What did YZi invest in at the end of crypto VC?

Author: Zuoye Waiboshan

Long Tail is not the Ending

VC is probably really dead. Web2 venture capital is unwilling to take risks and only invests in the government industry guidance fund. The Web3 Seed round is well received but not popular. VC and FA are further reversely integrated. Starting a business on Binance has become an industry consensus. All insights and memos have been transformed into information in exchange for Yap.

From the overall pattern, more and more large VCs are beginning to enter the project when issuing coins, and the secondary method is used to build the primary dream. This is different from the early equity investment, the initial token issuance IXO, and the stock/coin dual model. The market is rapidly entering a mature stage, but it needs to further sacrifice small VCs.

After CZ's comeback, with investment as the orientation, education as the slogan, tweeting as the main body, and all-in BNB Chain Meme as the main business, Binance Labs changed its name to YZi Labs on January 23, and it feels more and more like a family office.

The rejection of risks and the preference for investment stability are not only for investing in late and mature projects, but also for the increasingly dull exploration of projects. Taking YZi Labs as an example, let's take a look at the investment style of new money turning into old money, so that everyone can learn in advance how to change their style after getting rich.

Data source: Decentralised Co.

Chart: @zuoyeweb3

Under normal circumstances, there should be a large number of seed rounds, and subsequent rounds should have large amounts.

However, judging from the data of the past six months, the number of seed rounds is not as overwhelming as that of A/B/C rounds, and the amounts of both rounds are very close. The disappearance of encryption rounds is a reality.Those who can get small money will continue to get small money, and those who can’t get money will never get money.

Invest in AI when it is cold and lonely, and speculate in the Meme on-chain season

Whether it is Web2/3, AI is a bit cold at the moment, but CZ thinks it is not enough. He hopes that it will continue to cool down before he makes a move, leaving behind the real Buidlers, who only need the most devout believers.

However, YZi’s direction does include AI. In fact, most projects can be linked to AI, so they can be divided into “using Crypto to do AI”, such as Vana and Tensorplex Labs, and “using AI to do Crypto”, such as Plume Network, Blum and Opinion Labs.

Of course, this is just a forced classification and has no guiding significance. In the era of AI-assisted postpartum care for sows, there is no need to worry about how necessary AI is.

In chronological order, let's review the characteristics of each project one by one.

1. Opinion Labs = Kaito + Polymarket

Opinion Labs is a so-called human opinion-driven prediction market. I boldly guess that the future development direction is based on the prediction and trading of Twitter KOLs. It can take advantage of the InfoFi concept and the enduring trading attributes, and it can attack or defend.

2. Plume Network = Everything is RWA

RWA is not a new concept, but Plume Network has a very legendary experience. It not only received $30 million in financing from top institutions such as Galaxy, but also chose Gate for IEO in January this year, and then received investment from YZi, which caused the price of the coin to rise.

Calm and flexible is the polished style of the currency circle. The first issuance of coins and subsequent financing are the opportunities of the times given by Crypto.

3. Tensorplex Labs = LSD + AI

First of all, I think decentralized AI is a pseudo-concept. Tensorplex Labs wants to use LSDfi to ensure the decentralization of LLM training and data sets, which has no productivity significance, but when Crypto is eager to do something for AI, it is not uncommon to get money from investment institutions in the circle.

This is meaningful for the future price of the currency. After all, the product is the product and the price of the currency is the price of the currency. Otherwise, ADA and XRP will be ashamed.

4. Vana = AI concept coin that spans cycles

It got Polychain in 2021, Paradigm in 2022, Coinbase in 2024, and YZi Labs in 2025, and has successfully landed on Binance Launchpool.

It is a very typical VC coin of the last cycle. It has no reference significance for current and future projects. I can only say that I am so envious.

5. Blum = The only seed player + trading

This is the most typical Binance Labs investment style, a trading-oriented DeFi product, and it is also a rare seed round player. The most surprising thing is that OKX and YZi jointly invested, which can be said to be brothers who have gone through all the hardships and joined forces to go to sea.

Please forgive me for not introducing too much about the project mechanism and token economics, because it is meaningless. What are the fundamentals of Meme, what is the difference between the community and the coin speculation group, and the role of token economics, I call them the three unsolved mysteries in the currency circle.

Meet the aesthetics of family offices, stability overrides everything

YZi is typical enough, and the domestic masses are relatively familiar with it, but after the 17-21 wealth-making wave, Crypto New Money has gradually transformed into an Old Fashion funding institution such as family offices, which does not seek a super high rate of return, but cares more about project stability.

Two years earlier than CZ, Arthur Hayes, the founder of the first generation of contract king BitMEX, established his own family office Maelstrom, with funds from Arthur personally. Similar to CZ's recall of Ella Zhang, Maelstrom's daily operations are handled by Akshat Vaidya, a former executive of BitMEX.

It has been proven that Arthur Hayes can develop perpetual contract products that are more suitable for the physique of the coin circle babies, and his investment aesthetics are also unique, such as Ethena, a stable currency in the post-UST era, officially starting the first step of on-chain products to reverse exchange fees, and DeFi's cross-era product Pendle.

The complete story of Arthur Hayes will be presented in a large article later. This is an OG who is more worthy of learning than Sun Ge and CZ.

However, similar to YZi, Maelstrom also pursues stability. For example, he does not invest in Meme, but invests more in Meme-related tools and infrastructure, such as Time.Fun, highlighting that success or failure is not judged by ROI, and implementing the first place in stable style.

However, YZi's style is far from fixed. In Binance Labs' past performance, the Binance main site is an extremely attractive barrier, but now the landlord has no surplus food. At the end of 2024, the tokens of the invested projects have been transferred to Gate. After all, Gate bears everything.

Unlike Arthur Hayes who can be the spokesperson for Ethena, CZ has not yet been deeply bound to a project, and YZi has not formed his own investment aesthetics. As mentioned above, Binance Labs likes to invest in trading products very much, but in the post-DeFi profiteering era, Ethena and Pendle will only be a minority, and most of them are Crypto+AI coin-selling projects. The scraps of Web2 AI, the little pride of Web3 AI.

Besides increasingly detaching from the Binance ecosystem, YZi’s true strength still needs to be tested by the market, and this is especially a test of CZ’s personal investment level. From the fact that his AI has not yet cooled down and $TRUMP has developed the BNB Chain Meme ecosystem, I personally feel that it is not as sophisticated as his guidance of Ben Zhou to refuse users to withdraw coins and accurately seize the OKX DEX market share.

However, this may also be related to the fact that CZ really does not do transactions, but only does trading platforms.

Conclusion

Yesterday’s world is gone forever.

Crypto venture capital really started in the IXO era and reached its peak before the collapse of FTX (I always mention SBF, which really changed the industry trend single-handedly). Now it is just the process of completing the finalization of established investment projects, enduring the criticism of retail investors, and striving to issue all the coins.

There is no crypto VC in the world. The more money you invest, the more risks you will have.