YZi Labs Invests $500,000 in Each of 24 EASY Projects, Totaling $12 Million This Season
YZi Labs announced the list of 24 early-stage companies for the fourth season of EASY Residency, with each company receiving an investment of $500,000, totaling $12 million for the season; the incubation period is 10 weeks, starting online, followed by a concentrated co-creation in Bhutan.
This season's investment focus is on next-generation global financial infrastructure, including stablecoin payments, on-chain foreign exchange, institutional market structure, privacy, credit, and AI-native execution. YZi Labs summarizes its direction as "agent-based finance" that is more programmable, localized, compliance-focused, and embedded in daily financial workflows.
The payment and cross-border finance direction includes Aile, D0, Facto, Kravata, Nara, Nxos, Spectrum, SurgePay, and ViFi. Aile builds an on-chain foreign exchange layer for regional non-USD stablecoins; D0 connects local payment methods in emerging markets with on-chain deposits; Nara provides programmable credit for cross-border payments; Nxos integrates fiat and stablecoin accounts for cross-border trade enterprises.
The on-chain market and liquidity direction includes Alloco, De¹, ElfomoFi, Liquorice, TradeNeutral, SmartXTerminal, and XStable. De¹ claims its real-time execution financial world model currently processes over $800 million daily, covering more than 200 institutions, over 1,000 liquidity sources, and 40 chains; XStable claims its on-chain gold and foreign exchange trading infrastructure has a daily trading volume exceeding $100 million, according to data disclosed by the project parties.
The compliance, privacy, and Agent infrastructure direction includes FinTax, Primus, Roostoo, xAPI, Xhunt AI, and ZeroDrift Security. Primus focuses on confidential computing infrastructure for institutional on-chain finance; Roostoo builds an AI trading Agent training and qualification screening layer; xAPI develops an API marketplace for AI Agents; ZeroDrift Security targets Agent security infrastructure in enterprise software.
In terms of market mechanisms, YZi Labs does not bet on a single public chain or stablecoin, but instead uses 24 standardized seed investments to cover multiple fee nodes including fund inflow and outflow, foreign exchange conversion, accounts, credit, market making, asset issuance, compliance, and Agent execution. Payment and foreign exchange infrastructure projects compete for enterprise transaction flows, market structure projects compete for liquidity and order flows, and compliance and security projects compete for institutional deployment budgets; teams lacking licensing partnerships, local payment access, or real settlement volumes will face higher elimination pressure.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
EASY Residency continues the Binance ecosystem's early path of nurturing infrastructure through accelerators, incubators, and ecosystem investments, but the capital focus in the fourth season has clearly shifted from exchange-related applications to the intermediary layer of institutional and cross-border finance. The standardized check of $500,000 for each company is not large-scale project financing, but rather a purchase of product options and ecosystem access rights from early teams; the 10-week concentrated incubation allows YZi Labs to screen founders' execution capabilities, product iteration speed, and future follow-on investment opportunities at a low cost.
In terms of capital pathways, the 24 companies cover the complete business loop of stablecoins: D0 and Kravata compete for local fiat deposits and last-mile solutions, Aile and ViFi compete for foreign exchange conversion and regional currency liquidity, Nara and Liquorice compete for credit and inventory funding, Nxos competes for corporate accounts and cross-border trade funding flows, and Facto competes for consumption payment access to on-chain balances. As long as stablecoin trading and cross-border settlements grow, the most valuable party may not necessarily be the one issuing tokens, but rather the one controlling accounts, redemptions, payment routing, compliance checks, and liquidity scheduling.
Historically, Stripe has dominated online payments through developer interfaces, Plaid has secured financial data access through account connections, and Wise has transformed cross-border remittances through transparent pricing and local funding pools; on-chain payment projects attempt to merge these three functionalities with stablecoin settlements. Alloco, TradeNeutral, and De¹ are closer to on-chain versions of traditional ETF issuance, asset management packaging, and trading execution infrastructure. These projects are in the early stages of expansion, and what can form a competitive moat is not the "on-chain" label, but rather local compliance, fiat channels, institutional liquidity, and long-term trading data.
Essentially, this is about restructuring the industrial chain. Traditional cross-border finance disperses account opening, currency exchange, financing, clearing, custody, compliance, and data across banks, payment companies, brokerages, clearing institutions, and regional agents; these projects attempt to recombine these links using stablecoin accounts, smart contracts, APIs, and Agents. The reason for this restructuring is that the costs and timeliness of cross-border capital flows have long been restricted by regional licenses and intermediary layers, while stablecoins provide an around-the-clock settlement layer; however, regulation, fiat redemption, and access for real customers remain off-chain, determining that "localization and compliance" will be more decisive for business success than mere protocol innovation.
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