividends to addresses holding more than 25 M SMLY. The Smiley Charity donates to other charities such as UNICEF and the African Maths Initiative, and AMI.