CZ’s Case for YZi Labs’ Crypto-Winter Investments

Zhao’s September 4 argument was simple: YZi Labs put capital to work when crypto markets were weak. If asset prices, company valuations and operating conditions improve, investments made at lower entry points can produce stronger returns than deals made in more competitive periods. Zhao said he believed the firm’s investments from the previous several months could become some of its best-performing bets because they were made in the “depth of the crypto winter.” 111

That is an investment view, not a reported result. No public portfolio-level return data establishes that these positions have already outperformed. 37

The seven reported 2026 investments

Public reporting identified seven YZi Labs investments during 2026. Disclosure is uneven: several check sizes and investment terms were not made public.

Timing	Company	Area	Reported investment detail
January	Genius	On-chain trading	Investment in an on-chain trading terminal; the reported amount was not disclosed. 6
January	BitGo	Digital-asset custody	Strategic investment connected with BitGo’s NYSE IPO; YZi Labs did not disclose its investment size. 2324
March	RoboForce	Physical AI and industrial robotics	YZi Labs led an oversubscribed $52 million financing round. RoboForce said the round brought its total funding to $67 million. 2122
March	Atlas Scout	Venture project	A reported $1 million investment; the available reporting does not provide a fuller sector description. 6
April	Predict.fun	Prediction markets	An additional investment in the platform; the reported amount was not disclosed. 618
May	AEON	AI payments	YZi Labs led an $8 million pre-seed round for the AI-payments protocol. 1827
August	TermMax	Fixed-rate lending	Investment in the fixed-rate lending protocol; the reported amount was not disclosed. 1827

The mix matters. These are not exclusively token or blockchain bets: they include custody infrastructure, trading, prediction markets and lending alongside AI payments and robotics. 718

Why the market downturn is central to Zhao’s thesis

Zhao’s case depends on the difference between buying during pessimism and buying after enthusiasm returns. Reports around the statement said Bitcoin had fallen about 47% from its peak by early June, while crypto-market sentiment was weak. Those conditions can reduce competition for deals and lower private-company valuations, potentially improving an investor’s entry price. 2

But a lower entry price does not automatically make an investment successful. It can also reflect a weaker market, funding constraints, regulation, execution problems or a business model that does not endure. The thesis only works if the investees execute well and a future market or liquidity event supports their valuations.

A crypto-led portfolio with AI and biotech exposure

YZi Labs has described its broad allocation as roughly 70% crypto and blockchain, 20% AI and 10% biotechnology. 89 The 2026 list is consistent with that approach: BitGo, Genius, Predict.fun and TermMax fit the crypto and Web3 side, while RoboForce and AEON expand into physical AI and AI-enabled payments.

The reported portfolio scale is also substantial. YZi Labs is described as managing more than $10 billion for Zhao and Binance co-founder Yi He, although public reporting does not provide a complete audited portfolio inventory, ownership stakes, valuations or the size of most individual investments. 110

Claims that AI’s funding boom may have diverted short-term builders or capital away from crypto may help explain why some crypto opportunities were less crowded. However, the supplied evidence does not quantify that effect, so it should be treated as a possible market mechanism rather than an established explanation.

What investors should not infer from the claim

Three distinctions are important:

• A prediction is not a return. Zhao’s statement expresses confidence in the timing of recent deployments; it does not show realized gains, fund-level performance or exit values. 311
• The investments face different risks. A public custodian, a robotics company, an AI-payments protocol and DeFi platforms do not share the same adoption, regulatory, capital and liquidity risks.
• The outcome remains market-dependent. Recovery in crypto prices may help sentiment and funding conditions, but investee performance, execution and eventual liquidity matter at least as much as macro conditions.

The CEA Industries dispute is a separate issue

YZi Labs’ governance conflict with CEA Industries, a BNB treasury company, is separate from the seven reported private investments. In filings and related reporting, YZi Labs sought board and bylaw changes, arguing that action was needed to address what it described as shareholder-value destruction. 3741

That dispute may be relevant to observers assessing YZi Labs’ broader investment activity, but it is not evidence that the seven investments have performed well or poorly.

Zhao’s $1 million Bitcoin view

Zhao also said Bitcoin reaching $1 million would not take 25 years, implying that he expects it sooner than many might. 230 That forecast is consistent with his bullish long-term framing, but it should not be confused with validation of YZi Labs’ current portfolio performance.

The bottom line: Zhao is making a contrarian bet on timing. The available evidence supports the fact that YZi Labs deployed across seven reported investments during a depressed crypto period; it does not yet show whether those bets will become the firm’s strongest returns. 13