BNB welcomes a “new entrance to Wall Street”, raising $500 million and more than 140 institutions rob
Source | Odaily Planet Daily
Author | Ethan
original title|After spending $500 million, YZi Labs, CEA and 140 institutions bet on the BNB treasury
Following Bitcoin becoming a benchmark reserve asset for listed companies, other mainstream cryptocurrencies are also attracting institutional attention. The world's largest exchangeBinanceIts ecological token, BNB, recently ushered in another major breakthrough in its strategic reserve mechanism.
On the evening of July 28, US stock listed company CEA Industries Inc. (NASDAQ: VAPE) and 10X Capital jointly announced the completion of a $500 million PIPE (Private Equity Public Equity) financing to establish a cryptocurrency reserve with BNB as the core. The deal structure also includes up to $750 million in warrants, making the total potential funding of up to $1.25 billion.
This collaboration is not without a trace. As early as July 10,YZi LabsThe initial disclosure will support 10X Capital in initiating the establishment of a company called “The BNB Treasury Company” to hold positions in BNB in the secondary market and seek listing on major US exchanges. Despite the lackluster market response at the time, industry insiders saw it as a carefully designed “preview.”
According to the latest plan, the CEA will officially launch its BNB treasury strategy: use this round of funding (combining cash and crypto assets) to open BNB positions in the secondary market. Its core is to provide institutional and retail investors with regulated BNB exposure through the compliance structure of US listed companies. This design is logically benchmarkedStrategy(formerly MicroStrategy)'s Bitcoin reserve strategy — although there are differences in specific forms, the ultimate goal is the same: to achieve “financialization” and compliant holding of core crypto assets.
This also raised a new question in the market: is BNB ushering in its own strategic moment?
Three protagonists appear: the driving force behind the scenes and the performer
To understand how this BNB treasury plan went from concept to implementation in three weeks, it is necessary to recognize the three key players: YZi Labs, CEA Industries, and 10X Capital.
They come from different fields, and the combination may seem “heterogeneous,” but it is this kind of cross-role splicing that has enabled the project to successfully land between traditional finance, the crypto ecosystem, and US stock companies.
The first to release the signal was YZi Labs. The agency, formerly known as Binance Labs, completed brand independence in early 2025 and changed its name to YZi Labs, managed byCZ 与What oneJoint support, focusing on cross-cycle investments in Web 3, AI, and Biotech. This agency has frequently appeared behind infrastructure projects such as TON, Zora, and ZKX since this year, and is good at designing penetrable structural solutions between regulation and capital. Unlike traditional venture capital, yZi Labs is more like a “structural bridge”: it does not directly operate assets, but is deeply involved in the underlying design, financing structure, and governance mechanisms of the project to help emerging assets enter the market in a language that traditional finance can understand.
In this BNB treasury plan, YZi Labs was the first party to promote structure construction. On July 10, it first announced a partnership with 10X Capital to form The BNB Treasury Company, and the BNB Treasury's “official” narrative was launched.
It is worth mentioning that Ella Zhang, the chairman of YZi Labs, has held a leading position since her time at Binance Labs, led Binance's initial incubator program, and is deeply involved in investing in several leading projects. Although the institution operates independently, its historical background and resource system still maintain a high level of consensus with Binance.
Because of this, in a context where Binance itself is difficult to directly promote the financialization of BNB in US stocks due to compliance considerations, yZi Labs is the most suitable “spokesperson” and “structural agent” — it is not Binance, but it knows Binance, and it can also open a channel for BNB that the traditional market can understand.
CEA Industries is actually responsible for treasury implementation. This NASDAQ listed company (NASDAQ: VAPE) originally focused on indoor agricultural equipment, but its business was not out of the market. However, looking through the history of its announcements, CEA has explored “capital transformation” many times in recent years through PIPE, asset replacement, and executive turnover. This round of BNB's treasury strategy is its latest attempt to complete a strategic switch by “holding on-chain assets on a listed platform.” In other words, it became a “financial container” underpinning BNB.
It was the structural designer 10X Capital that contributed to the molding of this container. This investment bank was founded by financial veteran Hans Thomas. It focuses on PIPE, SPAC, and de-SPAC transactions, and has frequently participated in the design of compliance structures for Web 3 assets in recent years. In this project, 10X not only managed the PIPE architecture and licensing mechanism, but also participated deeply in team building: Galaxy Digital co-founder David Namdar became CEO, Russell Read, former CIO of CalPERS, served as CIO, and Saad Naja, a former executive of Kraken, was also a director.
Capital has a sense of direction, listed companies have an execution structure, and the Web 3 camp provides an asset narrative — the three work together to elevate the BNB treasury plan from an idea to an “auditable, tradable, and transmissible” financial interface.
140 investors are betting, and BNB's “institutional anchoring” logic is taking shape
If the treasury mechanism is still a structural innovation, then this round of PIPE's capital participation lineup has directly injected market weight into its narrative.
According to the disclosure, the $500 million funding attracted more than 140 institutional subscriptions, covering crypto-native funds, family offices, traditional finance players, and even multiple personal capital representatives. This breadth of subscription is extremely rare in recent Web 3 funding cases, and more importantly, it is not anchored in BTC or ETH, but BNB, which has been in the US regulatory gray area.
The subscription list is quite representative:Pantera Capital、Arrington Capital、Arche、GSR, DAO 5, Kenetic,Protocol Ventures、Hypersphere、blockchain.com... covering almost half of the primary crypto market;BitFuryPersonal capital players such as Olaf Carlson-Wee, founder of Polychain, and Rajeev Misra, a former SoftBank executive, are also clearly on the list; investors in traditional finance mostly participate indirectly through structured funds or family trusts.
What is more noteworthy is that this round of PIPE is also equipped with a warrant subscription mechanism of up to 750 million US dollars. Investors are not only allocating current positions, but also betting on value release space over the next 12-24 months. This kind of structural design may be implemented one after another at some future valuation stage, adding to the “financial pricing model” of BNB.
Judging from the funding structure, this is a typical “structured long-term go long” plan. BNB may not wait for an ETF, but the PIPE treasury is becoming its new channel to reach Wall Street.
Why is capital willing to bet on the BNB treasury? After BTC and ETH, the capital market urgently needs to find the “next type of anchor asset”. BNB's user size, on-chain application, transaction volume, and NFT and chain game activity are still in the leading echelon in the L1 network.
In June of this year, US stock listed company Nano Labs Ltd (NA) announced that it had signed a convertible bond subscription agreement (hereinafter referred to as the “Agreement”). Under the agreement, the Company will issue convertible promissory notes (“Bonds”) with a total principal amount of USD 500 million, which will be subscribed by multiple investors. The first phase plans to purchase BNB worth $1 billion through convertible bonds and private placement; the long-term goal is to hold 5% to 10% of the total circulation of BNB. Kong Jianping, founder of Nano LabsThe post statedCurrently, 120,000 BNB has been purchased and is still being purchased.
In July, the US stock listed company Windtree (WINT) announced that it has signed a securities purchase agreement worth 60 million US dollars with Build and Build Corp. The future subscription may receive a total revenue of up to 140 million US dollars, with a total subscription amount of up to 200 million US dollars. The proceeds from this fundraising will mainly be used to launch the BNB treasury strategy and acquire BNB. Windtree is also expected to become the first NASDAQ listed company to provide direct investment exposure to the BNB token.
Conclusion: BNB's financial narrative officially enters the third phase
This isn't the first time BNB has attempted to enter the US capital market.
At the time of Binance's global expansion in 2021, BNB once carried market expectations as a “third-pole asset.” However, drastic changes in the regulatory environment quickly marginalized it from the North American market, and even became the subject of direct questioning by the SEC. There is a lack of recognition of the “American valuation system,” leaving its price logic outside the mainstream financial framework for a long time.
The turning point came this year, and BNB's US stock narrative finally came to fruition. This breakthrough reveals a key trend: the financial narrative power of crypto assets is moving from Bitcoin's monopoly to diversification. The question that followed was: More L1 projects (such asSolana, TON,Sui) Will it follow suit? Do they have similar “containerization” potential?
The answer is unknown, but the financialization process of BNB has clearly entered a new stage: it is no longer just an exchange platform coin andBNB ChainEcological tokens have also established a new position in the global financial system by reshaping valuation models, accounting frameworks, and compliance disclosures. This may not be the climax, but it is certainly an important prelude.
