CZ Bets Big on YZi Labs' Crypto Winter Investments

Binance founder Changpeng Zhao believes that his family office YZi Labs' recent investments will perform well due to their timing. Speaking in an August 28 book club session, he attributed this optimism to the fact that these investments were made during the 'depth of the crypto winter.'

Crypto prices had fallen significantly by early June, with Bitcoin down 47% from its peak. However, since then, they have clawed back some ground but remain far below their October highs.

YZi Labs has invested in various projects this year, including robotics company RoboForce, which received a $52 million funding round led by the family office in March. They also backed digital asset custodian BitGo before its NYSE listing and made smaller bets on prediction market Predict.fun, payments protocol AEON, and fixed-rate lender TermMax.

Zhao has not released any returns data for these investments, leaving their performance untested. The timing of these investments is crucial, as Zhao believes that money rushing into artificial intelligence (AI) is filtering out short-term crypto teams. He expects AI money to rotate back into digital assets, which could benefit YZi Labs' portfolio.