{"id":10250,"date":"2025-01-29T10:32:01","date_gmt":"2025-01-29T10:32:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=10250"},"modified":"2025-01-29T10:32:01","modified_gmt":"2025-01-29T10:32:01","slug":"former-binance-labs-makes-first-investment-following-zhaos-return-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=10250","title":{"rendered":"Former Binance Labs Makes First Investment Following Zhao&#8217;s Return: Report"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>YZi Labs, the rebranded venture capital arm of crypto exchange Binance, made its first investment following founder Changpeng &#8220;CZ&#8221; Zhao&#8217;s release from prison, <a href=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/crypto\/2025\/01\/28\/billionaire-binance-cz-founder-jumps-back-into-crypto-with-16-million-investment-in-token-airdrop-service-sign\/\" target=\"_blank\">Fortune reported on Wednesday<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The company formerly known as Binance Labs led a $16 million funding round into Sign, a startup that seeks to simplify token distribution and bring verification of credentials on-chain, according to the report. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cProper distribution builds trust, and verification is an essential part of it. As more people move on-chain, this is a critical part of the foundational infrastructure,\u201d Zhao, said in an email, according to Fortune&#8217;s report. <\/p>\n<p>The rebrand to YZi Labs means the firm has turned from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coindesk.com\/business\/2025\/01\/23\/binance-labs-gets-major-overhaul-with-cz-taking-active-role-in-investments\" target=\"_blank\">being the exchange&#8217;s venture capital arm into the family office of Zhao<\/a> and Binance co-founder Yi He, with Zhao taking an active role in investments.<\/p>\n<p>Zhao was released from U.S. prison in September following a four-month prison sentence for violating the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to set up an adequate know-your-customer program at Binance.<\/p>\n<p>He also agreed to a pay a $50 million fine and step down as Binance CEO as part of his guilty plea. <\/p>\n<p>YZi Labs did not immediately respond to CoinDesk&#8217;s request for comment.<\/p>\n<p>Read More: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coindesk.com\/business\/2025\/01\/23\/restaking-protocol-puffer-finance-reveals-upcoming-airdrop-details\" target=\"_blank\">Restaking Protocol Puffer Finance Reveals Upcoming Airdrop Details<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>YZi Labs, the rebranded venture capital arm of crypto exchange Binance, made its first investment following founder Changpeng &#8220;CZ&#8221; Zhao&#8217;s release from prison, Fortune reported on Wednesday. The company formerly known as Binance Labs led a $16 million funding round into Sign, a startup that seeks to simplify token distribution and bring verification of credentials [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,4,5],"class_list":["post-10250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-crypto","tag-doge","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10250\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}