Binance Labs rebrands, dives into AI as CZ returns as advisor
Binance Labs — Binance's exchange technology incubator — is expanding to include a new investment focus on artificial intelligence and biotechnology at YZi Labs.
According to a January 23 announcement, former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao will play an active role in training and mentoring the incubator's startup companies.
Binance Labs co-founder Ella Zhang will also return as head of the newly rebranded incubator program. Additionally, YZi Labs is re-introducing a 12-week in-person residency program for project founders.
The newly reformed company will explore the intersection between AI, blockchain and biotech to support new use cases.
Binance Labs was already exploring investments in decentralized science projects and AI startups before the YZi rebrand.
In the year In August 2024, the company announced investments in two AI companies to support the development of AI-powered decentralized applications.
The first of these platforms was Sahara AI, which allows users to protect intellectual property rights through onchain disclosure and earn rewards for contributing to the decentralized AI infrastructure, knowledge base, and maintenance.
Binance Labs has invested in MyShell, which enables users to build and share AI-powered applications.
In November, an incubator focused on capital formation for biotechnology entered the decentralized science space by investing in Bio Protocol.
Specifically, the BioProtocol supports a collection of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) committed to developing pharmaceutical drugs and life-saving treatments.
Related: Blockchain and AI Can Enable Advanced Personalization in Healthcare
What is the purpose of decentralized science?
DeSci is an emerging way to finance life-saving treatments that may face issues raising capital due to regulatory issues or insufficient profitability of existing medical giants.
Map of the DeSci ecosystem through December 2024. Sources: Messari/Joshua Jake
Tokenized incentives, smart contracts, and decentralized autonomous organizations provide researchers with tools for authentic capital formation, tokenization, onchain peer review, and borderless collaboration.
While DeSci is still a nascent field, projects in the space are starting to gain recognition beyond the crypto community.
ResearchHub, a platform that pays researchers to peer-review papers in crypt, was featured in Nature – one of the world's leading scientific journals – in December 2024.
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