Binance Labs rebrands, dives into AI as CZ returns as mentor

Binance Labs — Binance’s exchange technology incubator — has rebranded to YZi Labs amid an expansion to include an investment focus on artificial intelligence and biotechnology.

According to a Jan. 23 announcement, former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao will take an active role in coaching and mentoring the incubator’s startup companies.

Ella Zhang, co-founder of Binance Labs, will also return as the head of the newly rebranded incubator program. Additionally, YZi Labs will reintroduce a 12-week in-person residency program for project founders.

The newly rebranded company will explore the intersection between AI, blockchain and biotech to fund new use cases.

Binance Labs had already been exploring investments in decentralized science projects and AI startups before the YZi rebrand.

In August 2024, the firm announced investments in two AI companies to support the development of AI-powered decentralized applications.

The first of these platforms was Sahara AI, which allows users to maintain intellectual property rights through onchain attribution and receive rewards for contributing to the decentralized AI’s infrastructure, knowledge base and maintenance.

Binance Labs also invested in MyShell, an AI startup that allows users to build and share AI-powered applications.

In November, the incubator ventured into the decentralized science niche by investing in BIO Protocol, an accelerator program focused on capital formation for biotechnologies.

More specifically, BIO Protocol supports a collection of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) committed to developing pharmaceutical drugs and life-saving treatments.

Related: Blockchain and AI can enable advanced personalization in healthcare

What is the purpose of decentralized science?

Decentralized science (DeSci) is an emerging way to finance life-saving medicine that might otherwise face issues raising capital due to regulatory issues or a lack of sufficient profits for incumbent medical giants.

Tokenized incentives, smart contracts and decentralized autonomous organizations give researchers the tools for proper capital formation, attribution, onchain peer review and borderless collaboration.

Although DeSci is a nascent sector, projects within the space are starting to gain recognition beyond the crypto community.

ResearchHub, a platform that pays researchers in crypto to peer-review papers, was featured in Nature — one of the world’s leading scientific journals — in December 2024.

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