Update (September 23, 7:43pm UTC): This article has been updated to include a denial of Changpeng Zhao’s Financial Times Report.
Changpeng “CZ” Zhao opposed a report from the Financial Times, where his $10 billion investment company, YZI Labs, plans to open a fund to outside capital and external investors.
In a social media post Tuesday, Zhao called the story “completely fake news,” denying YZI Labs searching for outside investors, preparing pitch decks and demonstrating with regulators.
The FT reported on the same day that YZI Labs, which manages Zhao’s personal property and funds from early Binance Insiders, was considering opening for outside investors and had recently attracted interest from the Securities and Exchange Commission.
According to the FT, the fund accepted around $300 million in external funds in 2022, but later returned some of it, citing the overwhelming size of capital already under its control.
“There are always a lot of outside investors who are interested,” Ella Chan, the fund leader, reportedly told the Financial Times. “We’ll look into eventually turning it into an external fund. I don’t think we’re there yet.”
The YZI Labs portfolio includes prominent crypto and Web3 projects such as infrastructure and security companies such as Aptos Labs, Polygon, 1inch Network, Sky Mavis, Layerzero, Mysten Labs, and Certik. According to Dealroom, there are over 230 companies in the portfolio.
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SEC is seeking a private demo of the YZI Labs portfolio
According to the FT, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently called for private demonstrations of businesses backed by YZI Labs after missing out on the fund’s demonstration day on the New York Stock Exchange, giving it a more encrypted stance from US regulators under the Trump administration.
“Paul Atkins and the other commissioners, they’re very open-minded,” she said. Atkins has been chairman of the SEC since April 2025.
In X’s post, Zhang denied these claims, claiming that YZI Labs has no plans to raise external LP capital. She also said the fund has always been run independently and was rebranded from Binance Labs rather than being “spin-out” from Binance.
“Our brief residency demonstration day in the NYSE welcomed a wide community of investors, builders and regulators,” Zhang wrote to X.
Zhao resigned from Binance last year after pleading guilty to US criminal charges over a failed implementation of anti-money laundering (AML) control.
He has been sentenced to four months in prison and is currently seeking pardon from US President Donald Trump. Despite resigning, he remains Binance’s biggest shareholder.
Cointelegraph contacted YZI Labs for comment but was not responded by publishing.
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Cryptocurrency and native investment funds are seeing increased demand from investors. In June, Galaxy Digital raised $175 million for its first externally supported venture fund. The fund has surpassed its initial $150 million target.
In July, Bitcoin analyst Willie Wu revealed that he had sold most of Bitcoin (BTC), claiming that he could earn a higher return by investing in Bitcoin infrastructure. Wu said early stage Bitcoin startups will offer potential returns of 100-1,000 times.
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