CZ Family Office Kickstarts $1 Billion Builder Fund on BNB

YZi Labs, the venture office of Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao and formerly known as Binance Labs, is creating a $1 billion fund to support long-term builders in the BNB ecosystem, the firm announced on Wednesday.

The fund will focus particularly on builders developing on BNB Chain in areas like trading, real-world assets, artificial intelligence, and decentralized science (DeSCI) and finance (DeFi).

“The $1b fund size proves YZi Labs’ commitment to support new and emerging projects building on BNB Chain,” a representative for the firm told Decrypt.

“We welcome builders with all backgrounds. Even if teams haven’t previously built on BNB Chain, if YZi Labs recognizes their potential and they’re willing to build within the ecosystem, we’ll connect them with the BNB Chain core team, which provides dedicated technical support and resources to assist with onboarding, deployment, and integration.”

Additionally, the firm’s builder EASY residency program, which provides product start and go-to-market support, is merging with Most Valuable Builder, BNB Chain’s flagship incubator program, starting this October. Selected builders will earn direct support from BNB Chain and YZi Labs and up to $500,000 in funding.

Builder applications are open on a rolling basis.

The firm’s announcement comes amid a surge in activity on BNB Chain in which more than 26 million transactions occurred on Tuesday, the highest mark recorded since December 2023, according to data from block explorer BSCScan.

Meme coins in particular surged on the platform, buoyed by references to Zhao or “CZ” as he’s better known among crypto participants. Multiple tokens jumped more than 1,000% on the day on hundreds of millions in trading volume.

BNB Chain’s native token—BNB—has jumped to new all-time highs this week. In the process, the asset overtook Tether’s stablecoin USDT as the third largest crypto asset by market capitalization.

BNB has risen nearly 28% on the week, outperforming Bitcoin and Ethereum, the two largest cryptocurrencies by market value. Those assets have only increased by 5.1% and 4.0%, respectively in that time. BNB is currently changing hands at $1,299, around 2.5% off its all-time high of $1,330.