YZi Labs, the investment vehicle led by Binance co‑founders Changpeng Zhao and Yi He, announced a multi‑8‑figure investment in Genius Trading. The capital and CZ’s advisory role signaled a strategic push to elevate on‑chain trading execution toward centralized‑exchange levels of speed, liquidity and privacy.
YZi Labs disclosed the investment as a “multi‑8‑figure” commitment — described in reporting as well north of $10 million — and confirmed CZ would act as an adviser to Genius. The firm framed the move as part of a deliberate effort to close the capability gap between centralized exchanges and on‑chain execution.
Genius Trading is positioned as a private, high‑speed, non‑custodial trading terminal designed for cross‑chain activity. YZi Labs’ principals, including Ella Zhang and Alex Odagiu, characterized the project as building a “true execution layer” and a “powerful ‘command center'” for sophisticated users and institutions.
The deal underscored YZi Labs’ thesis of building execution infrastructure that can attract institutional and power users to DeFi, and it aligned with the group’s broader $1 billion Builder Fund for BNB Chain projects.
‘Genius is constructing a private interface that brings speed, liquidity and privacy to on‑chain trading,’ the YZi Labs team said in the announcement, emphasizing the fit with the fund’s mandate to deepen BNB Chain infrastructure.
Technology, features and market implications
Genius’ technical pitch centers on a novel order type called Ghost Order and the use of Multi‑Party Computation (MPC) to enable private, high‑velocity execution across BNB Chain, Solana and Ethereum. The architecture is explicitly designed to reduce information leakage — the so‑called transparency problem in DeFi that can move markets when large orders are visible.
Those features aim to make on‑chain execution viable for traders who currently prefer centralized venues for speed and discretion. YZi Labs framed the investment as complementary to other portfolio projects, such as decentralized perpetual exchanges that are adding privacy‑oriented modes, which suggests a coordinated effort to reduce fragmentation across liquidity pools.
For market participants, the practical measures to watch are execution latency, slippage on large orders and how effectively MPC‑based ordering prevents front‑running or price impact. If Genius can deliver CEX‑level performance without custody, it would lower a key barrier for institutional DeFi adoption.
Investors and builders will now monitor how Genius integrates with the BNB Chain ecosystem and how live usage affects liquidity consolidation and privacy in on‑chain markets. The outcome will shape whether DeFi can sustain higher‑frequency, larger‑ticket activity without relying on centralized intermediaries.
