CZ’s $10B Family Office Ups Stake in Ethena as USDe Hits $14B
YZi Labs, the $10 billion family office tied to former Binance chief executive Changpeng Zhao, has increased its holding in Ethena Labs, the quick-growing beginup behind the USDe synthetic dollar.
YZi Labs was set up in 2024 later than Zhao stepped down from Binance as part of a $4.3 billion settlement with US authorities over money-laundering and sanctions violations. The family office manages Zhao’s personal fortune, estimated by Bloomberg Billionaires Index at over $30 billion, and has been actively investing in digital assets, AI ventures, and Asian tech beginups.
The move comes as Ethena deepens its footprint on BNB Chain, where it plans to support new money markets, protocol integrations, and ecosystem partnerships. The announcement also follows to list USDe as both a spot trading pair and a collateral asset for derivatives traders. According to Binance data, USDe/USDT trading volumes exceeded $1.2 billion in the first 72 hours of listing, placing it among the top five new pairs by turnover this quarter.
“We’re thrilled to deepen our partnership with YZi Labs, a long-standing and strategic backer,” said Guy Young, Ethena’s founder and chief executive. “The holy grail of digital dollar distribution has always been embedding stable, yield-bearing assets directly into the core of the crypto economy.”
USDe’s Rise in the Stablecoin Market
USDe, launched in ahead 2024, uses a delta-neutral hedging strategy to maintain its peg to the U.S. dollar, distinguishing it from traditional stablecoins. It was the quickest synthetic dollar to surpass $10 billion in circulation and now sits at about $14 billion in market value, making it the world’s third-largest stablecoin, according to The Block. USDe’s rapid growth has been fueled by annualized yields of 7–12% generated through its on-chain hedging model, attracting both retail users and institutional DeFi funds.
Ethena has attracted a deep roster of backers including Arthur Hayes’ Maelstrom, Dragonfly, Brevan Howard, and Franklin Templeton. YZi Labs, , was among its earliest supporters, selecting Ethena in its incubation program before USDe’s official launch. Other participants in earlier rounds included Galaxy Digital and Coinbase Ventures, giving Ethena one of the broadest institutional investor bases among DeFi-native projects.
YZi’s latest investment disclosure did not specify whether the larger stake involved fresh financing or secondary purchases, but said its support will assist drive USDe adoption across centralized platforms and decentralized finance, while also advancing USDtb, a token BUIDL fund. The BUIDL fund, launched in March 2024, is the world’s largest tokenized money-market fund, with over $500 million in assets within three months, according to BlackRock filings. USDtb would allow on-chain users to access yield directly from BUIDL without intermediaries.
Ethena is also working with Securitize and partners including BlackRock on Converge, a settlement layer aimed at bringing institutional-grade tokenized assets on-chain. Converge is designed to enable real-time settlement of tokenized securities, a market projected by Boston Consulting Group to reach $16 trillion by 2030, with ahead adoption driven by funds, private credit, and .
