Changpeng “CZ” Zhao’s $10 billion funding agency YZi Labs is weighing plans to open the fund to outdoors capital and exterior traders.
YZi Labs manages Zhao’s private fortune and funds from a number of early Binance insiders, together with co-founder Yi He. The fund accepted about $300 million in outdoors funding in 2022, however later returned a part of it, citing the overwhelming scale of capital already underneath administration.
“There’s all the time lots of exterior traders ,” Ella Zhang, who heads the fund, advised the Financial Times. “We will finally think about turning it into an external-facing fund. We simply assume it’s not there but.”
YZi Labs’ portfolio contains distinguished crypto and Web3 initiatives equivalent to Aptos Labs, Polygon, 1inch Network, Sky Mavis, and infrastructure and safety companies like LayerZero, Mysten Labs and CertiK. It has over 230 firms in its portfolio, in accordance to Dealroom.
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SEC seeks personal demo of YZi Labs portfolio
Zhang advised the FT the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lately requested a non-public demo of firms backed by YZi Labs, after its chair missed the fund’s demo day on the New York Stock Exchange, signaling a extra crypto-friendly stance from US regulators underneath the Trump administration.
“Paul Atkins and different commissioners, they’re very open-minded,” she mentioned. Atkins has served as chair of the SEC since April 2025.
Zhao resigned from Binance final yr after pleading responsible to a US felony cost over failure to implement Anti-Money Laundering (AML) controls.
He served a four-month jail sentence and is now in search of a pardon from US President Donald Trump. Despite stepping down, he stays Binance’s largest shareholder.
Cointelegraph reached out to YZi Labs for remark, however had not obtained a response by publication.
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Galaxy Digital’s first exterior fund raises $175 million
YZi Labs’ transfer to think about exterior traders comes amid rising demand for crypto-native funding funds. In June, Galaxy Digital raised $175 million for its first externally backed enterprise fund. The fund exceeded its preliminary $150 million goal.
In July, Bitcoin analyst Willy Woo revealed he had bought most of his Bitcoin (BTC), claiming he might earn larger returns by investing in Bitcoin infrastructure. Woo mentioned early-stage Bitcoin startups supply 100–1,000x potential returns.
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