In a market where cryptocurrency cycles rise and fall, while AI seems inevitable and biotechnology develops for decades, YZi Labs is deliberately positioning itself across multiple technological frontiers.
The unifying thesis is to “focus on the things that haven’t happened yet and focus on the people who are there to dream them and make them happen,” YZi Labs director Ella Zhang said at Consensus Hong Kong 2026 on Thursday.
YZi, formerly Binance Labs, invests in AI, biotech and Web3, balancing time horizons, particularly as cryptocurrencies “feel very cyclical right now” while AI adoption accelerates, Zhang said.
“Focus on user demand. Is there real demand or is it imaginary?” she said. Instead of chasing narratives, the company presses founders on the fundamentals of the product: what pain point is being solved, how distribution works, and whether there are early signs that the problem really matters.
That philosophy also shapes capital deployment. “We are not obliged to deploy all the capital we have,” Zhang said, emphasizing that controls follow conviction, not the other way around. YZi aims to be an early backer, but continues to support companies in multiple rounds, offering mentorship and strategic resources along with funding.
Regarding infrastructure, Zhang pointed to the scale of BNB Chain as a natural distribution layer, with “thousands of protocols” and “hundreds of millions of users” forming an ecosystem ready for new applications. At the same time, YZi is “very, very open to founders failing and welcomes them to come back,” she said, framing failure as part of founders’ long-term development.
As for product trends, Zhang called stablecoins the first true mass-market application beyond commerce. “Stablecoins are currently a very good application for cryptocurrencies to have mass adoption,” he said, citing improving compliance frameworks globally. Still, he sees more work ahead in custody, exchange infrastructure and on-chain currencies before stablecoins fully mature.
