<\/p>\n
Changpeng Zhao lays out his 2025 focus on BNB Chain, stablecoin 2.0, prediction markets and AI agents in a post\u2011pardon, builder\u2011first reset.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Changpeng Zhao\u2019s 2025 could have been a quiet fade\u2011out. Instead, the pardoned Binance founder is spending his time scaling an education app, seeding early-stage projects through YZi Labs, and quietly lobbying governments from Dubai coffee shops. \u201cWhether you call it freedom, closure, or finally \u2018turning the page,\u2019 at its core it\u2019s the feeling of being able to move forward unburdened again,\u201d he said, stressing that his day\u2011to\u2011day routine remains anchored at home\u2014and in the gym\u2014rather than on trading floors.<\/p>\n
The four pillars of that new routine are now clear<\/a>: Giggle Academy, YZi Labs, the BNB Chain ecosystem, and direct advisory work with policymakers from Pakistan to the UAE. Giggle Academy, a free education platform with \u201cmore than 90,000 kids already using it,\u201d has grown into what Zhao calls a long\u2011term commitment, backed by a roughly 60\u2011person team iterating the product in weekly cycles.<\/a>\u200b<\/p>\n YZi Labs, meanwhile, functions as his main investing and mentoring vehicle. \u201cI\u2019m more of a mentor and coach\u2014working with founders and developers, helping them grow,\u201d Zhao said, noting that the firm evaluated over 1,000 projects in 2025 and completed close to 70 investments, many of them building directly on BNB Chain and feeding into its EASY Residency program. That builder\u2011first approach now includes a dedicated $1 billion Builder Fund targeted at DeFi, AI, real\u2011world assets, and biotech on BNB Chain\u2014a pool that arrives just as the network pushes toward \u201cCEX\u2011like\u201d confirmation times and record user numbers.\u200b<\/p>\n On\u2011chain, BNB (BNB) Chain has quietly shifted from \u201cundervalued and overlooked\u201d to one of the industry\u2019s busiest settlement layers. Daily active addresses hover around 2 million, with previously published figures near 2.4 million, while on\u2011chain transaction volume grew by about 600% year\u2011on\u2011year, putting BNB Chain among the top networks by throughput. In parallel, BNB\u2019s spot and derivatives markets have turned into a magnet for volatility traders: after an October crash wiped out nearly $19 billion in leveraged positions across the market, BNB only dropped around 10% before rebounding, later trading in a volatile $1,100\u2013$1,340 range and printing new all\u2011time highs above $1,330. Order books on major exchanges now show thick resting bids clustering just below $1,100 and a stubborn sell wall in the $1,330\u2013$1,370 band\u2014a structure that tells you exactly where the next liquidation cascade or squeeze will start. If BNB loses that $1,100 shelf, this rally dies fast; a clean break above $1,370, by contrast, almost certainly drags in fresh momentum accounts aiming at $1,450\u2013$1,600.\u200b<\/p>\n Yet Zhao spends more time talking about stablecoins than price action. He is blunt: \u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing today is still mostly \u2018stablecoin 1.0,\u2019 and true 2.0 is only just beginning.\u201d The legacy model\u2014deposit dollars in a bank, issue tokens like Tether\u2019s USDT on chain\u2014remains dominant, with network effects keeping USDT in the lead even as it offers little in the way of yield. \u201cUSDT isn\u2019t particularly competitive when it comes to yield, and that creates an opening for other stablecoins,\u201d he said, pointing to newer designs like Ethena, where \u201cyield mechanisms are built into the design\u201d and where YZi Labs has taken a stake.\u200b<\/p>\n On BNB Chain specifically, he frames stablecoin competition as an \u201copen garden\u201d rather than a horse race. USDT circulates on BNB Chain as a wrapped asset, but Zhao argues the real story is the arrival of genuinely native options: USD1 as a U.S.\u2011backed collateral model, earlier experiments like FUSD that stalled due to clunky issuance, and newer plays such as the $U project, which he says \u201chas some potential as well.\u201d The endgame, in his view, is simple but brutally hard to execute: a stablecoin that is easy to trade, widely listed, and still offers sustainable yield. Ignore any design that can\u2019t hit all three.<\/a>\u200b<\/p>\n Prediction markets are the other narrative he refuses to dismiss as a fad. Zhao credits Kalshi and Polymarket with dragging the category into the mainstream during the last U.S. election cycle, where Polymarket saw more than $3.6 billion in betting volume and effectively front\u2011ran traditional polling with sharper odds. \u201cIn many cases, its outcomes were even more accurate than traditional polling, because participants are putting real money on the line,\u201d he said. YZi Labs has backed multiple early\u2011stage prediction platforms, including BNB Chain\u2011based projects like Probable and the newly launched Opinion, where Zhao confirmed the firm is only a minority investor.\u200b<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Crucially, he insists this is not a winner\u2011takes\u2011all map. \u201cThis isn\u2019t a \u2018winner-takes-all race.\u2019 In any market, multiple players usually coexist,\u201d Zhao said, drawing a line from exchanges to stablecoins to prediction markets. That logic also underpins his skepticism toward subscription\u2011based AI trading agents; the more a profitable strategy is sold, the faster it breaks. Platform businesses\u2014exchanges, prediction markets, even RWA tokenization rails\u2014can scale on fees and spreads, but shared alpha is, in his words, a self\u2011extinguishing product.<\/a>\u200b<\/p>\n If there is a single through\u2011line in Zhao\u2019s 2025 playbook, it is patience. \u201cSuccess takes time,\u201d he said, likening BNB Chain\u2019s trajectory to Nvidia\u2019s decades\u2011long climb and describing building as a \u201cmarathon mixed with a boxing match.\u201d Mission\u2011driven founders, not tourists chasing the next memecoin meta, are the ones he wants to fund\u2014and the ones he expects to still be standing in 2027 when today\u2019s narratives have been repriced, recycled, or revealed as pure exit liquidity.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Changpeng Zhao lays out his 2025 focus on BNB Chain, stablecoin 2.0, prediction markets and AI agents in a post\u2011pardon, builder\u2011first reset. Summary Changpeng Zhao shifts from exchange operator to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15068,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18700"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18701,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18700\/revisions\/18701"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}BNB and YZi Labs, where do they go next?<\/h2>\n