Former Binance CEO Changpeng (CZ) Zhao’s YZI Labs is investing in Digital Asset, the agency’s blockchain platform Canton Network Developer.
YZI Labs will take part in the $135 million Series E Round, originally announced on June 24th, including participation from financial incumbents such as Goldman Sachs, Citadel Securities, DRW and The Dository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC).
YZI Labs is the new name for the previous Binance Labs. It was rebuilt into a family office to manage CZ’s personal wealth and investments and Yi He, co-founder of Binance. CZ described the investment as “a fusion of wallet street and blockchain.”
The $10 billion capital injection from asset managers aligns the major crypto-native funds with established Wall Street entities, all in favour of a specific technical approach to enterprise blockchain.
The funds are directed towards the expansion of Canton Network, a platform designed to promote the tokenization of real-world assets for regulated financial institutions. It aims to solve the enduring challenge of enabling blockchain operations while complying with the strict privacy and compliance obligations of mature markets.
This network acts as a public layer 1 with configurable privacy. This is a structure intended to provide an alternative to transparent public ledgers and siloed private blockchains.
According to YZI Labs, Digital Asset’s platform demonstrates substantial activity, with IT reports backing US Treasury repoballs, which account for over $1.5 trillion per month. Currently, the network involves nearly 400 participants from both decentralized and traditional financial sectors.
By allowing institutions to set up specific privacy controls, the Canton Network addresses the core conflict between the need for financial confidentiality and the benefits of shared ledger interoperability. The growth of real-world asset tokenization has been substantial, and the sector has benefited from a growing institutional interest in bringing in bonds and personal credit assets.
Yzi Labs head Ella Zhang commented on the company’s involvement.
“Through this investment, YZI Labs is proud to support its mission to bring tokenized real-world assets into the financial mainstream and contribute to its broader goal of moving forward with global institutional adoption,” Zhang said.
Her comments position investments as a move to promote the underlying infrastructure needed to integrate traditional financial assets with blockchain technology.
The collaboration was also commented on by digital assets leadership.
“This investment from YZI Labs will strengthen the growing demand for blockchain infrastructure that meets the stringent standards of global financial markets,” said Yuval Rooz, co-founder and CEO of Digital Asset.
Rooz added that the backdrop of YZI Labs’ Web3 infrastructure and new technology in scaling will make Canton a suitable partner as it expands its reach. The capital goal is to strengthen the infrastructure of the Canton network, streamline the onboarding of new institutions, and support the interoperability needed to manage more real-world assets.
Over the next 12-18 months, the company plans to expand to new global markets with additional live rollouts from major financial institutions.
